Go West Young Man!

 I'm a bit late getting this up on the blog; this all happened last month. Warning: this is a long one with lots of pictures. You will notice that I really enjoyed looking at all the farms we passed en route. Feel free to ignore them if they don't interest you.

The next step in Jason's journey to adulthood was starting his first real job after graduating from college. This involved moving from Connecticut to Colorado, and taking a car with him. We determined that we could drive it in 4 days without necessitating marathon driving sessions, and if we traded off the driving it would be doable. We looked at traffic around New Haven and through New York and found that an earlier start just meant more traffic at morning rush hour. Our first day started at a very reasonable 8:30 am but meant that we were driving until 6 or 7 in the evening.

Lunch!

at a rest area

Pennsylvania

into Ohio on our first day on the road

Boy with Rest Stop

We found a friendly Hampton Inn in Ohio, where we stopped for the night. Our home crew, my helpful hubby, got online while we drove, and made a reservation for us in Ashland, OH, just off the interstate. We didn't do any sightseeing along the way; we didn't have time for that. Our hotel location choices were based on how far we could reasonably drive in a day and where there was a Hampton Inn (clean, inexpensive, and free breakfast!) fairly close to our route. Having someone at home setting up those hotel reservations greatly simplified the trip (Thanks Dan!).

second day brought us to Indiana

Day 2 took us from Ohio, through Indiana, Illinois, and into Missouri.

Farm in Indiana

Another Farm in Indiana

many miles on I-70 West

Farm in Indiana

Moving on to another state.

Woohoo! another state line!

Bourbon, MO (no reason for the picture, I was just tickled by the town name)

Farm in Missouri

We ran into a minor difficulty when the car's AC started to weaken as the day wore on. Outside temperatures were in the 90s so we had been running the AC pretty much constantly since we started our drive that morning. By afternoon, the air came out cold, but even at the highest fan setting it wasn't moving into the car to cool us down.  We were very glad to come to the end of our day's driving and an air conditioned hotel room!

We stopped for the night in Rolla, Missouri. This part of our journey took us along historic Route 66. I would have loved to explore a little bit of the area. Honestly, most of my impression of Route 66 comes from the song, and from the movie Cars. Jason was on driving duty when we got off the interstate and drove along the smaller Rte. 66 to get to our hotel. That portion of it, in Rolla, MO, was curvy and very hilly, and difficult to drive on with any confidence. Jason had very strong opinions (and not favorable ones) about driving along that route. The surprise highlight of Rolla was a little sushi place that came highly recommended by the hotel clerk. We filled up on sushi and noodles and slept really well.

Day 3 took us from Missouri into Oklahoma, where we were planning to make a detour to Norman to pick up Jason's stuff from his college apartment. We started the day a little earlier to take advantage of the cool morning air. We made a point of NOT using the AC in the car, but cracked the back windows to get some of the cool air circulating in the car. That kept us comfortable through the morning so that we could turn on the AC when the afternoon started to heat up.

Cows seeking shade (they're the little black areas under the trees)

hay!

more cows in Oklahoma, cooling off in the watering hole

Farm in Oklahoma

more driving on I-70 West

We got to Norman, OK in time for lunch, packed up all the bags and gear from Jason's apartment, and he turned in his key.  We even had time to visit a few of Jason's friends who were in Norman through the summer, before we had to get on the road again. Stopping to see friends brought unforeseen advantages. They passed on a couple of small USB fans that we could plug into the ports in the car (they were small and didn't move much air, but every little bit helped!) along with an old styrofoam ice chest. We stopped to buy a bag of ice to put in the chest, which we left open near the fans in an attempt to cool the air in the car. It wasn't as good as a working AC, but it kept us from melting into 2 miserable puddles as we drove north to our hotel for the night in Guthrie, OK.

hotel in Guthrie, and an air conditioned room!

dinner in Guthrie. Cheers!

Last day on the road. We left REALLY early, 5:30 am, so that we'd be driving through more of the cooler morning and not as much in the heat of the afternoon. We left before the free breakfast opened up, but we had leftovers from the last night's dinner that we heated up in the hotel room microwave, and the kitchen had coffee out early (thank you thank you!) We loaded up our cooler with ice from the hotel ice machine and we were off.

Oklahoma morning Sunrise #1

OK sunrise #2

OK sunrise #3

Oklahoma landscapes were just beautiful. As the sun came up we got to see a lot more farms, cows, and big lush green fields of corn, though the corn was not yet as high as a elephant's eye!

made it to Kansas!

Oklahoma terrain was very flat and very windy. We found that Kansas was even windier! There were long sections of the drive where the car was being constantly pushed sideways. The big semi trucks on the road made me very nervous, as they sometimes swayed back and forth in the wind.

Kansas wind farm

Kanorado, town on the border of Kansas and Colorado

By the time we reached Colorado we had to turn on the AC. Thankfully, it kept us more or less comfortable until we reached our destination in Denver, my brother-in-law's house, in mid-afternoon. It was such a relief to get out of the car and unpack.

Mission accomplished! Jason had arrived, and still had almost a week to orient himself, get the car AC fixed (!), and start in on the process of getting his CO drivers license, car registration, figuring out the work commute, banking, etc. It was definitely an adventure.

Shelley, now back in CT