The drive home

On Sunday, we started our drive home, heading West on Interstate 72 to St. Joseph.

In St. Joseph, we stopped at the Pony Express museum. The Pony Express had its eastern terminus at St. Joseph. The Pony Express operated for less than two years, but is big in romance and the American imagination.

We stayed at a good campground that was more or less in town.

On Monday, we resumed driving West on US36. Our original plan was to drive NW on I-29, but flooding had closed the interstate, so our only practical route was due West. However, that meant that US36 was busy. The heavy traffic and construction meant slow travel for the first couple of hours.

We made a short detour to the "geographic center of the USA", with a monument and a tiny chapel.


On Monday afternoon, we were listening to the weather reports, including a tornado in the county we were headed towards. We later saw downed power lines, presumably from the storm. We stayed at Prarie Dog State Park, where we saw a cardinal and a brown thrasher.


Tuesday had us continuing on US36, essentially all the way to Boulder. The driving was enlivened by seeing Lark Buntings, the official state bird of Colorado. We also had unexpected anxiety about fuel, as the towns that we drove through in eastern Colorado had no operating businesses. We were relived to see the COOP (cooperative) in Anton, where we bought gas. A good trip, but we were glad to be home, as were our cats.

History and the end of the reunion

On Thursday, we started at the local cemetery, very close to the farm. This is where Hap is buried. Some of the graves date back to the mid-1800s.

Our next stop was a visit to "Aunt Sally's House". This is the house that Nick lived in until he was 5 years old. The house is as if somebody moved out 50 years ago and left their photos and furniture behind. One photo showed a young Hap and his father fishing; Hap looked very much like Lucas.

We later drove to New Salem, where Abraham Lincoln owned a store. We talked with reenactors about life in those days, and were amazed by the oxen-powered mill, where the oxen walked on a large inclined turntable, which drove the mill.

We ate an excellent meal at a local Italian restaurant.

On Friday, we headed to the new Lincoln museum in Springfield. Besides the usual enlarged newspaper clippings and artifacts under glass, there were high tech multimedia presentations. An excellent museum. We had our picture taken with wax figures of the Lincoln family. In the afternoon, we took the girls to Walmart, to buy paints and a T-shirt to make a special reunion T-shirt.

After our usual good dinner at Teresa's house, we said goodbye to Tim, Cindy, and Hadley, who had to leave early Saturday morning to start the long drive to Montana. The severe weather alarms started going off before we went to bed, but the storm passed south of us.

On Saturday, Nick and Teresa drove Dennis, Roxanne, Ari, and Erica to the St. Louis Airport. Ron, Judy, Richard, and Donald drove to Lincoln, looking for the Antique stores that Marianne remembered, but found only the old courthouse, used by Lincoln when he was a circuit riding lawyer.

Fun at the reunion

Monday, Tim, Cindy, and Hadley arrived, having taken three days to make the drive from Montana. Hadley was a good traveler, but they did need to make some stops to let her get out and play. The girls invented a game in which one was searching with their tongue for Skittles in whipped cream; Teresa won. Don arrived, having had the trip from hell, including truck problems and a blowout on his trailer, which caused a lot of damage to the trailer. Teresa cooked a great dinner of pork loin.

Tuesday, Marianne went shopping with Grace, Ari, Erica, Cindy, and Hadley. The highlight was an impromptu dance by Hadley in the Abercrombie and Fitch store. Nick, Roxanne, and Richard went on a team shopping trip; you know that you are in the midwest when the grocery store has a large neon sign marking their Smoked Meat section. Tim and Nick, with help from Teresa and others, produced prodigious quantities of fried french fries and onion rings, which we followed with a late dinner of meatloaf. Marianne enjoyed listening to old music in Lucas's Mustang.


Wednesday it had rained most of the night, but dried up enough to allow a trip to the farmer's market in Springfield. This was a social event, as well as an opportunity to purchase fresh strawberries. Judy and Ron joined us at the market, having gotten in late Tuesday night. The sun came out, very nice. Richard used the fancy new lawn mower at the farm. We made a visit to Mike's house to see the two new foals, and the redone 1905 house. Dinner was make your own tacos. The fresh strawberries from the farmer's market were excellent. The girls decided to take advantage of the clear skies and camp out in the back yard.

Off to Illinois for the Family Reunion

We left Boulder on Friday June 10th about 10:30 AM. Our drive was easier than usual, we even had a tailwind. The amber waves of grain in Kansas were quite pretty.

Our planned campsite was Wilson Lake, in the middle of Kansas. When we arrived around 6 PM, we were surprised to see the campground almost full, and those sites that were not occupied had "reserved" signs. We were about to leave, but Richard walked over to an empty campsite, and the lady in the next campsite asked if we were looking for site 19. It turned out that site 19 was the only unclaimed site there, so we took it. Richard saw a red-headed woodpecker, a spectacular bird with a red head and large white wing patches. Neither of us had ever seen one before.

Saturday we continued our trip East. We sailed through Kansas City, and continued through hilly Missouri, the land of bilboards. Mid-afternoon, Richard evaluated our progress, and reserved a campsite at Lazy Day campground, an hour west of St. Louis. Conveniently, there was a 5 PM Saturday mass in Montgomery City, a few miles away. We made it to the 5 PM Mass, and then headed to the campground, which we had last visited in 2003. A nice quiet campground.

Sunday morning we went looking for a Walmart. Unfortunately, the directions we got off the internet were faulty, and we ended up driving down a twisty country road. When we stopped to turn around, a couple of people asked us if we needed help. Teresa said that is how country people are, helpful.

We picked up Dennis, Roxanne, Ari, and Erica at their hotel in St. Louis, and then headed north to Springfield. Nick, Teresa, and Grace met us at the farm, and then we headed to their house for dinner.