A Very Long Drive...From Kentucky to Colorado...

Claude and I had ourselves prepared for the trip west as soon as we got the telephone call saying our Julie had passed away. Then I had a 'flash of intellect'. I suggested to Claude that we begin our trip. I would ask my sister, Neffie, if she felt comfortable with us visiting her and Mike before we traveled on to Utah. They were absolutely okay with the idea. So we packed up and stopped the mail and left Sadieville at 7am Sunday, July 26th. 

As we left, we stopped at Love's Travel Plaza to fill up the gas tank. We found another trailer this time full of tractors. Not sure what is happening, but it feels like a phenomena peculiar to Sadieville.

It takes 11 1/2 hours to get to Stigler, Oklahoma. We had a long drive ahead of us. As we drove through Tennessee, I sent a text to our kids that we just drove past Bucksnort, Tennessee followed by Ft. Pillow State Park. We drove to Memphis and crossed the Mississippi into Arkansas.

From there we made our way up the highway to Oklahoma. We would pass Toad Suck Park! We arrived at the Hurst home around 7pm CST with plenty of daylight to tour their farm. The first three pictures are from their back deck. They actually live on a bluff that overlooks the Arkansas River. The have goats, a burro, chickens and turkeys. Quite the menagerie. 

We walked the rest of the farm. We saw the sheds that house the animals, the barn for trailers, the barn for tractors and big equipment, the shed for sorting pecans and bagging them and the nut barn where the pecans are left to dry. This farm came with a pecan orchard. So Mike takes care of that part of the farm and sells the pecans. His heart is more into the animals and the garden. They have even tried raising bees. The next two pictures are of the pond where their grandchildren swim and fish when they visit and part of the pecan orchard. The original two bedroom home to the farm is across from the house Neffie and Mike had built for them. 

We ate dinner and the sat and visited until bedtime. 

We received notice on Sunday that Julie did pass away in the morning. It was a good thing we were on our way. The funeral was set for Thursday. Our plan had been to spend Sunday and Monday night with Neffie and Mike and then go to Utah. With this news, we altered our plans and left Monday at 10:30am CST for Utah.

Monday, July 27th, we spent a few hours with Nef and Mike before hitting the road. I brought a quilt top I had cross stitched years ago and never made into a king-sized quilt. Neffie is a master quilter. She owns one of the long-arm quilting machines and totally enjoys quilting. I asked her if she would make a quilt of this top for me. I explained that, in the world of quilting, she is a college graduate and I am a kindergartner. She is going to do that for me. Neffie has an amazing room for her quilting and crafts. She has one wall that is a bulletin board. She had thumb tacked my quilt top to the wall to get a feel for what she needed to do. 

We discussed what I was thinking and Neffie shared her expertise and I left my quilt top with my sister. It is in good hands. 

We got a couple of pictures before we left. One of the four of us and one of Neffie and Mike in front of their home.

Now, the Hurst home is quite literally 'in the middle of nowhere'. We were happy we found our way in. We were concerned about finding our way out and to the highway we needed be on. Mike drew us this lovely map and we made it to our highway just fine. 

We filled up with gas in Stigler and were ready to boogy down the road. The clouds were so fun to watch this day. We both enjoyed them and they were a respite from the sun beating down on the car. It only rained once for a bit. We chose to drive the toll roads so that we could make better time this day. It costs $6.25 total in Oklahoma and $2.50 total in Kansas. This extra time would allow us to take a slower road through Colorado the next day. Worth the cost. Totally. We also began to see good old western names for towns and businesses like Cimmaron and Chisholm. At the border into Colorado there was even a town named Kamarado. I'm thinking that is a blending for leaving Kansas and entering Colorado. It was in Colorado that my ears first popped. Lots of windmills and windmill farms to generate electricity as well as a few windmills to get water and a pump getting oil from the ground. The horizons went on forever in some places. Wide open spaces. 

We made it to the border of Kansas and stopped for gasoline again. Found this cute sign which seemed very appropriate as we left Kansas. I also took this sunset picture as we left Kansas. 

While driving across Colorado, I made a reservation for us on the east side of Denver at at Quality Inn. We realized something was wrong as soon as we got off I-70. We were on Tower Road which has three lanes of traffic each direction. However, there were no lights. None. Nada. We had a distance to go to the block for the hotel and all the way there were no lights. Top this off with the fact that the hotel was in a sea of hotels. All of them tall. All of them with absolutely no lights. We did see a fire truck in the area. We finally found the right hotel after circling the blocks several times. They could not check us in which was okay as there was no elevator and we would have had to walk up a dark stairwell. Not a good idea. The fire truck was actually going from hotel to hotel, checking their situation, then turning on the lights for that hotel. The eventually made their way to our hotel, got the lights on, and we checked in and found our room and a very comfortable bed for the night.