Today was a long day, leaving at about 6am and finishing around 7pm...in a new time zone (Central Time). 14 hours and about 520 miles, much of it on US routes, not Interstates.
We started in the dark. Being at the western edge of the Eastern Time Zone, there wasn't a hint of light at 6am. We quickly crossed from Indiana to Illinois on I-70 and on to St. Louis. With a brief detour into downtown St. Louis, compliments of a missing prompt from the GPS, we took I-44 to US 50, exiting at Villa Ridge, about 30 miles southwest of the city.
From there it was all US routes. We took US 50 to Jefferson City, then US 54 the rest of the way. Other than fuel and coffee stops, we stopped for lunch at the Gasconade Ridge Wayside Turnout outside of Linn, Missouri.
We also stopped the Ice Cream Paradise in Nevada, Missouri, just short of the Kansas border, for an afternoon coffee shake; no high-fructose corn syrup in their ice cream...and it was milkshake happy hour ($1 off) when we arrived.
The US routes were much more interesting than the Interstates and the speed limits were about the same, except when passing through towns. Speedy made just as good time as we would have on the superslab.
After a short detour following the local school bus on a dirt road detour outside of Yates Center, KS, we left US 54 for KS 105 to the town of Toronto and the Cross Timbers State Park on Toronto Lake.
The park is almost deserted and we found a nice lakeside campsite. It is quite peaceful and dark, with only a few birds in the background. There is a Great-horned Owl hooting at the moment and we saw thousands of Franklin's Gulls flying over when we arrived.
It will be a little later start tomorrow, since we will have a chance to make breakfast and take showers before we leave. We can get a breakfast, but not showers, when we overnight in a Cracker Barrel parking lot.
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