The day dawned clear. I could see all the way across Johnson Creek inlet.
By the time Mamma went out to feed the varmints, with the boys helping, the fog had started to roll in.
While the boys finished breakfast I re-packed the van. We were hoping to make the entire drive from Gibertsville, Kentucky to Wichita, Kansas in one day. We planned on it taking about nine hours. I had hotel information for Kansas City just in case we couldn't make the entire drive.
Hugging Gramma goodbye was really hard. I know we’ll have her out to visit as soon as we have a house with room enough to set up the guest bed, but it still hurts, moving so far away. How I wish there was a game studio in Nashville, TN or Louisville, KY.
We crossed the Ohio at Paducah. Sadly, we’ll have to trust that the river is not a conspiracy of cartographers, because all we could see out the window was a long white blanket of fog. We drove through the self-styled “Land of Lincoln” (HA! Next they’ll be claiming basketball and horse racing!) not seeing much beyond foggy roadsides and state troopers. The police were thicker than the fog- and definitely busier. Every time we saw a trooper he had just finished writing a ticket or was pulling someone over.
We crossed the Mississippi at lunch time. The bottom ¼ of the St. Louis arch was all we could see. Talk about a disappointment. I took a moment to tell Ethan a bit about why St. Louis is called the “gate way to the West” and teach him how to spell Mississippi. Me teaching spelling- how funny is that? Poor kid is doomed. We stopped just outside town for lunch.
The first time we crossed the Missouri it was so fast and so foggy I hardly noticed. The second time we crossed the fog had lifted enough that we could see the ice floes and the barges trying to push their way through.
The fog cleared for a bit by the time we crossed the entire state and hit Kansas City. We were making such good time we stopped only for gas and to walk Katya before pushing into Kansas.
My Aunt Dianne warned me that Kansas was unmitigated visual boredom. Even if it hadn’t been dusk, and then dark, I would have been forced to agree with her. Kansas looked EXACTLY like Illinois and Missouri… and the inside of a cloud. The fog closed in as the sun set. Signs warned us of deer crossing, but it wouldn’t have mattered. As thick as the fog was we wouldn’t have known until after hitting Bambi. There were times when Mark was using the GPS to anticipate curves in the road because he couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of the van.
By the way: all those text messages I sent as we slogged through Missouri and Kansas? It turns out my cell phone plan did not include text messages. That $90 bill was a shocker!
I honestly forget what time we arrived in Wichita, but the drive only took us a little over 9 hours total. Ed and Sandy warmly greeted us, then we all piled back in the van to have dinner at Texas Roadhouse.
Thus, having left behind the rolling green hills and lush valley of the Shenandoah and crossed into the vast western plains, we completed that old travler’s song: “Oh Shenandoah”
Oh Shenandoah,
I'm bound to leave you.
Away you rolling river,
Oh Shenandoah,
I'll not deceive you.
Away, I'm bound away 'Cross the wide Missouri.
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