Temperature when we stopped last night in Concordia, MO, was in the
lower 40s. Woke up to a brisk 27o
and when leaving I really had to watch my step as the parking lot was covered
with a thin sheen of ice. I did the
winter shuffle step across the parking lot in my sandals. Truck windshield was
covered not in a sheet of ice but in beads of ice...individual beads of
ice. The running boards were also a
slippery step up into the truck. Certainly
a change from yesterday but it’s
all part of the adventure, right? 😏
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| Ice beads, not rain, on the windshield |
I did a forecast check in some cities along
our route…looks like a cloudy, cool day but no precipitation expected. Trinidad, CO, reported freezing fog which
sent me on a Google search because freezing fog was a new weather term to me. Is
it just another name for sleet? Accuweather.com reports that Super cooled water droplets
remain in the liquid state until they come into contact with a surface upon
which they can freeze. As a
result, any object the freezing fog comes
into contact with will become coated with ice. The same thing happens with freezing rain or drizzle.
Freezing
fog…maybe that was the cause of the beads of ice on the windshield this morning.
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Isla and I started a game a few years ago
because she couldn’t believe that I could type without looking at the keyboard.
Told her that back in high school typing class we were instructed not to look at the keyboard so typing
speed would be maximized. So she
challenged me to close my eyes and type whatever she said. We still do it every
so often and I get most of it right but it’s what I get wrong that gives us a good laugh. And these days she can probably type with her
eyes closed better than I can. 😎
These travel days out to Arizona are all
about putting miles behind us. Not a lot
of stopping except for fuel, bathroom breaks or meals. To pass the time, I sometimes get on the
computer and type the journal which is not an easy task in a vehicle moving at
75 mph and subject to imperfect road surfaces and nature’s blustery ways. Anyway,
I’ve put a twist on our typing game because I look out at the scenery as
I type and while it can make for some interesting reading later, I’ve seen a
lot of hawks sitting high in the trees as I’m typing. 👍
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Because I have the computer
out, I’ve also set up the MCC (Mobile Command Center) using my phone as a
mobile hotspot. One thing I can’t use in
the tight confines of the cab is the computer mouse. I tried last year but the mouse fell and on
the way to the floor managed to move the cursor around and created a major
issue in my word program. So I’ve been
using the touch screen mostly but have had to resort to using the dreaded touch
pad a time or two. I do not like the
touch pad and usually keep it disabled, hence I’m not very adept at using
it. But I have hours on the road to
figure it out. (P.S. After a couple of hours of use, I’m
still not proficient with the touch pad…I disabled it.😐)
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The route we’re on isn’t
entirely unknown to us…we’ve both been having moments of recognition of places
and things we did. But this is the first
time heading west through this area of Kansas. So we’re seeing what we’ve seen
before but in reverse and without color.
The landscape is very bleak this time of year.
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On the road for about an hour
this morning before we stopped at a Waffle House. Kim figured we’d better make the most of the
experience before we run out of them. A
lady named Hummingbird was our waitress....and that would have to be my nomination
in the game of most unusual names. 😊
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Emporia
has a sign outside the city limits proclaiming itself the Founder of Veteran’s
Day. I have to check these things
out…it’s what I call Road Trip Trivia. Found
this article by Jason English on
mentalfloss.com:
The reason we celebrate Veterans Day on
November 11th dates back to 1918, when an armistice between the Allies and
Germany was signed that essentially ended World War I. The first Armistice Day
was celebrated the following November 11th.
There's a shoe salesman from Emporia,
Kansas, who probably isn't in many history books, but he deserves at least a
paragraph.
In the early 1950s, a gentleman by the name
of Alvin King thought Armistice Day was too limiting. He'd lost family in World
War II, and thought all American veterans of all wars should be honored on
November 11th. He formed a committee, and in 1953 Emporia, Kansas, celebrated Veterans
Day.
Ed Rees, Emporia's local congressman, loved
the idea and took it to Washington. President Eisenhower liked King's idea, too. In 1954, Eisenhower formally changed November
11th to Veterans Day and invited some of Emporia's residents to be there when he
signed the bill. King was one of those invited, but there was one problem: he
didn't own a nice suit. His veteran friends chipped in and bought him a proper
suit and paid his way from Kansas to the White House.
In 2003, Congress passed a resolution declaring Emporia, Kansas to be the
founding city of Veterans Day.
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Sun came out in the late afternoon but the
temperature never got out of the teens.
Drove through periods of minor snow flurries west of Kansas City and
encountered a lot of snow in ditches and on fields in the Dodge City region. The important thing is that the roads were
clear all day. Saw another beautiful sunset about 6:30 CST.
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Our route
across Kansas has been flat with mainly just electrical poles and grain
elevators visible all the way to the horizon.
There is the occasional house out in the distance but not many. Of course there are cities and towns but even
those are few and far between. After
driving through miles of flat fields, Kim pops up with “Amazon sure wouldn’t make
any money with free delivery service around here, would they?” No, they would not….
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| Today's route |
