Out this morning, wandered into my AAA office to talk with my travel agent. Thinking about a big adventure next year.

Threw out ideas like

• South America (Galapogos, Macchu Picchu, Iguazu Falls, Amazon)
• India
• New Zealand

Thinking somewhere warm about a year from now. Anybody out there have any experience with any of these, or another place you'd like to suggest?

As an example of what I like: if India, I'd go primarily to see tigers in the wild. Sure, would probably go see Taj Mahal, but I'm about scenery/outdoors.

Planning to take a road trip, starting sometime around a week from Sunday or Monday. General plan is to head toward New England, never been up there. We'll see how far I get before being ready to turn around and come home.

used to go to new zealand every other year for a month or two.
other times tasmania.
not been for a long time though.

That's a haul! But well worth it; we made our first road trip to that area several years ago and had a blast. IIRC we were gone three weeks. Enjoy!

I want to get up there for a nice long road trip, but I want to do it during Peeper Season. Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire are 3 of the 5 states I've never been to.

One of the things I made sure was OK before starting the dealing gig was that it was OK for me to just go without a schedule. I marked myself off four weeks, but made a note I'd liekly be back before then. I don't travel with a schedule or reservations any more. Some days it might be just a little distance cuz I get interested in something; some it might be hundreds of miles buring across the midwest.

If anyone has specific recommendations, I'd welcome that.

Unvisited states/provinces is part of the allure. Never been up there. Only had one camping trip last summer, so that's why now instead of leaf season (plus, presumably, fewer crowds).

But, we'll see. I might get a few days out, be tired of being on the road, and turn around.

Subie had an oil change earlier this week. Tossed a few things I won't need in the interim in there (tent, sleeping bag, etc). Have a pile of stuff in the living room. Moving somewhat in the direction of organization.

Slight delay on the trip. Friend of mine called this AM and needs a ride to have his cataract surgery Monday.

Not sure if I'll take off later next week, over the weekend, or what. Stay tuned. It's good not to have job-related calendar restrictions.

If this is his first, he may need another ride in a couple of weeks.

Seems like he told me they're doing both at the same time. I found that odd. Of course, I had all (working) done at once.

No matter, if they do one and then the other, I can hang out and go in July. In fact, for the bar-poker dealing gig, we had something come up where I thought we might be short in June, and told the owner to let me know if he'd like me to wait. He thought he'd be ok for dealers.

Looks like the 19th or so. SIL texted last night, asking if I could watch the dog. My nephew is in a gold-course management program, and is being the assistant pro at some fancy club/resort up in Montana, so they're taking a road trip up there.

Well, perhaps another delay. Got a text from a college friend that he's having a cookout/party thing the 24th in St. Louis.

Haven't seen John in many years, so I'm going to try to make that work. However, if I take off on the 19th as I thought the other day, there simply aren't five days worth of things to see and do between here & STL.

So maybe take off a couple days later. Perhaps the soltice would be a good departure date.

Once again, the flexibility of not having to keep a work schedule is one of the greatest things about being retired.

Damn, these little Kansas towns don't seem to have restaurants besides Subway and Pizza Hut. Finally found a bar & grill.

Almost literally in the middle of the country. There's a monument not far marking the middle of the contiguous 48 states.

Ground across the rest of the top of Kansas today, then turned south. Currently at Hollywood casino 's poker room, figured I'd play for an hour or two if the list moves.

Did come across Leavenworth federal pen earlier. It looks as bad as it's reputation.

Don't have photos on tapatalk, which works out pretty good, as there's not much scenic in Kansas. Will try to upload some when I get to my friend's with good internet later.

+$50 in about 40 minutes.

Semi bluffed a guy off top two when turn made a flush possible. Had A of suit + top pair, so he had me in trouble.

Played well for my level, also got lucky. Only hand I was sad about was folding K9 (fav hand, obv) to a raise, then seeing my team flop 2 pr & fill up on turn.

Ofc, the right play, just hate folding a good dog.

OK, gang, in St. Louis. Day 1, left Denver and got out on the plains. Strangely for Colorado, it was quite foggy out there. We've had unusually high rainfall this spring, I assume that's carried onto the plains as well.

