Garden City, KS

We are finally here at the Clarion Inn in Garden City, KS. Today's drive went very well, and we got here about the time we figured we would. We set out at about 3:30 this afternoon, driving until I (Emily) needed my first bathroom stop at...well, a McDonald's somewhere in Oklahoma. Can't remember what the town was called now. :-) Somewhere past Tulsa anyway.

We got our nice picture outside where Steve kindly tried to point to my bladder to indicate the purpose for our stop. Now it just looks like I'm pulling his finger. :-)





Our next exciting stop was when we crossed into Kansas. After getting out our handy dandy camera stand thingie, we set it up on the hood of the Jeep, set the 10-second timer and ran to the sign. As you can see, we didn't make it in time! When the picture took, Steve was actually turned around saying, "Are we gonna make it!?" I thought it turned out better than if we'd actually made it to the sign! We set off for Wichita...a fairly uneventful drive with conversation topics such as cow flatulence being a contributor to global warming. Any guesses on who started that conversation?!

After a stop at Spanglers, a burger place in Wichita, we got off I35 and started west on 400 at about 7:30. We stopped an hour or so later in a little town called Pratt to get gas and switched drivers. I took that last stretch from Pratt to Garden City, and that's when my nostalgia kicked in. By about 9:30, it was getting dark, and we could see lightning on the horizon. It was pinkish-purple just like I remembered from our trips when I was little. Of course I had to point out the color to Steve EVERY time lightning would strike. He tried to sound impressed each time since he is SUCH a nice guy.

The next moment of nostalgia kicked in when a smell hit our noses. Yes, it was the smell of cows. Along with the memory of laying my head on the pillow up against the window while I watched the pink lightning, I remembered a feed yard somewhere along that drive. It's amazing the memories my mind held onto for the last 16 or 17 years!

I guess that's probably about as exciting as I can make a post about Kansas. We'll head out of here tomorrow morning, maybe not as early as we hoped since it's after 12 now! Guess we'll be back on here from Colorado the next time!

Love you all!