Go West young man..........

We started seeing sunflowers along the interstate, 70 W, in western Illinois; in Missouri too. We ran briefly along Rt. 66 in Illinois, and spent the night in a Flying J parking lot near Warrenton, just west of St. Louis, Sunday night. Flying J's; run by the Utah Mormons, now spread nationwide... are a one-stop place...for sleep, eat, showers (if you want), refuel, and we filled our propane tank this morning as well. Jim calls it the "Wal-mart of the Road."

We stopped at Nostalgia-Ville, USA, in Kingdom City, Mo. This was a fun 50-60's shop, full of Stooges, I love Lucy, Marilyn, James Dean, John Deere, John Wayne, Rt. 66, Pepsi/Coke "stuff" of every kind. Naturally, we found Josh's Christmas gift there, and Rt. 66 postcards to mail out to all the kids/grandkids.

Jim used to deliver for the bindery to numerous colleges in west-central Missouri. The terrain is more hilly and rocky bluffs on the sides of the road are covered with clusters of sunflowers. Did you know that Missouri is the "cave state?"
In Independence today we found a CVS to have all our RX's refilled. A nice lady behind us in line gave us a coupon for a free $25 gift card for CVS. It's a promotion that the store is doing for transfering prescriptions/or bringing in a new one. We were tranfering one from Wal-mart. There are nice people everywhere, aren't they?
Did you know that the American Jazz Museum is in Kansas City, Mo? I was surprised by KC's huge downtown, and modern skyline. As we traveled west we noticed more and more drought. The big rivers, the Mississippi, Missouri, and Kansas, usually wide and deep...all had long and wide sandbars in the middle of them.

Last year, (when it took us 3 days to get through Kansas).. we stopped at Grandma Hoerner's organic food factory, and by gumm we found it again before closing today. Last year we watched as they made applesauce, today the clerk said they had made organic raspberry preserves. The workers were leaving for the day as we pulled up. We got more applesauce, some for Jim's Mom, and sunflower butter. Doesn't that sound healthy? Check out their website for yummy, healthy items. www.grandmahoerners.com
The wind was fierce all day, making our good mileage plummet, and Jim's arms ache from the fight to stay on the road. Supper was in Manhatten, Kansas, home of Kansas State, and we're parked for the night east of Salina. Jim says 300 more miles before we hit Colorado, as we're crossing the entire width of Kansas. The sunflower is the state flower in Kansas, and they use the logo on everything, including state information highway signs.

Bumpersnicker: Drive like you stole it!
I told Jim we needed this on the back of the Winnebago!