Wild and Wonderful West Virginia

We made it to Reid's house in West Virginia about 5:30 on Thursday.  We'd left the Evansville, IN area about 8:00 and made our way across the rest of Indiana and Kentucky.  Just as we were reaching the West Virginia border, Reid called from Columbus and was on his way south.  He arrived at the house about an hour and a half behind us.  We'd had a chance to unwind and relax a bit by then.  We got almost all of Reid's things loaded into the truck but decided we'll need to do some repacking in the morning to get the last things in and everything stable for the ride to Michigan.  Friday's agenda includes errands and closing on the WV house, but we're hoping it also includes the start of the drive north.

More Miles!

Didn't we just pass this a couple weeks ago?

We left Salina, Kansas around 7:15 this morning with Mary at the wheel.  That way, as we approached Topeka and Kansas City it would be Tom's turn to drive through the city traffic. After Kansas we drove across the state of Missouri...more and more miles!  We switched drivers again after lunch and again in late afternoon so that Tom got the honors of once again driving through St. Louis at rush hour.  It's only been a few weeks since we did that in the RV.  Our stop for the night is on I-64 just north of Evansville, Indiana and still in Central Time, so we'll loose another hour tomorrow.  We're looking forward to being at Reid's house in Fayetteville, WV by late afternoon.

Miles and Miles and Miles

It was pretty cool when we got up this morning in Leadville, CO...somewhere around 48*.  We were on the road around 8:00 and headed through the historic town center and on route 91 up to I-70.  What a beautiful drive!  It was a little hazy, so my photos taken from a moving truck aren't the best, and don't show the streams and lakes along the side of the road either.  Passing Lake Dillon in Frisco, where Reid used to live and work, we noticed that the water level was extremely low...sad!

 Once we got to the Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70 it was "all downhill."  We were out of the Rockies and east of Denver in about an hour.  Then it was just miles and miles of I-70 stretching out in front of us.  We stopped for the night around 8pm in Salina, Kansas.   The goal for tomorrow is somewhere in south central Illinois.

Kansas is the "sunflower state", right?

It's a little bit smaller than the RV!

Reid's friend Kristin was kind enough to pick us up at the Fairfield Inn this morning and taxi us to the Home Depot/Penske Truck Rental facility in Salt Lake City.  It took a while to get all the paper work taken care of before we drove from there over to the home of Reid's former boss, Brandon, to pick up some of Reid's belongings.  In short order we had things loaded and we were on the road heading south to I-70 and then east.  We made a stop at a Walmart to stock up on road-trip necessities - food and water - and then several more during the day for fuel and stretch breaks.  Around 8:00pm, just as it was getting dark, we arrived at the home of Reid's good friend Ken in Leadville, Colorado.  Ken was another helpful soul and the pile of Reid's "stuff" that Ken had been storing was quickly loaded into the back of the truck.  The last 100 or so miles of the trip will likely the most scenic of our trip.  This section of Colorado is gorgeous!  We settled for the night at the Super-8 Motel in Leadville and will be on our way again in the morning.  The ride in the Penske truck has been very comfortable.  It's almost new with only about 4000 miles on it when we picked it up, but we miss the ammenities of the RV!

Step one of our journey has been accomplished!   Our driver, Dick Lehto, picked us up at Big Sandy Campground a little before 7am and drove us to the Detroit airport.  Thanks, Dick...we appreciate the early morning ride!  In spite of having one-way tickets, we had no trouble getting through security.  Our plane actually departed a few minutes early and we had a relatively short ride to Baltimore on a very crowded plane.  With only 35 minutes between arrival and our next departure in Baltimore we really hustled through the terminal from the A wing to the B wing...whew!  But, it seems that we had no crew for the connecting flight.  It was another hour before a crew was assembled and we departed for Salt Lake City.  That flight was not full, but we were lucky enough to have to sit in a full row for the almost 5 hour flight.  The Fairfield Inn shuttle picked us up at the terminal curb and we are now comfortably settled in a nice room.  Arrangements have been made for us to get to the truck rental in the morning and we'll begin the next part of our journey.

Tomorrow's the day.....the start of our Great Circle Adventure.  We'll be flying from Detroit, Michigan to Salt Lake City, Utah via the Baltimore, MD airport. After an overnight stay, we'll rent a truck, pick up some of our son Reid's belongings and drive on to Leadville, CO.  There are more of Reid's belongings waiting for us there.  After those things are loaded in the truck we'll head east, taking several days to reach Fayetteville, WV.  Reid is planning to meet us there and help us load even more of his things into the truck, emptying out the house he had purchased a year ago near the New River Gorge.  With the loading chores completed, our plan is to drive to East Lansing, MI where Reid has a new job and a new home.  We'll get to unload all the collected items and do a few things to help him get settled in the new place.  We're hoping to get all that accomplished in a week.

We'll be in touch!