Category Archives: U.S.A.

SeaJack Day #4

Wednesday was the fourth day of our road trip and because of the special event on this day I’m going to have two separate posts breaking the day into two halfs.

The first post for Day #4 can be called, ” I’m going to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come.”  We started in Nebraska, crossed a bridge into Iowa and then continued on I-29 crossing into Missouri and on to Kansas City.

P1050090Our route to I-29 took us through this quaint Main street in Plattsmouth where we continued on crossing the Plattsmouth bridge over the Missouri river and which had a $1.25 toll.

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P1050105Did you notice we have sunshine and clouds? We had mostly dry weather on this day. There were pockets of rain but they didn’t last long.

P1050111After two and a half hours on the road we spotted Kansas City in the distance.

SeaJack 4 Pentax2We had a very important lunch date in Kansas City and I’m happy to say we weren’t late. We found our way to Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbecue where we were meeting up with a long time bloggy friend Pam and her daughter Whitney.

SeaJack #4 002Over my blogging years I’ve always appreciated Pam’s thoughtful words and prayers for me and others. She’s a gem.

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Pam’s husband sent Pam to lunch with instructions to pay for our meal. Thank you Pam’s hubby. We really appreciate your generosity. We had no problem with conversation throughout our meal. The food was delicious and filling. Pam gave Katie and me a bag with homemade cookies to take along our journey. Pam! The cookies are delicious and we do want the recipe…as close as you can get it! 🙂

 

Collages7We are so happy it worked out with timing for us to be able to meet up for lunch. This was the end of the first half of day four on the road. I’ll share about the second half of day 4 tomorrow as we continued east through St. Louis into Illinois.

SeaJack Day #3

I might be sounding like a broken record but we woke up to some more severe weather conditions in Rapid City, South Dakota. When the sun broke through we were brave enough to make a run for it. While we waited for the car to warm up and melt off the ice/snow on the windshield the wind was so strong that our car was rocking. I’m so sad I didn’t get a photo of the snow blowing horizontally. Very little snow accumulated on the ground. It accumulated on signs, windows, one side of the tree trunks, etc.

P1050082These are the welcome and information signs at a rest area stop in South Dakota.

We saw whitecaps on irrigation ponds as we continued east on I-90.

1538676_750416558918_7477388747956774918_nToday we crossed the state of South Dakota heading East from Rapid City. We smiled as we passed an exit that said this was the home town of John Thune, senator from South Dakota. His brother Bob was our pastor for a few years in Huntington Beach, California. Bob Thune is an exceptional teacher of God’s Word. We also passed the exit for the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder. We waved, Willow! Wish we could have gone out of our way the 50 miles to see it.

We headed South at Sioux Falls, S.D. and finally made it into Iowa.

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SeaJack #3 015The Missouri River in Iowa.

P1050086We traveled in three states again today, South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska. Tonight we are staying south of Omaha, Nebraska.

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It was a very long travel day today and we didn’t get to our hotel until after 6:00 P.M. Since it was Tuesday our regular day at home to go out for Mexican food we found a Mexican restaurant close to the hotel for our later than usual dinner. We are beat and happy to have been carried along by the prayers of our friends and family today. Bless you all. We have a nice place to lay our heads. We are really looking forward to meeting up with Pam a dear bloggy friend and her daughter in Kansas City tomorrow for lunch.

We have learned that we need to be flexible with our plans when we have to deal with changing weather patterns. We had planned to see Mt. Rushmore today before we hit the road to Nebraska but the weather proved to be too severe to enjoy that extra side trip.

Our hearts go out to all those who have suffered in the path of tornadoes and other severe weather this week.

 

SeaJack Day #2

Today, Monday, is the second day of our road trip from Seattle to Jacksonville, N.C. We woke up to quite a surprise in Bozeman this morning, snow!

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We listened to the news and decided to leave a little later than usual hoping the roads would be good for our travels across Montana, Wyoming, ending in Rapid City, North Dakota. The snow ended up being a non issue once we were on the road. The more extreme conditions we dealt with on this day were wind gusts up to 45 mph.

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Driving in snow scares me so I had to put my big girl pants on and hit the road asking for prayers for a safe journey for Katie and me. Soon we had views like the following. I drove until we got to Wyoming so the following  photos are from Wyoming and South Dakota while I was free to take photos from the car.

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We arrived to our hotel at 5:30 and got ready to head out to dinner. I bookmarked the spots for dinner before we left Seattle. The restaurant we went to in Bozeman and in Rapid City were both located on Main Street.

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Murphy’s Pub and Grill downtown Rapid City

Both Sunday and Monday we drove through 3 states. Tomorrow (Tuesday) we plan to make it to Omaha, Nebraska. On Sunday we listened to an Agatha Christie ebook, And Then There Were None. When we finished that book we started Brian Jacques’ Redwall and continued listening to it today. We are reaching the conclusion of this unabridged ebook. Listening to books while driving really helps me to enjoy the road more.

What do you like to do on road trips?

I hope none of my bloggy friends have had any damage due to the tornado activity in our country right now.

SeaJack Roadtrip Day #1

I decided to name our road trip from Seattle, Washington to Jacksonville, North Carolina…SeaJack.

We traveled across Washington, Idaho and halfway across Montana on Sunday, the first day of our road trip (677 miles). We are now settled into our hotel enjoying a relaxing evening. Here are some highlights in photos of day one.

My favorite part of today was meeting up with Dan and Jamie in Spokane Valley for brunch.

P1050064Such a joy to see their faces and spend a little time together.

Katie took the wheel for a while after we made it into Montana and the next few photos are from the car on Interstate 90 in Montana on our way to Bozeman. Did you know that the speed limit in Montana is mostly 75 miles per hour? Woohoo!

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After we arrived in Bozeman shortly after 6 PM we found historic Main street and had a light dinner at the Copper Whiskey. I enjoyed the beet salad and Katie had a pulled pork sandwich.

Road Day 1

Tomorrow we head to Rapid City South Dakota watching the weather reports closely.