Stoneville, NC

10,483.4 miles and 4 and 1/2 weeks later we are home.  In all those miles, we never came close to a wreck, we didn't even see a wreck.  I don't think that would be possible without God's intervention.  We give Him the praise.

Lebanon, TN

Not much happened today except driving.  I’m glad to see gas prices dropping as we get closer home.  I have always complained about my car getting lousy gas mileage.  As we got in a thinner, cooler atmosphere, the car got much better mileage.  Around home, it did well to average 18 mpg.  The best it had ever gotten was 22 mpg on a trip back from Charleston, SC.  Several days on this trip it has gotten over 25 mpg.  Today was hot and a heavier atmosphere and it got 22 mpg.  During most of the trip, I had no complaints about the mpg.

With the current unrest, we had been given instructions from Joy, Jen, and Judi to arrange to be at St. Louis in the middle of the day and to keep driving.  As it would happen, right as we needed to change from one interstate to another, there was construction involving detours.  Our Garmin did not know about the detours.  We ended up going by the Arch but did not stop.  Danny did get a couple of pictures of the Arch.  I was driving so I just kept following the detour signs and finally the Garmin caught up.  No problems.  Traffic was heavy there as expected.

Most of what we drove through today looked like we could have been driving down 220.  We did cross the Ohio River.  It is fairly wide where we crossed it.  We stopped at a rest area (a real one) in Metropolis, IL, the home of Superman.  Everything was calm so Superman wasn’t needed though I did see a picture of him.

Traffic was worse in Nashville than we had expected.  We had decided we were staying tonight in Lebanon, TN.  Somewhere between Nashville and Lebanon, traffic stopped; I mean stopped, parking lot still.  We sat there for a while before it finally picked up.  We never saw anything that would have caused the hold up.  We were in four states today - Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

There is another change in plans.  We had planned to go to Joy’s house for the Labor Day weekend.  When we left Canada, we thought we would get there Friday.  But this trip has gone much faster that the outgoing trip.  We are only 326 miles from Joy’s house now so we would get there tomorrow, Wednesday.  It is pointless to go there in the middle of the week when the girls have school and Joy and Rock have to work so, we will be going home and going to Joy’s house for the weekend in two or three weeks.  We may stop in Pigeon Forge tomorrow or we may go home.  Compared to the 326 miles to Greenville, we are 436 miles from Stoneville.

The St. Louis Arch

More corn fields.  We did see a few tobacco fields, I think it would be burley tobacco.

Ohio River bridge

Ohio River

We were in Metropolis, IL, the home of Superman.

  

Nashville, TN

Columbia, MO

We had the oil changed and tires rotated on my car a few days before we left Eden.  We needed to have it done again.  When we got up this morning, I called the Chevrolet dealer and made an appointment to have that done.  As we loaded the car, an electrical storm was starting.  The Chevrolet dealer was only a mile and a half from the hotel.  By the time we got there, the storm was going pretty hard.  I was glad to sit in their waiting room and watch the storm rather than having to drive in it.  By the time they finished the car, the storm was over.  Ironically, they gave us a free car wash.  We drove the dirty car through the wash.  After the wash, the car didn’t look much different.  It is going to have to be hand washed and scrubbed.  I will be calling Carl when I get home. 

There are no pictures from this morning since I was driving.  We stopped to eat lunch in Lincoln, NE.  As we turned in the restaurant, we saw the big sign announcing that all the wire and guard posts across the road were the Nebraska State Penitentiary.  With all the razor wire they had, I wouldn’t want to try to climb out of there. 

We saw field after field of corn and some kind of bean.  We also saw sunflowers, lots and lots of sunflowers. 

At some point, I don’t remember where, we passed a beautifully restored Chevrolet truck.  Danny said it was a 67, 68, or 69.  Jonathan will probably know which it is.  It had been painted a beautiful Carolina blue.

Danny was driving when we got to Kansas City.  The traffic was terrible.  As I’ve mentioned before, traffic makes him nervous.  By the time we got around KC, he was a wreck and I was a wreck because he was driving.  Tomorrow morning we will be going around St. Louis.  I will be driving.

Nebraska State Penitentiary

More corn fields

Sunflowers

Beautifully restored truck.  I loved the Carolina blue.

Kearney, Nebraska

When we got up in Rawlins, WY, the temperature was 44 degrees with a wind chill factor of 39.  We were cold and dressed in jeans and long sleeves and jackets.  The wind was blowing very hard.  On I80 there are computerized signs.  All along, there were warnings to drive with care, there were wind gusts exceeding 35 mph up to 50 mph.  It made driving hard.  The speed limit was 75 mph but neither of us was comfortable with that with the wind blowing so hard.  Today is Sunday and we have not been in church in several weeks.  This morning, as we have whenever we had an XM signal, we listened to XM 63, The Message.  They play the type songs we sing in church.  Our mid-morning break was taken at a large truck stop that has a restaurant and store.  We were impressed to see a sign inviting truckers and anyone else interested to church services.  There was a trailer beside the building set up for that purpose.  When we stopped for lunch at Laramie, the wind was still blowing but it was a warm wind.  We stopped in Sutherland, NE for a mid-afternoon break and it was downright hot at 86 degrees.  It had gone from 44 to 86 degrees in about 325 miles and we were overdressed.

