Post #100

I'm am now in the home stretch. For the last miles in CO and the first miles in UT US 50 is I-70 and I decide to say good-bye to the heartland and just go home. I'm not necessarily saying 'no' to the smaller roads, I'm just going to be taking a more direct route. I left 1-70 at Green River, UT and headed north on US 6 to catch I-15 into Idaho to catch I-84 which will get me into OR. I haven't decide if I'll stay on I-84 or take Highway 20 across OR. That's the straightest route but I've driven that one before and I can't say it would be quicker, though! As the crow flies, I am 475 mile from my destination. That would make it bit longer of a day's drive than I normally would. I am soooo ready to be done traveling, at least for a while but I have delayed my return because the first thing I have to do when I get back is find a place to live! Finally, though, the thought of apartment/house hunting is the lesser evil so I'll be puttin' the pedal to the metal.

Got out of Dodge

It wasn't hard to do. I paid a few bucks to visit the actual Boot Hill Cemetery site. Nothing is actually buried there these days but they have a cut little mock up with some wooden grave markers and boot toes sticking up out of the ground. The price of admission included a visit to Front Street, a reproduction of the town from 18something. I'm right on the edge of the tourist season here so the place was not in full swing and I didn't stick around for the gunfight reenactment. The rest of the day was a repeat of the day before, just driving through the plains where stayed the rains. I called it a day after getting in the requisite miles. I stopped in Lamar, CO which has a really friendly staff at the visitor info center. Aggressively friendly, almost. I have LOTS of CO tourist info if anyone is interested.

As for today's drive---Now that's what I'm talking about. Almost 200 miles, two tourist stops, three for three on letterboxes, (one in each of three towns) mostly sunny sky and a great view of the Rocky Mountains all day long. It's nice having something to do (like steering) while driving. Since leaving the heavily turtled area there's not been much to look for on the road but now that I'm in the mountains and the road has all manner of curves again it'll be oh so much more fun to drive. Plus there are the various 'watch for' signs that pop up now and again just to keep me on my toes.

My boring blog entry

Drive, drive, drive, drive, drive etc. No turtles. Four lane most of the way. When it was two lane it was still 60 or 65 mph. Out in the Great Plains. Nothing to see but fields of green, an occasional cow, a few horses and one small herd of sheep. Missed any Memorial Day parades that might have been. Good driving weather though-not too hot and a really big t'storm after dinner last night. Covered just over 200 miles from Emporia KS to Dodge City KS with a tourist stop at two places in Hutchinson KS (KS is a big state). I visited the Underground Salt Mines. Pretty cool little tour to take if you are into mining and all that kind of big machinery stuff but the really really cool part of the place is what happened to 45 acres of it after they got the salt out. A company leases those acres for underground storage. The place is 650 feet down, constant 68 degrees, low humidity-perfect for storing valuables like an original copy of the New York Herald printed the day after Lincoln was shot, medical records and of course it is THE storage place of choice for the Hollywood artifact archive-the shirt James Dean wore in Giant, the master prints of GWTW and Wizard of OZ. And it is the resting place of George Clooney's Batsuit-the one with nipples.

Stop 2 was at the other end of Hutchinson, I think. The Cosmosphere is a tiny slice of the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum. It has an IMAX, planetarium and a Bill Nye inspired science lab demo all about Goddard and his engines including fire and explosions and flying things.

And that's the Daily Dull Dispatch from Dodge City.

Caution: Turtle Crossing

That should be the sign posted on the highway for the section of 50 between Union and Jefferson City, MO. GADS! Okay, so it's not like they jump out of the woods and dart across the road. It's just that there are so many of them. I felt bad for the little tiny ones, too. Until you are up on them, they look like just a spot on the road and sadly, they then become a spot on the road. I am happy to report, I did not contribute to the turtle road kill count but there was evidence that lots of other drivers don't care so much.

So I spent the first part of yesterday morning dodging around turtles (are they really tortoises?) on my way to Jefferson City. Letterboxing research showed there to be a whole series of Potter related boxes in a city park there. That sounded like a great way to spend a good chunk of the day. I had the Garmin tuned to the park and found a Hampton Inn just outside the city that had a business center where I was able to get a hard copy of the clues. The directions to parking inside the park were excellent and I was out searching in short order. That's pretty much where the good stuff ended, at least as far as letterboxing. The directions were pretty clear for the most part but after going 0 for 3, I fugured the boxes were retired except from the website.

