Day 6: Salina, Kansas to St Louis, Missouri

Gateway Arch - St. Louis, MO
Originally uploaded by Don3rdSE

There is no Quality in Kansas!!! Now hold on before I get beaten up by all you Kansans (and you can blame it on my son, Nick!!) let me explain. Chatting on the phone last night with my son he suggested we needed to try a new road game – alphabet. The gist of alphabet is to find words starting with letter of the alphabet in sequence and the first one to get to Z wins. Jimm was going at a great rate (however I claim he was cheating – he was wearing his distance glasses so could see words before me, I didn’t think it was a disadvantage that he was driving). He was at the letter X and I was still searching for the letter Q – I searched and searched and was sure I would find the word “quality” somewhere along the way – all to no avail, I think we crossed the Missouri border before I found a sign for “Quality Inn”. Despite my quick catch up on Jimm I had to concede that game to him – well tomorrow is another day!!

It has amazed me as we travel that you can tell a lot about a state or community by the billboard signs – Kansas and Missouri had a lot of polarized signs from both a political and religious perspective. I still wince to see that this type of polarization still remains. However, on the flip side of that the people we have met along the way have all been great, it is fun just engaging in random conversations along the way. The two pets, Gaby and Two-Face, have also shown how resilient they are along the way – they are perfectly happy as long as they have food, water, and are with us – they are just so trusting that if we are around everything will be okay. We have enjoyed the simple pleasures during our trip – just being with each other and the pets, having picnics, and just chatting along the way as we drive through each state.

Tomorrow’s another day with another adventure.

Janet