We had just commented that with all the wind, it seemed like they should have windmills when we saw the first group.  In one group, I counted between 25-30 wind turbines.  This was just outside Laramie.  Besides windmills, we saw numerous oil pumps.  We are back in a heavy agricultural area.  There are fields of huge herds of cattle.  We also saw herds of goats, sheep, and lamas – yes, lamas.  There were huge fields of canola and corn.  Again, we saw many long trains.

Today was not quite as monotonous as yesterday afternoon.  We came around enough cities and saw a variety of scenery that kept us from being too bored.  I went through a period of time when I read a lot of westerns.  It’s interesting to see the cities I read about – Butte, Bozeman, Cheyenne, and Laramie.  There will probably be more.

Time has changed again. We are only one hour behind home now.

This was well past their posted time for service to be over.  We would have gone if it had been time for service to begin.

We tried to count.  There were 25-30 wind turbines in this group.  Since it was just outside Laramie, we assumed it was providing power for the city.

We saw many oil pumps

Rawlins, WY

Today has been cold.  At the hotel this morning, one of the staff told us it had snowed during the night but had already melted.  We had seen that the street was wet but thought it had rained.  We both wore jeans and long sleeve shirts today and were not at all warm.  Driving over part of the Grand Tetons, it was foggy and raining fairly hard with the wind blowing.  The car thermometer said it was 40 degrees.  We were stopped at a stoplight and a car pulled up beside us and blew the horn.  The driver asked where in NC we were from.  When told Eden, he said they were from Greensboro.  It's a small world.  By the time we got to Jackson and stopped to eat lunch, it had stopped raining but was still cool.  We saw some beautiful scenery this morning but we didn't like the last part of the drive today.  It was boring; it was a long road with piles of rock and dirt on either side.  We did see a lot of trains so that broke the monotony.  We are now on Interstate 80.  Most of the rest of the way home will be on interstates.

This morning at West Yellowstone, we filled up with regular gas at $3.75/gallon.  We saw it as high as $3.95.  Here, in Rawlins, it is $3.54.

We went through Eden, WY.  It makes Eden, NC seem like a big city.

Fog on the mountain

A little break in the clouds

We drove beside the Hoback River for a very long time.  I wish we had counted how many times we crossed it as it wound back and forth.  I looked up the Hoback River.  It is a 55 mile tributary of the Snake River.

This was fog, not snow.

Very monotonous

We did see some interesting clouds

Eden, WY is even smaller than Eden, NC

We thought Shell had bought out Texaco but there are Texaco stations here.

Seeing a lot of trains somewhat broke the monotony.

West Yellowstone, day 2

Today started out cool and with light rain.  By mid-day, it had warmed enough to take off the heavy coat and switch to a jacket.  By sun-down, it was very cool again.  They are calling for 2-5 inches of snow in the higher elevations tonight.  Amazing!  Everyone says it is unusually cool for this time of year.

It was a good wildlife day.  The first animal we saw was a male elk.  That was the first elk we had seen.  Then there were several buffalo.  This afternoon, again, one bison was walking down the road by himself.  We saw a bear and a moose but both were in the woods and I could not get a picture of either.  I also saw a trumpeter swan.  It was in the river and I watched it dive and catch a fish.  It sighted me before I could get a picture and flew away.  I really would have liked to have gotten a picture.

We walked along the boardwalks at some of the geyser basins.  There were signs everywhere to stay on the walkway, that the ground was unstable.  When I could see steam rising from the ground, I didn’t have to be told to stay on the walkway.  At places, the earth was boiling.  Between the boardwalk and geysers, we could see bison and other animal skat.  The ranger said sometimes the ground will support the animal and sometimes it won't and the animal is consumed by the earth.

We went back to Old Faithful. While we were waiting for the eruption, a ranger came out and said it was possible a second geyser, Beehive, was also going to blow. He said Beehive is bigger than Old Faithful but not as predictable. He said it is rare, maybe 3 times each year, for both geysers to go at the same time. Beehive is what blew right before Old Faithful last night. This afternoon, they blew at the same time. Old Faithful has the bigger mound; Beehive is shaped like a beehive. I thought it was shaped like a bird's nest.  We were very fortunate to have seen it two times.

Tomorrow, we begin the drive east.  I don’t know what stops we will find along the way.  I know we’re both tired of hauling everything in and out of hotels.  God has been gracious and kept us safe thus far.  I pray He will take us home safely.

A male elk.  The first elk we have seen this trip.

We've seen lots of bison but I still like them.

Silex Spring

Fountain Paint Pots, a vat of boiling mud.

Fountain Paint Pots

Some people had climbed the mountain behind Old Faithful to watch her blow.  If you look hard in the picture below you can see them in the opening just to the left of center.

Old Faithful

Beehive

Chinese Springs.  A ranger said the natives would wash their clothes in these vats of boiling water and chemicals.  Finally they realized it was destroying the clothes.

The mound for Old Faithful

The mound for Beehive

Another loner

All along there are trees with areas of bark missing.  The animals, especially bison, scrub their heads and other body parts against the trees.  Some (bear) sharpen their claws, leaving raw marks.