Today our plan was to see two places from the coffee table book and drive to Kansas City to see the Harley Davidson factory. It was a long drive, but we were just going to snap a few pictures and keep heading down the road. Well, we just couldn't pass up he opportunity to drive into Springfield,IL. It would be a shame to pass up all of that history! So we pulled off the highway and decided to take a quick look around. Wow! This was definitely a whole day stop! They have the whole street where Abraham Lincoln lived blocked off, and you can walk all around! What really cute houses! The had tours of the interiors of most of the homes, but we had to settle for just seeing the outside because of the time crunch to get to Kansas City. We also took pictures of the State Capital building - beautiful! While I was standing in front, setting up the perfect shot, a professional photographer sets up his lighting umbrellas right in front of me :( I asked if he would be long, and he said just about 5 minutes because they were bringing out the Stanley Cup to photograph in front of the Capital! What luck to be there right at that moment! So, I got a great picture of the Capital, AND the Stanley Cup in front!
OK, so we were getting a little behind schedule, but Springfield was really fun. We no sooner got back on the road and the lightning began. The sky was getting nasty, and we knew we were in for it. We were only about an hour and a half from Griggsville IL., so we weren't too worried. We started to get some heavy rain, but only in brief spurts. The little, sleepy town of Griggsville is really into the conservation of the "Purple Martin" birds. Every where you look there are bird houses! They are on every light pole, mailbox, front yard and the best is a huge tower of birdhouses on a pole, several stories high, right in the middle of town! Wow, a whole town of bird watchers - amazing.
It's on to Kansas City! With darkness falling and the weather getting worse, we plugged our destination into the GPS. Oops, a slight miscalculation on our part - 300 miles?!?! So we pulled over and tried to find RV parks. Not easy way out here in the never ending corn fields (honest, they have been out my window for the past 4 hours!) We were not anywhere near the main highways now, so our journey would be on farm roads. We found a spot to stay in Boonville, MO, about 150 miles away, much more doable than all the way to Kansas City.
Rain, lightning, rain, lightning but we were making progress. Finally on a major highway, and about 30 miles from Boonville, we decided to stop for some dinner, because it looked like we were actually going to get in before 9pm! After a quick bite, we left the restaurant to go back to the RV and head out. The wind was really blowing - I mean really hard, we could hardly walk. I asked Rich how we would know if there was a tornado coming! We got back on the road asap and then it hit - rain and lightning like I have never seen before! The lightning was SO bright that it was like flashbulbs going off in our face! The pounding rain made seeing between flashes impossible. Everyone turned on their flashers and crawled along - everyone except the truckers that is. THEY ARE CRAZY PEOPLE!!! The traffic slowed even more, then finally, it stopped. They closed the Highway! After crawling, inch by inch, for almost 2 hours, we were able to get off the highway, and park at a gas station until things got better. The rain stopped and so did the wind, but the lightning continued. We got back on the road and BAM! It poured!
Finally, we arrived a little after 11pm at our little (really little) RV Express :) Tomorrow we will get to Kansas City and beyond.
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