Day 1 of Second big “On the Loose” trip: Southwest Missouri to Idaho, Montana & Back

 Woo-hoo! We’re On the Loose again, in “Lucy,” our trusty 23’ KZ Vision travel trailer! After several days of  planning, sorting, packing, and preparing for a 3000+ mile trip, we pushed off yesterday at the crack of noon. We left our beautiful flower garden in almost-full bloom…hope some of the flowers are still there when we return!

We’re heading west through Kansas, Colorado, Utah & Nevada to our old stomping grounds in Idaho (Boise and Garden Valley) for our son Hudson’s wedding. Then north into Montana to visit friends from the 1970’s to 1990’s when we lived there. Then back home via a different route. We plan to avoid the Interstate highways as much as possible and discover new places and meet new friends. It’s such fun to be wandering again!

Curt has always loved maps, so we don’t use a GPS in our travels We purchased a new spiral-bound atlas for this trip. He plans our route each day, and this is his low-tech alternative to the GPS: a hand-written memo with basic directions, placed in the speedometer well. It works great, and we occasionally get to find some real unexpected surprises in our travels!

As we entered Eastern Kansas, we immediately saw a difference in the farming from southwest Missouri. There weren’t nearly as many cattle ranch operations, and we saw LOTS more cornfields. Apparently the soil in Kansas is perfect for corn. If it’s supposed to be “knee high by the Fourth of July,” they’re ahead of schedule; most of the fields we saw appeared to be at least shoulder high. Lots of wheat fields, too, as we headed farther west, with the accompanying grain elevators on many of the farms.

With a couple of stops for gas, and one lunch stop (foraging in Lucy’s refrigerator), we made it halfway across Kansas to Cheney Lake State Park. There was enough daylight left to enjoy our lakeside campsite and walk down to the little pebbled beach. I LOVED our weathered picnic table, ravaged by the elements. Looks like you could use one of the planks as an emergency water ski!

It was a LONG first day (especially since I had been up packing till 3 am the previous night!)…so we turned in early and slept like babies all night! It’s so great to be on the road again. The last time we took an extended trip was in 2014, from Texas up to Maine, into Canada’s Maritime Provinces, and back down to Texas through New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and back down to the Texas coast. We started with our pop-up tent camper, traveling the first 7000 miles in that, and then in Maine we traded it in for Lucy and traveled the last 3000 miles in comparative luxury! That’s the trip that got me started writing this blog. If you’re interested in reading about it, click on the 2014 year in the right hand sidebar, and keep scrolling down to May, 2014. 

Day 2 will involved more of Kansas. It’s a wide state!!! As we pass all the farms, I’m so grateful for the farmers and their families who work so hard to provide the abundant food we enjoy. Some of our best friends are farmers, and we know that it’s a risky business, financially and health-wise, as well as an enormous amount of unbelievably hard work. Thank you, farmers and ranchers!