Saturday, Nov 16/13

Our second driving day is done and we are now at the  Drury Inn in Joplin, MO.

When we left Indy this morning it was 9C (48F) and very damp feeling.  It was over cast until well west of St. Louis and we hit a bit of rain about 100 miles east of Springfield, then the sun came out and it was lovely.  The high today was 19C (68F), sure do love seeing temperatures like that!  The traffic was good and there were no construction hang ups today.

John forgot to put a razor in his travel case so we stopped at a Walmart to get razors and I got a new atlas, the one we had was falling apart so it was time to replace it.  A couple of fuel stops, a lunch stop and stops at rest areas were our only other stops.  Diesel in Indiana and Illinois is very pricey so we stopped in Illinois and got 10 gallons to get us into Missouri, we paid $3.859/gal. there, then filled up in Missouri at $3.499, now that is one heck of a difference!

There was a sunset tonight but certainly not as spectacular as last night.  I took a few pictures with my phone today so will see if I can post them into my blog.

We arrived in Joplin around 5 pm so had time to clean up before going down for kick back.  Tonight's menu was the usual snacks and salad, then chilli, hot dogs, mac and cheese and baked potatoes.  We sat between a couple from Iowa heading for Texas and a couple heading home to St. Louis, so had nice conversations with all of them. Now it is time to relax for the evening.

And so ends another great gift of a day and we look forward to another great day tomorrow.

Check Out Our European River Cruise

Last June/July John and I did a 14 day River Cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam. We also spent three days in Prague prior to the cruise and four days in Paris, after the cruise, a dream trip come true. I did a blog using Word Press and if you are interested in checking out this fabulous trip go to:

cdh5000.wordpress.com.

Enjoy!

Trip to Yuma - November 15,2013

Friday, November 15/13

Well, we are on the road again, but without the trailer, we do miss it but the driving is a bit easier, and quicker, without it.

We got off to a late start this morning as John had to take the truck into the garage before we left. Yesterday while loading all our stuff into the truck he noticed a wet spot underneath, not nice! He immediately took it to the garage where he gets repairs done and they were busy but told him if he was there at 7:30 this morning they would take a look at it. Needless to say he was there at 7:30 and fortunately all that was wrong was a hose clamp somewhere had come loose and fluids were slowly leaking out. An easy fix, whew!

By the time he got back and we loaded the few remaining things it was after 9:30 before we got away. The weather was good and the traffic wasn't bad. When we got to the Bluewater Bridge it looked like it might be slow but it wasn't too bad at all, the slowest was waiting to pay the toll, the US Customs guy was nice, seems he knows the area and asked if we went to San Luis, Mexico to shop so we told him the go to place was Algadones.

Alice, our GPS, behaved very badly today, all the way from London to Sarnia she tried to reroute us to the 401, then at Sarnia, just at the bridge, she finally got with the program then once out of Port Huron she again tried to reroute us to Detroit. She played games like that all the way here, fortunately I knew how we wanted to go so just ignored her. Think it is time to replace her.

The sunset tonight was absolutely spectacular, it's been a long time since we've seen such a nice one. Unfortunately the pictures are on my camera so I can't include any.

The drive was great till about 15 miles before we picked up the 425 around Indianapolis, then we hit construction and it took us about 45 minutes to go those 15 miles, ho hum!. We got to the Drury Inn 15 minutes before kick back ended so checked in then dashed off to get dinner and drinks.

When we checked in they didn't have any rooms at the coupon rate of $79.99 left but with the Seniors discount we got a room for $84.00, so we were okay with that. When we finally got to our room after eating we walked in and it reeked of smoke, so off to reception I went and asked for a smoke free room. The gal on reception said all rooms are supposed to be smoke free so she moved us to another room and said she would be giving us a $20 discount for the inconvenience. How's that for service!!

It's Blue Bloods tonight so we will watch that then I know I will be ready to crash.

And so ends another great gift of a day and we look forward to another great day tomorrow.