Wednesday, February 12…Looks Like We
Made It (Barry Manilow)
The time has finally come to find our way out of the snow-covered Mitten
and head for Arizona, land
of clear nights, warm(er) days, and open roads. I’ve been in contact with Ryan and Felicia
and the forecast for our estimated day of arrival (the 16th) sounds
delicious: 60 to 70o during the day with high 40s at night. Bring it on!!! I’ve always said that I like living in
Michigan because we experience all four seasons, but the older I get the less
enamored of winter I become. I still
like winter, just not so much of it.
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Left about 12:20 today. The air was cool and crisp, there was no discernible wind, and best of all, the sky was clear, no snow falling. Made for a good start to the trip. However, somewhere in the Cadillac area, it started snowing. Not a lot, but enough to make the road surface a concern. Kim doesn’t mind pulling the camper on wet roads but a thin layer of snow or a buildup of slush puts him on edge. And driving in those conditions after dark just adds an extra layer of ‘edge’. Unfortunately, beyond Cadillac, snowy and slushy was the name of the game. I kept an eye on the weather radar to see if we could outrun the weather; not an easy task as both the Big Blue Cloud and the truck were moving. But my best guess was that it looked like the weather wouldn’t be clear until maybe 9 p.m. Ugh!!
Snow kept falling and nighttime was upon us, but Kim kept going..,even though he was feeling the tension of the drive in his neck and shoulders. About 7:30 (Central Time), the snow let up and the roads eventually turned from slushy to just wet. Yahoo! We’d made it out of the Big Blue Cloud on the radar…and it was only 7:30! Traffic wasn’t crazy so he drove until about 8 o’clock, which is when we got a room in Dwight, Illinois.
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Tally for the day: 407 miles down, only 1675 to go!
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Left about 12:20 today. The air was cool and crisp, there was no discernible wind, and best of all, the sky was clear, no snow falling. Made for a good start to the trip. However, somewhere in the Cadillac area, it started snowing. Not a lot, but enough to make the road surface a concern. Kim doesn’t mind pulling the camper on wet roads but a thin layer of snow or a buildup of slush puts him on edge. And driving in those conditions after dark just adds an extra layer of ‘edge’. Unfortunately, beyond Cadillac, snowy and slushy was the name of the game. I kept an eye on the weather radar to see if we could outrun the weather; not an easy task as both the Big Blue Cloud and the truck were moving. But my best guess was that it looked like the weather wouldn’t be clear until maybe 9 p.m. Ugh!!
Snow kept falling and nighttime was upon us, but Kim kept going..,even though he was feeling the tension of the drive in his neck and shoulders. About 7:30 (Central Time), the snow let up and the roads eventually turned from slushy to just wet. Yahoo! We’d made it out of the Big Blue Cloud on the radar…and it was only 7:30! Traffic wasn’t crazy so he drove until about 8 o’clock, which is when we got a room in Dwight, Illinois.
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Tally for the day: 407 miles down, only 1675 to go!
Thursday, February 13…Girls
Just Wanna Have Fun (Cyndi Lauper)
When we left the hotel about 9 a.m., it was cold but the sun was shining
and the roads were clear. When we really got rolling down the highway, I
happened to glance in the side mirror and noticed that the camper was dancing a
bit. Watched it for a minute, then wondered
out loud if this was a problem that should be checked out; Kim said it was
caused by the wind, and he wasn’t concerned about it. Then I realized that the landscape was dotted
with oodles of wind turbines, so, yeah, I guess it was the wind. Add Illinois
to the list of states that harness the power of the wind.
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Listening to FM radio while traveling across country is always
problematic. There’s the genre issue plus the ‘we just lost the signal’ issue.
In the past, we’ve listened to Classic Vinyl or the Bruce Springsteen channel
on Sirius XM while in the truck, but we don’t have that subscription any longer,
so that’s off the table. I listen to podcasts or audiobooks when I travel alone,
but we’ve never done that when traveling together. I could use earbuds but then
that cuts off any chance of conversation. I know Kim isn’t a fan of podcasts
but what about audiobooks? He was game to listen to one, but we had to find
common ground. Kim leans toward reading
fantasy fiction while I gravitate to mysteries, specifically books written by
Michael Connelly, Lee Childs, or John Sandford.