Going along, the route I planned to take had a bridge out. Not sure if that was related to the rain, but I had to detour.

Unfortunately, out west, sometimes "detour to the next road" means 20 miles or more out of one's way. On the plus side, I got to see a lot of the countryside I wouldn't have otherwise. On the minus, it was the plains--rolling hills of grass and ranch land, not particularly picturesque.

Anyway, an hour later, I was back on course. I wanted to take this particular route because it went through the Arikaree Breaks in NW Kansas. I'd been through there some years before, but near the end of the day. I remembered it as being kinda scenic.

Turns out I misremembered, it wasn't anything special. A lot of this kinda thing:



Abandoned farmhouses and rolling hills. There was this little pullout with some scenery, but even that's not great.



Oops. Well, I'm in no hurry, so no harm done by the delay. Coming into the town of St Francis, KS, I ran over something. Saw a roughly 8 inch square thing flip up behind in the rearview, it gave a pretty good thunk on the underside of the car.

Pulled off and took a look, didn't see damage. Of course, for the next several minutes, any noise or whatever made me paranoid that one of the tires was leaking, but it's all good.

Churned across Kansas. Being a map nerd, went to the Geographic Center of the contiguous 48 states. It's not much.



There's also another sign, and a small chapel on the grounds. I guess you want to pray for getting TF out of Kansas.

I considered driving north to Red Cloud, NE next. However, figuring the chance of meeting Kim Wexler in her hometown was pretty much nil, I went south so I could see this.



No word on Cousin Eddie's whereabouts.

Going along, I came across a nice looking state park to camp in. However, they wanted a $25 vehicle charge when I pressed "Camping" on the kiosk. Seems a bit excessive for just a tent--I think they were allowing for RVing. Found the camp host's site to ask about tent camping, but nobody was around, so I moved on.

Went up the road, and noticed a sign for a town park which said Camping. There was a box labeled "Camping $10", but no instructions where to set up or anything. Saw there was a swimming pool across the road, which seemed to be a town facility. The young lady there said it was jut "camp anywhere", so that's what I did.



Fortunately, the mastodon did not come to life and squish me flat. It was a nice enough area, but not really a campground--no shower, and it was right on the main drag (US 36). Not that there's a ton of traffic in BFE Kansas during the night, but enough that it made it tough to sleep as semis went by.

Day 2 ,got back on the road. Crossed the Republican River near Scandia, KS.



All the blurs are birds (swallows I think) flitting about. I assume they were hunting flying bugs.

Ground across the top of Kansas before turning south toward KC. On the way, stopped at a store in Atchison (which is apparently Amelia Earhardt's hometown) to get some beer. Not normally an IPA fan, but saw this and couldn't resist.



Also went past the original big house in Leavenworth.



It looks as imposing and like a place to be avoided as you'd expect.

As noted earlier, played poker for a little while, helping myself to a few bucks of the Kansans. Drove around KC for a bit, then backroaded east. Ended up at a little state park in central Missouri. That one was quite nice. Down at the end of a road, very quiet, got a good sleep.

Day 3, I was following the Missouri River on the back roads. Was a fun drive, hilly and twisty through (mostly) the woods, with some farms. Not much in the way of pulloffs to get pictures, just kind of a two-laner.

Found my way to Jefferson City, seeing the capitol and governor's mansion.





Continued on along the river. Here's where I stopped for lunch, pretty representative of this part of the drive:



Lots of wineries and a nice drive along Missouri 94 for any that might be in the area and like that sort of thing.

I knew that highway 94 goes by my friends' house, so stayed on that. I haven't visited these guys in over a decade, but figured stuff would look familiar soon. Sure enough, saw the Quik Trip with DQ across the highway--I think that's my turn, but I'll go on a little way more to be sure.

After ~5 miles, pulled off. In one of those real nice coincidences, when I fired up google maps to get directions, it told me to take a left, then veer left, then turn onto Mike and Sharon's street. Was about 5 minutes away, purely by coincidence.

Been catching up with those guys this afternoon, and we're going to the diviest of dive bars (but with great pizza) later on for dinner.

