Zooming across Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, and home to good ol’ PA.
(posted from home)
(This post covers 9-11 September, 2008)
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Thursday, 11 September-
Today we made it back home from our Alaska trip. We arrived home shortly after 1400 and unlocked the house, perhaps a bit anxiously. After nearly three months away we wondered if we’d find problems. I was surprised to find the well pump still had pressure after all that time. The toilet merely had lost some water to evaporation and wasn’t discolored (apparently because of the chlorox treatment we gave it before leaving). This time we had completely unloaded and shut down the fridge before leaving and it had no problems restarting.
The one problem we had was the cable television didn’t come up after the power-up of the digital box. I called it in and went through several reboots but that didn’t help so we scheduled service for tomorrow morning. I tried the internet connection and that came up ok. Shortly thereafter the television picture came on and now seems okay.
We unloaded a few essentials from the van and I drove over to the video store to rent a movie. We’ll restock the fridge tomorrow.
That evening we watched four (!) episodes of ‘Desperate Housewives, Season Four’. In the past, when we’ve returned from a long trip there have been five or six movies we really wanted to watch. But this time there was nothing we really, really wanted to see. I’m not sure if this is our problem or an industry problem but the choices seemed remarkably slim. I picked up four or five movies with the ‘Official Selection of the ____ Film Festival’ and could only wonder—‘yes, but where are the WINNERS of the festival?”
Perhaps we’re just road-weary and wanted to be entertained by something inventive and new. After all that time away from television (and having watched only a few DVDs), television seems boring and almost unbelievably repetitive, particularly the news.
--------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 10 September-
Today was another travel day as we head for home. We spent the day crossing Indiana and most of Ohio. We had perfect travel weather and loved the views of farmland along I-70. I thought of pushing on the four-plus hours to home but we decided we’d rather stop driving around supper time and then take a walk before dark.
Through the day we listened to podcasts of ‘This American Life’, our all-time favorite podcast.
Around 1700 and just before the West Virginia line, we turned off I-70 to Barkcamp State Park. There we were disappointed to have to pay $19 for a site with electricity even though we didn’t need hookups and didn’t want them.
After supper we walked a somewhat-muddy bridle trail until dark (around 2000) and then read and settled in for a blissfully-quiet night.
I’m reading ‘Castle on the Frontier’ by John Lammers, one of the $1 books I picked up at the Whitehorse Library. I love it. John was born in Holland in the 1920’s and suffered through World War 2 in his coming-of-age years, then moved to Canada in the late Forties. After working briefly in Alberta and Ontario, he moved to the Yukon and started (in the late Fifties) the first wilderness-tourism business there. He also founded the Yukon Conservation Society. His first-person descriptions of the hardships of living and travel in the Yukon and his disgust with Yukon and Canadian government for failing to prevent or penalize mining interests from raping the land make for compelling reading.
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Tuesday, 9 September-
We woke early this morning and had breakfast at a nearby McDonalds before driving through Salina, then hitting the road by 0730.
We drove the rest of the way across Kansas, stopping only at a rest stop on the Kansas Turnpike west of Kansas City to gas up. I noticed the McDonalds in the rest area had a Traveler’s Lounge with free wi-fi. The ‘lounge’ is a glass-enclosed area with two televisions hung from the ceiling (like airports) blasting away the news plus a few tables and three small leather chairs— like a dentist’s office or something. I hooked up to the wi-fi but soon moved outside the lounge to the regular tables because the noise from the televisions was so loud. I took a few minutes to upload my blog update and check our home email, then we moved on.
We thoroughly enjoyed our drive across Kansas. Contrary to our expectations, Kansas isn’t flat—at least not along I-70. Its rolling hills are very, very pleasant.
We drove through the afternoon, crossing Missouri and zooming around St. Louis just before the rush hour. We could see the Gateway Arch in the distance as we crossed the Mississippi into Illinois.
At Effingham, IL we tried a Wal-mart near the intersection of I-70 and I-57 but it was very busy and packed with trucks. We wouldn’t have gotten any sleep in such a noisy place.
We continued on to Marshall, IL where we checked another Wal-mart. It already had a half-dozen trucks and I’m sure would get more as the evening wore on. But we had picked this exit because there’s a state park just outside of town. We continued on to the park (Lincoln Trail State Recreation Area) and found its large and very pleasant campground for only $10. We took a short, quick walk to stretch our legs a bit and then I took a longer one as Labashi prepared supper. After supper we read and blogged.