He left it up to me to pick a book, so I started with The Black Echo,
the first Harry Bosch book written by Michael Connelly. I’m a Harry Bosch fan, having read most of
the books and then watching the TV series when it came out. I know I read The
Black Echo years ago but couldn’t remember the plot and Kim wasn’t familiar
with the character at all, so it seemed like a good choice. Figuring out how to get the book to play on
the truck was another matter altogether but we got ‘er done and it turns out
that Harry Bosch is a fine traveling companion.
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There came a time today when I heard the call of Roadside America…and I
answered. Up ahead, Sumner, MO, just 10
miles off our route, was home to the World’s Largest Goose. Just my kind of fun…let’s go!!
It took us a bit longer than anticipated to get to Sumner due to missing
the first turn and then having to take the next road, which could be considered
more of a generous two track instead of a typical road width. But it was paved, so it had that going for
it.
We eventually found the location of the goose, whose name is Maxie,
exactly as described: on the west end of Sumner in all her 40-foot-tall
glory. However, the description failed
to mention that she was located in a county roadside RV park that wasn’t plowed
in the winter, leaving us nowhere to turn around. *Big sigh*
We had no choice but to continue onward, but I knew from looking at the
map that continuing too much farther westward from Sumner was going to add more
time than either of us wanted to invest (and possibly push Kim to the point of
refusing to indulge me on this anymore), so we started looking for a place to
turn around. All the side roads were
narrow, had a single set of tire tracks through maybe 6 inches of snow and were
on an incline. Not favorable conditions for pulling in and backing up the
camper. Finally found a flat
intersection with multiple tire tracks that looked like it would do the
trick. I got out to be the traffic
checker while Kim made the turnaround.
He is a master at graciously and uncomplainingly getting us out of the
messes I unintentionally get us into. My
12-mile detour turned into a much bigger deal than I had anticipated.
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Sumner, Missouri, (population 102) bills
itself as the Wild Goose Capital of the World and in 1974, a Kansas City
sculptor by the name of David Jackson built a 40-foot-tall Canadian goose with
a wingspan of 60 feet. The project was
endorsed by Missouri's governor (who later delivered Maxie's dedication speech)
and funded with $16,000, a considerable sum then. Sumner
also hosts an annual Wild Goose Festival but I’m not sure if the 40-foot goose
is in response to the festival or if the festival sprung up because of the
goose. Either way, Sumner is a small
town, out in the middle of nowhere, with a very large goose as its mascot. I
wonder where the children go to school.
Realizing that something with wings
over 60 feet across might actually take flight in a strong weather gust, David
tested a scale model of the goose in wind tunnel. The results prompted him to mount Maxie on a
bearing -- rumored to be a cannonball -- allowing her to rotate like a
weathervane on her pedestal. The residents of Sumner occasionally grease the
bearing to keep Maxie moving.
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Just as
I was setting my sights on going to see Maxie, Kim suggested finding someplace
to eat as it was well past lunchtime. As
one of my selling points for making this side trip, I mentioned that we’d find
a diner or café in Sumner to grab a bite to eat because, and I quote myself
here, “There’s got to be somewhere for the locals to eat besides in their
houses.” Nope! I had seriously misjudged the size of Sumner and the desire of
the locals to occasionally dine out.
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As the
navigator on our trips, I choose our routes.
Sure, Rapunzel (the GPS) has input but I make the final decision. Today,
she offered a route that avoided both St. Louis and Kansas City; not being a
fan of traffic in either of those cities, I took her up on her offer. Selected
the route that would keep us north of Kansas City, on Kansas Highway 36, and
then would angle us down to Topeka. I
could then decide how to proceed from there. Somewhere along the drive she decided to
withdraw that route and switched us to the Kansas City route, hoping I wouldn’t
notice. Not so fast, missy…I am The
Navigator and I know how to shut you down! It
took a couple of attempts, but I prevailed and now we’re tucked into a
motel in Topeka for the night, as planned.
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We haven’t run out of snow yet; both Kansas and Missouri have more than
Illinois but none of them have as much as Michigan, so we’re making headway in
that department. Been seeing anywhere
from barely ground cover to a couple of inches, with some snow piles at the
edges of parking lots. Of course, we
arrived in Topeka after dark so I’m not sure what the snow situation is
here. The temperature ranged from
mid-teens to mid-20s, but the sun was out, and the sky was cloudless. I call that a win!
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Tally for the day: close to 500
miles, about 1100 miles left
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