drive…setup…sleep…pack up…drive…setup…sleep…

When planning our trip we look at distances to drive (we want to keep it around 300 miles/ 5 hours per day), and research things to see and do in the general areas that we will be traveling through. Tripadvisor is our friend! Sometimes we need to be somewhere on certain dates, so we have to plan around that- our family reunion in Colorado is a perfect example! We knew that we needed to take holidays into consideration when making campground reservations, as campgrounds in popular areas book up early (i.e. 4th of July). As I mentioned earlier, on this trip we also learned that we need to take holidays into consideration when identifying sites and activities we want to do.

Our next big lesson on this trip is that driving 300+ miles, (5-6 hours) then staying somewhere for only 1 night and then driving 300+ miles and staying somewhere only 1 night is EXHAUSTING! You wouldn’t think that if you were driving a car and staying in a hotel, but camping in a trailer is a lot more work. We aren’t complaining at all, because it gives us so many opportunities, but it is true. So next time we will build in more relaxation or down time!

We have done 1-night stays five times so far on this trip, and will do it 3 more times when we head back west- sigh.

Because Jerry is still having vision problems, Karel is doing the driving, so Jerry is enjoying sightseeing. Contrary to what we thought, Kansas is NOT flat and boring! There were lots of rolling hills, and the scenery was very nice! There were also a lot of crops and an endless sky:

Kansas has some HUGE grain silos:

We did get pictures of some of the state signs:

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In Missouri we had a bunny visit our campsite, and we saw our first fireflies of the season:

Some of the roads have been challenging, and I drove the trailer around a rotary- they have to be big enough for a firetruck, so we can do it too! And we saw the St. Louis Arch:

This ends our 1-night stays for a while- next stop is one of our favorite campgrounds!