Older notes ... coming across the southern states somewhere we saw a cloud of dusk I thought was coming from someone driving down a dirt road. Turns out it was from a train car leaking something. I had thought of calling, but up ahead there was a crew working on a switch, I'm guessing they would notice when they got covered with whatever it was.

Got going shortly after daylight. From the motel it was a U-turn onto the street and then the freeway. Stay in the merge lane and we went from I-40 to I-49 and that took us all the way to Kansas City. All the freeway still isn't done but almost. When I started going this route it was a narrow two lane road amongst the hillbilliest.

First stop was at Bentonville at a Walmart / Murphy for fuel. Lots of Walmarts in AR ;) Gas was $2.25, other places at the exit were $2.45 and more as we head north.

Somewhere today there was a cop that came up behind me, pulled out to pass and then stayed right there. I had to pass someone, so I got in front of him and then back in my own lane. He followed, and followed ... for maybe 10 plus miles before he finally pulled off. And he was following close, not back in the distance. At times, I'd have gotten a ticket for following someone that close.

A couple of hours later we stop at a Pilot in Nevada, MO for a rest stop and buy some juice. Too early to eat so we stop again in an hour at Benton at a Jimmy Johns. Seems there was only one Honeybaked in KC and we were not going to be going close to it. We got through KC without slow downs.

We stop again in Lamoni, IA at a rest area, and then we also got through Des Moines without slowdowns.

We won't get our car picked up and to a motel before dark so we stop in Clear Lake, first for fuel at Pilot. Then at an Asian place for food ... including left overs. And then to the Microtel for the night. Good food and it looks like we will be home to eat them.

Nothing good on the board from IA, they should have dumped 100+ by now. We'll wait. 32 out of NC, where were they when we sat down there for part of the month of January ... Guess we need to sit down there in February instead. Plan for now is to wait for something going to southern CA until Friday. If still nothing, we will head to the SE instead.

Another couple of surprises. Someone runs a fuel report for us once a day so now we have all the details, but someone is charging us an extra $1.25 for something. I'll need to check that out. And I got paid an extra $100 for transportation that no one told me about. Hmm.

Back in the cold ... ready to leave.