6/21 to 6/23 - From Home to Omaha

Nearly 1100 miles behind us.  It’s been a nicely uneventful three days of driving, the first two very hot and humid but now, in Omaha, pleasantly cool.  We had a noisy thunderstorm in the middle of last night (in Danville, MO) but it was nothing on the scale of the storms that hit Illinois.  We’ve been very lucky in all our traveling to miss all the bad stuff.

The only thing of note from yesterday is that we crossed four huge rivers…..Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri…..all out of their banks from the recent storms.  Not much out, but there’s no room to spare.  The campground we stayed at in Memphis last fall…..right on the Mississippi…..will probably be under water very soon.  They said they usually have about three weeks’ notice before floods hit them so there’s plenty of time to move everyone out.

Tennessee River from I-24 near Paducah, KY            

Ohio River from I-24 near Paducah, KY

  

Mississippi River from I-270 at St Louis                  

      

Missouri River from I-270 at St Louis

Sorry for the lack of variety but they all look much the same.  There will be a test when we get home…….identify all the rivers we’ve crossed.  :-D  

These are really massive rivers.  It’s hard to wrap my head around how much water is constantly moving through them.  Most of the towns and cities we’ve been to were there because of either rivers or railroads.  When we come across a place that has neither my first thought is “why is this here?”  Like with Willcox, AZ, it is often still related to railroads…..one that was there (and still is) but is no longer important because transportation switched to trucking.  Now I-10 runs by the town but it’s no longer needed so most of it is falling apart.

The most unnerving section of the drive so far was going through Kansas City today.  I had several alternate routes planned in case of traffic problems but none were the route the GPS wanted to take. I still haven’t figured out how to make it go where I want instead of where IT wants so I use my smartphone and paper maps knowing I can’t count on Eloise (the GPS) to cooperate.  That was all a good thing because Eloise’s route (I-435) was closed going north.  We headed for the option I wanted so we could swing through a corner of Kansas and mark it off our list of states.  I knew exactly where we were supposed to go but when we got there (see picture with all the route signs) the left turn onto I-670 was actually two lanes over and came up so quickly we couldn’t get far enough over.  You don’t shove a 53-foot truck and trailer into the next lane in a hurry, at least not if you want to come out unscathed.  If I’d been able to program Eloise correctly (and I hadn’t been taking a picture at just the wrong moment) I would have known about the sudden turn, but as it was we just had to keep going.  We ended up on I-35 south, going the opposite direction from where we needed to go.  KC is so full of interstates, though, it wasn’t long before we came across one we could use to get back where we belonged.  We probably didn’t go more than 6 miles out of our way and it certainly was less stressful than trying to double back.  What an amazing mess of roads.

Kansas City, Missouri

KC's mass of interstates

One of the beautiful farms we passed between St. Joseph, MO, and the Iowa border.  

Northwestern Missouri is gorgeous…..rolling green fields of corn, hilly on the east side of I-29

and flatter on the west.  We’ve never seen so much corn in our lives as in the past three days.  Amazingly few animals (cows, sheep, horses) but probably enough corn to feed every cow in the country.  We’re guessing most of it goes into ethanol.  What a waste of good food.  

Fascinating storm clouds over northwestern Missouri which lowered this afternoon’s temperatures.  The clouds ended right before we got to Omaha without raining on us much.  It was really a great drive (once KC was behind us) as I-29 had very little traffic.

We’re in a very nice little military campground owned by Offutt AFB.  It has a lovely 117 acre lake stocked with fish, although the fishermen we talked to weren’t having any luck.  It’s away from the populated areas and very quiet.  Tomorrow we’ll check out the base commissary and do some sightseeing.  We’re happy to have two days to relax and not have to drive all day.  Lovie and the cats second that.