Road Trip, Day 1

This is an experiment for me. I've never blogged before. I've never done a long road trip by myself either. I'm driving from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Santa Barbara, California. Along the way, I plan to visit friends and see some sights. The trip out is pretty scripted because in order to see friends, you have to plan so they will be home! I also have to be in Santa Barbara by January 23, because I'm meeting some of the women I went to college with. I hope to be more spontaneous on the way home. There's no set itinerary for that.

I left this morning at 10:15 a.m., much later than planned. I thought I'd leave around 7:00 a.m., but since I didn't finish packing last night, that plan was doomed. When I fired up my new toy, a Garmin GPS, it indicated I would reach Kansas City by 5:00 p.m. Of course that doesn't allow for any stopping, but I decided I could live with that.

Very cold in Minneapolis, 7 degrees. Stopped at Goodyear to see if they had the records related to my tire purchase since my copy seems to be buried in a sedimentary layer someplace. In case anything goes wrong with my new tires, I wanted a copy of the warranty with me. Yeah for computers! They had it and kindly printed it out for me. They only keep the records at the local service center, so it's a good thing I stopped. Also had them check the tires' inflation due to the cold.

So, will not having the appropriate documentation to hand spur me on to deal with my sedimentary layers? Who knows?

Drove down I-35 through southern Minnesota, very cold and lots of snow on the ground. Fortunately, it is a beautiful sunny day and the roads are clear, a good day for travel.

Arrived at the Iowa boarder where the sign says, “The people of Iowa welcome you to Iowa.” Nice message. Pretty tough for a state to welcome you. The more south I went, the less snow there was, and it warmed up to 11 degrees. There doesn't seem to be the snow depth that we have in Minneapolis, although it is so flat I think it all blows until it meets some sort of obstruction to stop it.

Soon arrived in Missouri—“Welcome to Missouri.” This was going to be my first trip to Missouri; however, I ended up spending the night in St. Louis on my 3-day flight home from Raleigh after the great Christmas snowstorm. Never did get to see the arch. Kept peering out of the plane windows as we were landing—no luck. It was dark when we landed and dark when we took off the next morning. And apparently the arch isn't in the vicinity of the airport Hilton because we didn't see it from the shuttle either. Guess maybe some day I'll need to go there again if I want to see the arch. I'd just as soon it were a voluntary trip next time, though.

Much warmer in Missouri—21 degrees. Lots of black cows (cattle?) in the fields. More hills and many more trees. Also rock—evidence that the road cut through rock layers. Sandstone? I don't know my rocks. Not much evidence of snow.

Somewhere in either Iowa or Missouri is a town called New Virginia. Thought that was a fun name since my mother's name is Virginia.

On to Kansas—Kansas welcomes you. The change happens in the middle of Kansas City—one of which is in Missouri and the other one in Kansas. Gorgeous red sunset as I'm navigating my way through the two Kansas Cities on the freeway. Trying to watch the sunset, the Garmin, and the traffic. Good thing it was Saturday and not rush hour on a week day! No snow in Kansas.

There have been things along the way I wished I could pull over and photograph--naked trees against a beautiful blue sky, the hard, crusty snow, interesting signs & billboards.  Today and tomorrow are heavy driving days, although it will help if I get off early tomorrow.

I'm spending the night in a southern suburb, Lenexa. I should know the address by now because every time I stop my brand new Garmin develops amnesia about where we were headed and I have to type in the address all over again. And if I'm in a different state, I have to clue it in that my destination is Kansas. There must be something I'm missing here, but I haven't a clue. Anyway, the Garmin did a great job of navigating once I repeated where we were going. I managed to miss the turn to the hotel (it was dark), but it kept re-directing me until I got there. Now I know this thing is much to young to suffer from Alzheimer's—is it possible its creators did not teach it to remember where you're going??

So, the end of the first day. I've discovered the prepaid phone card I've been carrying around in my wallet doesn't work (Thank you, AT&T). I have a brand new, never used one at home—fat lot of good that does me. Will just have to burn up my TracFone minutes. I'm not a big fan of that phone, so I guess that will just hasten its demise.