=========== END OF POST ==============
(posted from home)
(This post covers 9-11 September, 2008)
--------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, 11 September-
Today we made it back home from our Alaska trip. We arrived home shortly after 1400 and unlocked the house, perhaps a bit anxiously. After nearly three months away we wondered if we’d find problems. I was surprised to find the well pump still had pressure after all that time. The toilet merely had lost some water to evaporation and wasn’t discolored (apparently because of the chlorox treatment we gave it before leaving). This time we had completely unloaded and shut down the fridge before leaving and it had no problems restarting.
The one problem we had was the cable television didn’t come up after the power-up of the digital box. I called it in and went through several reboots but that didn’t help so we scheduled service for tomorrow morning. I tried the internet connection and that came up ok. Shortly thereafter the television picture came on and now seems okay.
We unloaded a few essentials from the van and I drove over to the video store to rent a movie. We’ll restock the fridge tomorrow.
That evening we watched four (!) episodes of ‘Desperate Housewives, Season Four’. In the past, when we’ve returned from a long trip there have been five or six movies we really wanted to watch. But this time there was nothing we really, really wanted to see. I’m not sure if this is our problem or an industry problem but the choices seemed remarkably slim. I picked up four or five movies with the ‘Official Selection of the ____ Film Festival’ and could only wonder—‘yes, but where are the WINNERS of the festival?”
Perhaps we’re just road-weary and wanted to be entertained by something inventive and new. After all that time away from television (and having watched only a few DVDs), television seems boring and almost unbelievably repetitive, particularly the news.
--------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 10 September-
Today was another travel day as we head for home. We spent the day crossing Indiana and most of Ohio. We had perfect travel weather and loved the views of farmland along I-70. I thought of pushing on the four-plus hours to home but we decided we’d rather stop driving around supper time and then take a walk before dark.
Through the day we listened to podcasts of ‘This American Life’, our all-time favorite podcast.
Around 1700 and just before the West Virginia line, we turned off I-70 to Barkcamp State Park. There we were disappointed to have to pay $19 for a site with electricity even though we didn’t need hookups and didn’t want them.
After supper we walked a somewhat-muddy bridle trail until dark (around 2000) and then read and settled in for a blissfully-quiet night.
I’m reading ‘Castle on the Frontier’ by John Lammers, one of the $1 books I picked up at the Whitehorse Library. I love it. John was born in Holland in the 1920’s and suffered through World War 2 in his coming-of-age years, then moved to Canada in the late Forties. After working briefly in Alberta and Ontario, he moved to the Yukon and started (in the late Fifties) the first wilderness-tourism business there. He also founded the Yukon Conservation Society. His first-person descriptions of the hardships of living and travel in the Yukon and his disgust with Yukon and Canadian government for failing to prevent or penalize mining interests from raping the land make for compelling reading.
--------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 9 September-
We woke early this morning and had breakfast at a nearby McDonalds before driving through Salina, then hitting the road by 0730.
We drove the rest of the way across Kansas, stopping only at a rest stop on the Kansas Turnpike west of Kansas City to gas up. I noticed the McDonalds in the rest area had a Traveler’s Lounge with free wi-fi. The ‘lounge’ is a glass-enclosed area with two televisions hung from the ceiling (like airports) blasting away the news plus a few tables and three small leather chairs— like a dentist’s office or something. I hooked up to the wi-fi but soon moved outside the lounge to the regular tables because the noise from the televisions was so loud. I took a few minutes to upload my blog update and check our home email, then we moved on.
We thoroughly enjoyed our drive across Kansas. Contrary to our expectations, Kansas isn’t flat—at least not along I-70. Its rolling hills are very, very pleasant.
We drove through the afternoon, crossing Missouri and zooming around St. Louis just before the rush hour. We could see the Gateway Arch in the distance as we crossed the Mississippi into Illinois.
At Effingham, IL we tried a Wal-mart near the intersection of I-70 and I-57 but it was very busy and packed with trucks. We wouldn’t have gotten any sleep in such a noisy place.
We continued on to Marshall, IL where we checked another Wal-mart. It already had a half-dozen trucks and I’m sure would get more as the evening wore on. But we had picked this exit because there’s a state park just outside of town. We continued on to the park (Lincoln Trail State Recreation Area) and found its large and very pleasant campground for only $10. We took a short, quick walk to stretch our legs a bit and then I took a longer one as Labashi prepared supper. After supper we read and blogged.
=========== END OF POST ==============
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 23:59
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