Day Four: Missouri, Kansas, Kansas, Kansas, and Colorado

Day 4 miles driven: 860 miles
Day 4 time on road: 13 hours and 45 minutes

Hot and long: Interstate 70

Day four was a long one, that's for sure.

We left Katie, Jason & James hopped up on coffee and a breakfast of homemade bread and zoomed straight through Missouri, with a brief stop outside of Kansas City in Independence, Harry Truman's hometown (Also exciting: Just before Independence is a town called Blue Springs, hometown of American Idol David Cook.) A definite trend is emerging on this road trip, where we'll see signs for something we'd like to check out, get off the highway, and realize it's much too far off our route. Sorry Truman (and Eisenhower, Earhart, Hayes, Boone & Garfield) - we just can't afford an hour long detour!

The Missouri River around 9 AM

Over 750 miles of the trip went straight across Interstate 70 (this is why we need no GPS), mostly through Kansas. We'd been warned about Kansas, and its overwhelming flatness and boring landscape, so maybe we just had low expectations, but we actually enjoyed the views: not-that-flat pastures, windmills, cows, sunflower fields, and awesome advertisements for things like the World's Largest Prairie Dog.


We looped around Topeka for some driveby views of the capitol (and "something real"), and grabbed lunch from a chain named Taco John's. It is much like Taco Bell, but they have tater tots called "Potatoes Ole" which are amazing.


After lunch we toughened up and drove 400 miles of the Sunflower State without stopping. Although we would have like to have stopped by Oz (museum and winery), we settled for some ice cream at our first-ever Sonic drive-thru instead. Thanks for that experience, Russell, KS!

Things that helped us through the long journey through Kansas: "Route 66" by Natalie Cole; AAA guidebooks that taught us about towns that we passed (so that we didn't have to stop and visit); terrible modern rock DJs that we could yell at; the classic driving sing-along "Bohemian Rhapsody".

The Sunflower farms were quite scenic right as we entered Rocky Mountain Time and crossed the border to Colorado. Gaining an hour was a nice surprise because it meant we wouldn't be too late to our destination. The clouds in eastern Colorado ruined our potential sunset vista, but we made it through the last hours of the drive despite the darkness and rain. We were not in Kansas anymore (I apologize).


We've landed in Longmont, Colorado (near Boulder), where we're taking a day off from driving to hang with family - Trevor's brother Tyler, his wife Dulcie and their cat Tac. Beer tasting will continue.