So I got back out on the road and went in search of small town remembrances but I guess I'll see those today because there wasn't much going on yesterday. I did cover lots of miles (300+) but still no giant ball of twine. *sigh*

No giant ball of string yet

1. A good mileage day but a bust otherwise. I did manage to stay on 50 all day but in this neck of the woods it is mostly a 4 laner/60 mph and shared with truckers as well. There was even an occasional rest area. I tried to visit a couple of roadside attractions but I never found any information on the first one. As far as the second one goes, it was Europe all over again. That is to say, I'm just a little bit off season for visiting some things. I did stop in to visit an Amish Village which was kind of weird actually. It is a cluster of the kind of buildings you'd find on an Amish Farm, I guess. Except for the fact that it was all paved for parking, it sort of looked like the set of Witness, the Harrison Ford film from the 80s. I don't think it was fully open yet but I what I did see looked to be part antique market-part flea market. There's a bakery and restaurant. One of the buildings is called "The Blue Door". It's one of those long low buildings and has three doors on one of the long sides. The center door is blue but oddly enough, that's not the door you enter through. Instead you go along the building to the read door. As you go along you walk past all the antique-y sort of stuff you associate with farms-those large milk jugs, farm implements and stuff like that there. Just as you reach the red door (the one you enter through) there is a sign in the window announcing that this building is a Free WiFi hotspot. Weirdness.
2. Okay, I have no idea where the numbering for these paragraphs are coming from but I experienced computer conundrums most of the evening so I'm not surprised to see them. Anyway, after the Amish Village I just made miles. I finished Indiana and I'm a bit more than halfway through Illinois. I could have made it to the far side of St. Louis but I called it an early day after making the 200 miles. Today's gonna be short mileage tho because I think I'm gonna go or two boxes before I get started and tho' I generally try to avoid the big cities I am gonna go into downtown St. Louis for sightseeing AND urban letterboxing. Wish me luck. I get started in about an hour.
   

Lost in America

Wooo-8 for 9 on letterboxes today! And covered more than 200 miles.

I started the day backtracking a bit to visit Mountwood Park in West-By-God. Three different series of boxes planted by the same person (Safari Man) throughout the park. Great clues, great stamps-the guys a carving wizard. That was most of the morning and I was on the westward way around 11:30. I drove straight thru and was in kind of a groove so I missed the part where US 50 split off of the highway and I wound up taking Ohio 32 instead. By the time I noticed that the highway signs only had one number, I was far enough along that I didn't want to backtrack anymore. Too bad for me, too, because the part I skipped looked like it was the kind of skimpy highway that I was sort of looking for. Ah, well. We're going with the flow on this one. Besides I have 7 or eight more states to get through and I'm back on 50 now. I'm also in Indiana, I think. I haven't scoped out what's coming up but I gonna put letterboxing on hold and try to find some roadside attractions instead. I haven't seen a giant ball of twine or the worlds biggest/smallest anything yet.

Oh, and I've been wimping out on the camping part of this trip and have gone motels so far but that's gonna have to change or else the trip gets shortened. . .theoretically.

Fair seas and tailing winds so far-well not really but good weather is what I'm trying to say.

CYABY

"You don't have to be crazy to drive Black Bear Road

. . .but it helps." That's from a recording from way back in the 70s 'bout a pea vine like road goin' up and over and up and over and up and. . .a mountain. Yeah, that's what I did today, too. Route 50 was finally the kind of road I was hopin' for-two lane country driving rolling past the hills and mills sayin' howdy to Uncle Sam. OK-that last bit is from a McDonalds commercial, also from the 70s. At least a good part of it was. It's still kinda interstate-y in some parts. But I'm ahead of the narrative here. Rewind to the start of the day back in Winchester, VA. Using Mapquest, directions from Atlas Quest, Letterboxing directions AND the GPS unit I successfully traveled .1 miles from the hotel and actually found my first letterbox for this trip!!! I then went on and found four more so it was a grand and glorious day. Ain't it grand what a sunny day will do to lift your spirits. A sunny day will also give you a really good case of truckers tan. My left elbow is sunburned. I finished boxing by before noon and covered the requisite miles for the day (200+) by 6 PM. There's still day light left at that time this time of the year so I prepped some letterboxing for tomorrow, too. I'm in Parkersburg, West By-God and will have to back track a little bit but it the weather is right, it'll be a jackpot of an LB day in a state park. It's supposed to be nice-at least that was the forecast for the area I just left. And that's the road report for today