Last night on the road!

Arrived in Charlottesville, Virginia and spent the afternoon at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Gorgeous summer day on a beautiful historic site.
Looking forward to wrapping up this fantastic American road trip tomorrow and sleeping in Peekskill!

Getting closer to home!

We left Indiana this morning and headed east for 5 hours stopping in Frankfort, Kentucky at a coffee/sandwich place that we found on line 5 miles off I/64. We got excited because we are now in the same time zone as home!!!!! The Kentucky landscape is as beautiful as I remember from my last visit in 1975. The thoroughbred retirement home we passed looked better than any place a human could hope for!!! The drive into West Virginia was also filled with forested landscape - all lush and green. Just had a great dinner at the Bluegrass Cafe in downtown Charleston! (another of Ali's on-line funky finds!) Spending the night in Charleston, West Virginia! Tomorrow heading to Charlottesville, Virginia to visit Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.

Yesterday...Independence, Missouri to Evansville, Indiana

Left Independence after a great tour of Harry and Bess Truman's home which was across the street from our hotel.
Heading east through Missouri to St Louis to the "Arch" as our lunch/tourist stop mid-day. Arrived in St Louis and it was 104 degrees! Parked on the banks of the Mississippi and walked slowly up the steps to the arch!!! It was HOT!
The wait for the elevator trip to the top was an hour and when we were told that they were "trying to keep it comfortable (temperature wise) but it is a metal structure"....we decided to pass on the trip to the top and go to a pub for lunch!!! We did spend time looking around the beautiful museum in the base and then continued our journey east out of Missouri into Illinois.
Ali and I were chatting away and completely blew through Illinois missing the exit for our days destination! It was too late to backtrack because the exits were so far apart and we didn't have Internet to check the GPS and no cell service to call from! so we kept on trucking until cell service returned and called Phil in NY to search for the nearest Hampton Inn in Indiana! 78 miles later we checked into the Hampton Inn in Evansville and headed across the street for a needed drink and dinner! Ali's margarita was picture worthy!!!

I failed to mention that the Mighty Mississippi cannot hold a candle to our beautiful Hudson River!

Colby, Kansas to Independence, Missouri

Driving through Kansas was not completely what I expected. Yes, there were miles and miles of nothing but fields and sky to look at but also rolling hills and trees in the eastern portion. In the middle of the state there were miles of wind turbines and huge Fort Riley with dozens of Blackhawks (one up in the air) lined up and other forts along the route...Fort Hays, Fort Leavenworth to name two.
We took a short detour to visit Wamego, Kansas - home of the Wizard of Oz museum! We even ate lunch at Toto's Taco shop AND visited the Oz winery! Who knew such a place existed!

We arrived in Independence,Missouri and are staying in a small hotel/B&B across the street from Harry Truman's home! (How cool is that?!) We missed the last tour but will get the first one in the morning. The Park Ranger did say the Presidential Library and Museum would be open until 9 so we headed there after dinner. What a treat - dinner in a lovely bistro AND a wonderful museum too!
The Truman museum had so much from 1952....including all the Life Magazines and a TV (just like the one we had when I was a kid - see pix) and the exact fridge we had. (Just had to take a pix!) They also have all Truman's oval office.

Can't figure out why the pix are showing up out of order. I am sure you can decide which were from Oz and which were from the Truman Museum!

9 1/2 hours later- It must be Kansas!

Today started out from Grand Junction heading East on I-70 through the Rockies - literally - The tunnels the mountains were really cool! The ski villages along the route were gorgeous...especially Vail.
I could imagine it being very busy in the winter and super scenery with snow on the mountains. There was a storm ahead of us as we got closer to the summit. Stopped in a charming town - Glenwood Springs - for a lunch and sat outside on the main street! After going through Denver the landscape changed to flat fields where the sky met the land. It looked like a painting!

Louie Armstrong's "It's A Wonderful World" came on Pandora radio as we hit the to Kansas sign!

Grand Junction, Colorado to Colby, Kansas

Today is the longest drive across the entire state of Colorado over the Rocky Mountains into Kansas. (Hello Dorothy...Todo and Auntie Em!!). Anticipating more beautiful scenery as we cross the Rockies....and a long day in I-70!

Arches National Park, Utah

More beauty! Tons more pix in camera too.

The big surprise of the day - seems like we always have a surprise - was The Colorado River Recreational Area. This wasn't on the map but the Park Ranger at Arches recommended an alternative route back to I-70 via rt 128 from Moab. Runs on the east back side of Arches. All I can say is WOW! We didn't stop for pix... Road along the Colorado was narrow and winding with little opportunity to stop. We also figured we could never capture what we were seeing with a camera!!!!