wallpaper People Places and Names part 2

Do you get lost often? I don't get lost, I just find myself in places I have never been. If I have driven to a place once, I can almost always find my way back there without having to back up in a driveway to turn around. If you grew up in Kansas, you would come to realize that almost all the roads run east and west or north and south. It is only when you get into the small rolling hills in extreme northeast Kansas that roads just go in a general direction. If you see a sign that says K-4 west, you will wind from north east to southwest of Topeka. Take US-81 south from Wichita and you had better want to run into San Antonio, TX.

A few years ago, a niece of mine had a travel trailer in Southern Georgia and the truck she had used to take the trailer out there was no longer able to make the trip pulling one of those big white wind sails that you can sleep in. Being newly retired and bored out of my mind, I volunteered to borrow a truck and bring that thing home all the way to Sacramento, CA. Now, realize I started and ended in Kansas and you will have an idea that I drove across the United States and back during that week long period. I had visions of being an over the road traveler, not so much after that trip. I definitely got over the idea that it would be fun to pull a travel trailer. I want to point out that that trip was prior to our owning a Garvin Nuvi to direct my travel. I would stop to get gas, pee and consult the map about once an hour. Yes, I spent over a thousand dollars on gas from Georgia to Sacramento. I didn't charge my niece for the gas from Here to Georgia and back from California as I was really on my trip and that truck just zipped down the road at 20 MPG without that damned trailer.

I don't give a damn what you drive! I have driven clear to Oregon in a Damn Chevy Vega so I don't have pride about the car I drive. What I do have is a sense of what my butt can endure. No more itty bitty little cars for me. I have a Ford Crown Victoria that gets over 20 MPG and I get to my destination not feeling like I have been beat up with an ugly stick. After almost 60 years of owning GM cars, I found a Ford on sale from a private owner and love that silver behemoth chewing up miles on the road. Some lady had to put her father in a nursing home and he had only 18,000 miles on a six year old car. It was like new and drives that way. He had every ticket for every service it had even had.

We will light out soon for places west. I can hardly wait. I won't need a map for the first part of the trip unless I look for another new way to get between I-70 and I-80. There are a lot of roads that run north from Kansas into Nebraska. It is driving into southern Utah that I am looking forward to.

MUD