Saturday morning in Morgontown, WV and its raining again.  Enjoying morning coffee in bed while waking up.

Yesterday’s post got lost in the ozone.   It went something like this:

We left Jackson MO about 7 AM CT crossing the Mississippi near Cairo IL.  We were in IL for about 30 minutes before reaching Kentucky.

It was a long, long way across KY and we reached WV about 4 PM ET.  We did pass through a lot of small towns, but had little traffic until we reached Lexington.

We were on limited access interstate-like highways most of the trip in order to cover the 670 miles needed so that the final day would miss most of the traffic around Baltimore.  A really long day!

After this leisurely morning we hope to be back in Wilmington by early afternoon!

Late start to the 500 mile drive today.  Departed Saint Joseph around 9:30 AM.  There were still only a few people stirring in town.

We left via I-229 and I-29 and connected to I-435 to get around Kansas City.  Then it was the infamous I-70 (US40).  Finally we got off of the interstate network onto US 65 at Sedalia.  Now we were rollin’ across the hills of rural Missouri.   Beautiful country and little traffic.

We arrived in Jefferson City shortly after 1:00 and found metered parking.  Only $0.25/30 minutes–$1.00 for 2 hours!  Got two virtual geocaches before taking the guided tour of the state capitol building.  Lots of interesting art and facts from the park ranger.

At 3 PM we started on the rest of our journey.   We changed our target destination from Cape Girardeau to Jackson for hotel options.  First time in a Drury Inn.

After Jefferson we were mostly on state highways.   Beautiful scenery and interesting small towns along this route.

Saint James

Steelville

Shirley

Potosi (bought gas, got a cache)

Fredericktown

Millersville

Jackson

So, today we were through midsized towns, small towns, a metropolitan area and rural areas of Missouri.  Makes one start to evaluate the different lifestyles that people in this large country have.  And to compare those possibilities with what we already have and know.  Huge differences in housing, services, job potentials, income, etc.  For me, I’m thinking Wilmington, DE is still the place to be!

We left Sidney, Nebraska this morning at 8 AM-on time for us-to make a run across Nebraska.   Today’s drive was 530 miles total, not the 600 I projected yesterday.  We drove East for hours across the relatively unchanging scenery.

We entered the Central Time Zone in the middle of Nebraska around 9:30 AM MT and immediately lost an hour.  We kept on keeping on until we arrived in Lincoln, Nebraska around 12 Noon CT.  We found a post office near the state Capitol.  Joyce got a few documentary photos of the Capitol.

Then on our way! We took a state highway out of Lincoln (rt. 2) which took us through Iowa.  We had not expected to transit in this state, but a change in our route resulted in a stop at the Iowa Welcome Center.  We got a map, signed the log and found a geocache!  We were in Iowa for about 30 minutes and at least 10 of them were dedicated to extracting a nano geocache container from a park bench.

On to Missouri!  Our night is in downtown St. Joseph.  When we arrived at 5:30 PM the streets had been rolled up.  Checked into the Holiday Inn, edited some photos for submission to DPS competition.  Due by Friday midnight ET.  Joyce’s are in; Gary has to do his before Friday.  Here’s hoping we have better internet access tomorrow night!