Well, today started out as the past 3 days have. Up at 5:30, breakfast in the hotel at 6(gotta get there early before the rest of the guests do) and out the door at 7:30. Still windy, and rain moved in overnite. But it didn’t last long.
We were in 5 different states today! NE, IA, MO, IL, KY. Didn’t get pics of NE or IL.
Karen again took the first leg, driving from Lincoln NE thru Iowa and into Missouri. She finally tired of it and pulled over at an exit about 1 mile before a rest area (which we didn’t see coming-oh well), and I took over. Traffic down to and thru Kansas City MO was almost non-existent, a most pleasant drive. Again, temperatures inched up throughout the day, but since it started out about 80 in Lincoln that meant it was into the low 90’s for most of our day. High overcast but no rain. LOTS of humidity. A/C is a wonderful thing.
We stopped in Columbus MO for a quick bite, then Karen drove again to St. Louis. We got to the ARCH about 3:15 and found that its so big we couldn’t take much of a good photo of it from beneath.
Since it was 90+ and HE-YOU-MID out, we just got back in the car and kept going. The little GPS helped spell out directions into and out of the riverfront, so there were no delays or traffic problems. The freeways around St.Louis were heavy but no slowdowns and no apparent rushhour in our direction. Leaving St.Louis into Illinois was easy. I was behind the wheel and east we went.
About an hour out of St.Louis, it seemed like there were very few cars (mostly semi trucks). Karen got on the phone and called the Hampton Inn in Paducah KY which was our intended destination. While she did that I programmed the address into the GPS. After a rest stop about 4:30, we set up the laptop again and Karen watched another movie while I drove.
We arrived in Paducah about 6-ish and followed the GPS instructions to our destination. Uhhh, sort of. That is, we followed the directions I programmed into it, and it took us to a house in an area about 5 miles from the hotel. Seems the actual hotel address wasn’t found by the GPS so I picked what I thought was the closest street. My bad. My first thought was THE GPS GOT US LOST! Karen looked up the hotel address and found it on the map approximately and we doubled back to the freeway and the previous exit. If we had looked left going past it the first time we would have seen it and taken that exit.
We checked in promptly then headed down the street to a local eatery and Karen had fried catfish, a baked sweet potato, and a salad. I had Deep dish Lasagna with cheese bread and a salad. So wonderful that I regretted not being able to take with me what I couldn’t finish.
Tomorrow is our anticipated last day. Its about 600 more miles to Aiken, and we expect to arrive there before 6pm or thereabouts. We will be in 4 states, KY, TN, GA, SC.