Tomorrow Big John's party, really looking forward to seeing him again. Unfortunately too much work in prep for him to go to BJ's tonight.

This is pretty much the entirety of BJ's:



Tiny little neighborhood corner bar. As always, good pizza and a couple beers. I think two large pizzas, four beers, and a soda cost ~$50.

Can't really tell from the picture, but the 'decor' (all those things on the ceiling) are various political signs. Mostly local candidates. From the font/wear/etc, I'd guess some of them go back to the 60s.

When I first started coming here, the inside was a smoky haze. Nice that's no longer allowed.

This afternoon is the cookout/party, looking forward to seeing John and Linda again.

lovin the pics and the TR!

We may have the same tent.

Thanks, Bob.

These are two of my college buds, Mike and John.



John' a member of a club that owns a house near St. Louis which has a pool, patio, and yard. Each member gets to use it one day a year, he throws a big cookout/party. So, we went over there for the afternoon.

Great to catch up with him some more and his wife. Also saw some old friends I'd met through these guys from the St. Louis area, so that was nice. A great time was had by all. Just a nice, mellow, relaxing way to catch up.

Tomorrow's agenda is to try to connect for breakfast, then I'll bail out of town. Heading toward Indy/Ohio is the plan.

Went to breakfast with Mike, Sharon and John, then left STL.

Missed the sign for the park at the confluence of Missouri & Mississippi. Not a big deal, but I'd heard there's interesting Lewis & clark stuff there.

Went across IL & most of IN, in a state park e of Indy. Camping again. I guess I made it to the Eastern time zone.

For a place that's famous for racing, Indy drivers get off the line slow when the light changes.

Before leaving the state park, took a short hike down some of their trails. It was a nice walk through the woods.



Eventually came to the mounds. Obviously not natural. There are some interpretive signs, but not terribly interesting to me.

Driving across Indiana, saw this sign


.
OK, enough silliness. Saw this fun silo near Redkey, IN



Kind of a cloudy, windy day today. Only had one spot of real rain. A good day to spend some time indoors! So went to the Armstrong Air & Space Museum. It wasn't limited to his days.
It went from the beginning of the space race through modern time. Of course, it focused Armstrong's adventures.

This was a mockup of the Gemini capsule.



Here's a Apollo engine



They had one of the containment suits post-Apollo-11 on display



Rumors of a local meth problem in 1970 also.

His backup suit from the mission



and a moon rock.





Of course, most things are in low light and flash verboten, so sorry for the poor quality.

At the end, they showed a short film about Apollo 11. One thing I learned was that, when in isolation afterward, the crew was required to fill out customs paperwork. The museum curator thought that they had to declare everything they brought back into the country.

"Yeah, we got some rocks and dirt. You know, the thing that everyone in the ****ing world watched us do?"

His hometown (where the museum is located) is rightly proud



From there, just ground NE toward Lake Erie, ended the day in Huron. Some jackoffs left their little rat dog alone in the room across the hall; fortunately, the hotel person was able to move me. (Inside tonight due to weather).

Tomorrow through Cleveland, into PA.

Oh, pshaw! You can never have enough silliness. That looks like the kind of place that might feature Red Wigglers!

Nice reference Tom!

I forgot: The Armstrong museum is having an event for the eclipse in April 2024. If any of you are astrophysics nerds, might be a fun trip.

That Red Wigglers worm reference is awesome! I remember watching WKRP as a young lad, but would never be able to pull anything from that show.

Glad you're having another fun trip. Long time listener, first time caller.

I doubt you remember, but in one of my trip reports to Vegas, you said if I ever got to the Denver area to look you up and have a beer. I made a note in my phone even. And then my son went to college at the School of Mines in Golden. I made multiple trips up there and played quite a bit of poker in Blackhawk.

Every time I thought to myself I should give you a holler. Never did and I regret it. Sadly no reason to go now since he graduated. Next time you're headed to Vegas, give me a heads up and I'll bet I can make that happen.

You are one of the good dudes on this forum that always has something nice or positive to say. It's refreshing. Looking forward to having that beer! And the rest of your adventures!