2012--Day 1

Day 1

Arrived without incident in Colorado.  At least this year I managed to get some sleep.  After picking up the van (starting mileage 3647), we finally started out on I70 toward Kansas around 3 pm local time.  Already a pretty raucous bunch, but that’s a good thing. 

One thing…our Chevy van has a VERY tight suspension—you feel every rut in the road.  Gotta be careful on the dirt roads.

We’re committed to Pratt, Kansas (about 470 miles from DIA) for tonight, which (hopefully) puts us in a good place for a moderate risk of severe weather on Wednesday.  Pratt is in south-central Kansas, about halfway between Wichita and Greensburg.  The latter was the site of a F5 tornado a few years ago, which basically leveled most of the town.  Our location should be good for Wednesday and Thursday, but it looks like the action later will be the Front Range, which means driving to Kansas/Oklahoma/Arkansas, and THEN back to pretty much where we started.

Passed through the town of Genoa, CO, where there was an actual sign that said ‘Point of Interest,’ but didn’t see anything interesting.  On the other hand, I swear I smelled salami while we drove through it (others did too).

Once we crossed into Kansas, all the kids hopped out of the car and took their pictures underneath the ‘Welcome to Kansas’ sign—never gets old.  The kids seemed genuinely excited.  Apparently I70 is the ‘Main Street of Kansas.’  While on Main Street we saw a section of newly paved highway with very crooked white lines—someone must be drinking their lunch (or breakfast).

While driving past a Kansas state trooper going well under the speed limit (75), I concocted a story about how Gustavo and I are pastors in a church group: The Church of the Vertical Rotation,  Our motto: we abhor CIN.

After a quick dinner in Colby and what felt like 49 hours of travel, we finally arrived in Pratt around 11:30 pm CDT while getting a distant lightning show to the southeast.  Final tally: 492 miles.  That’s a wrap!