Circle the Wagons

In the 1800s, a wagon would have taken 8-10 weeks to travel between Independence, MO and Santa Fe, NM along the Santa Fe Trail. Thankfully, we were able to drive it in four days and see/do lots of fun things along the way!

Altogether, we spent 11 days on this trip - two in Chicago, two visiting my parents, and seven on the road between Illinois and California.

3117 miles

A Journey of a Thousand Miles...

...begins with a single step.  -Lao Tzu

Or, in this case, a journey of *three* thousand miles begins with a single *park*!

In order to get to our last two stops in Independence, MO before closing time, we had to stick to a tight schedule today. So we said our goodbyes to my parents and were on the road by 7:45AM. 

An hour later, we arrived at Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield. Since we have been here many times before, this was just going to be a "stamp-and-run" stop. But because the visitor center wasn't open yet, we walked over for a selfie in front of the house while we waited.

Melting Points

By the numbers...

• 3057 miles
• 8 states
• 15 new NPS units
• 38 NPS passport stamps
• 19 NPS Centennial stamps
• 2 state capitals
• 6 smushed pennies
• 4 cans of spray paint

The Plant Doctor

The first destination on our itinerary today was George Washington Carver National Monument, about 30 miles west of Monett in Diamond, MO. Because we also had two other places to visit later in the day, we hit the road as early as our teenagers could tolerate.

Get Your Kicks...

Well, if you ever plan to motor west,

Take my way, it's the highway, that's the best.

Get your kicks on Route 66.

Well, it winds from Chicago to L.A.

More than 2000 miles all the way,

Get your kicks on Route 66.

When we decided to drive one-way back to CA from IL for our summer vacation, I had originally entitled this our "Route 66" trip. But after planning out our itinerary to visit national park units along the way, I realized that we would be detouring from the Mother Road for a good portion of the time. So, it was rechristened as the "Help Me, I'm Melting" road trip because most likely it would be obscenely hot everywhere we went. That's been the case so far. Boo!

Meet Me in St. Louis

About a week before we came back to Illinois, my parents received news that one of their dear friends had passed away. They wanted to attend the memorial service on June 27 in Columbia, MO – but didn’t want to cut our visit with them short. Knowing how close they were to their friend and his family, we totally understood. Since we were planning a day trip down to Springfield anyway and the Cubs just so happened to be playing the Cardinals in St. Louis, it was easy to find a way to entertain ourselves while my mom and dad were out of town. And thanks to a couple of great guys from my hometown, we were able to get tickets to the game tonight!

It started to rain as we were driving to Springfield. Actually, torrential downpour is more accurate – the scary kind where your windshield wipers cannot go fast enough, and semi-trucks are kicking up more water on top of that. If only there were a way to import some of that rain to California!

Signs

My collection of entrance signs, 20 National Park Service units visited in all...

June 19

We're Off to See the Wizard

Mom baked muffins to send us on our way this morning – blueberry for us, chocolate chip for the kids. Oh yeah! And we got to take the leftovers with us on the road! Dad had a tee time in Pekin, so he escorted us out of town on his way to the golf course.