Tuesday, August 23, 2022
It’s official!! We began our trip west on August 23. 
The Suburban is remodeled enough for its maiden voyage. With three wiener dogs…we’ll see how living in such small quarters will be over the next several weeks.
It’s been a long time in the planning stages and the time has finally come to get back on the road for a good long while. The plan is simple…we must make it to Fort Bridger Wyoming for the Labor Day holiday weekend, then meander to enjoy the fall colors out west. We’ll be taking our office with us and traveling slow.
When we’ll return isn’t for certain. Robert has a music gig booked on December 10th, so we must be back in Springfield by then. We have no idea how traveling with our three weiner dogs will be in such close quarters. We’ve promised ourselves that we won’t be disappointed if our trip is cut short because it becomes too stressful or chaotic with all of us living in the Suburban.
On departure day, we got a later start than we what was originally planned. The past several weeks had been full of work projects. At the end of June, we decided to put our rental house on the market. So…that meant our schedule was even busier with doing prep work to the house to get it sold in the months of July and August. The work on the house made us feel behind on getting the Suburban ready for our trip. On top of that, we had a whirlwind trip to Lexington, KY for the CLA (Contemporary Longrifle Association) show right before our planned departure date. We had been burning the candle at both ends.
We weren’t going to postpone our trip. No way. We left the Springfield house at about noon on Tuesday, August 23. We didn’t get but a mile from the house before we made our first stop. Culver’s was on the itinerary for lunch because we were starving.
Day one wasn’t going to be a long drive. By 4:30 PM, we had arrived at Women’s Bridge Park in Baldwin City, Kansas. We let the dogs out to exercise and eat. It was a hot afternoon, but the dogs seemed to be doing just fine.
We went to visit our good friends Mike and Cheryl in their new home in Baldwin City. We had a lovely visit. The dogs did well even though they haven’t been around new folks in a very long time.
We went to eat at a local restaurant for taco Tuesday. The sun had set, so the Suburban was cooler, but I was still worried that the dogs would be stressed or bark a lot while we were in the restaurant. To monitor them, I left my phone in the Suburban and Robert called it. My phone had the speaker on and Robert kept his phone on mute. The only thing we heard during dinner was the occasional snoring from Lucy.
After dinner, Mike suggested that we stay at Douglas Fishing Lake. It was much closer than where we were thinking about camping. Mike and Cheryl led the way to Douglas where we then said our goodbyes.
It was a great recommendation.
Day 1 was coming to an end. Our adventure is just beginning.
Odometer Reading
Beginning: 180505.2
Ending: 180700.5
Miles Traveled Today: 195.3
