GoofyMom's Even Greater American Road Trip - 2008 - Updated 11/14 About This Page:

[GoofyMom]

Last year, my hubby Dan and I had the chance to road trip through basically Central USA. We drove to the Panhandle of Florida, then headed west to Texas and then north again through the Rockies and Black Hills to get home. We took it easy and just enjoyed ourselves. You can find my trip report about it GoofyMom's Great American Road Trip to Florida if you are so inclined.

The travelers: Dan and myself. Same as last year, the kids are old enough to leave at home alone now, so once again they were not invited.

The dates: Originally planned for September 10 – October 14, 2008. Unfortunately, we had to cut the trip short and we got home on October 8.

Where: Check out this map! This was our original route. We had to change it a bit and missed basically all of New England.


Why: Dan & I enjoyed our road trip last year so much that we wanted to do it again. But this time he was able to get more time off from work. So this time our trip was expanded to cover a lot more territory!

Planning: I don’t remember all the planning details. We started out by inviting ourselves to our good friends, Bill & Jan’s (LizardCop and his DW) home. Or maybe they invited us. I don't remember. Then a trip to Disney got worked into that. Then a trip up I-95 to spend time with more really good friends, Sue & Steve (rescuesk & her DH). We added a few PassPorter meets into the mix as time went by. We picked our dates and Dan requested time off, which was approved. Dan decided to make it a goal to drive through as many states as we could. The only one we couldn’t feasibly do was West Virginia because that would have meant a major detour. By the end of this trip, we were hoping to have been in 48 of the 50 states (only missing Alaska and West Virginia). It didn’t turn out that way, but we still managed to add a few new states to our list of conquests.

Monkey Wrenches: In June we had a monkey wrench thrown in to our plans. At first we didn’t think it would have any impact on our trip because it happened in early June. Dan and I were riding bicycles through the park on June 10th. He slowed down while I was shoulder checking and my front tire bumped his back tire. I fell over hard and ended up strapped onto a back board wearing a neck collar getting a ride to the Emergency Room in an ambulance.

A couple hours on that backboard was nearly cause to call Amnesty International - it felt like torture!

After x-rays and stitches, I was deemed ok and was released. Fast forward through the summer…. I was having a heck of a time recovering. Something happened to my pelvis in that crash and it made it extremely painful for me to walk and sometimes even just to sit. I visited my doctor a few times looking for pain relief and answers. It was getting to the point by August that we started looking into renting a wheelchair for our trip. Finally we thought we found the right drug, but shortly after starting it I started to have a bad reaction. I discontinued using the drug, but it had worked wonders and I felt that I wouldn’t need to get a wheelchair after all. Yeah. Cue Monkey Wrench #2. You’ll see that didn’t work out so well later. The final Monkey Wrench came while we were away. I developed a very nasty sore throat on October 2 and you’ll see how that affected our trip when I get to that point in the trip report.

Then of course, there were the hurricanes. We didn’t know if Hurricane Ike was going to have any impact on our trip. It’s projected path through the Gulf of Mexico kept changing and right up until September 9th we didn’t know if we would be able to drive to Florida’s Panhandle or if we would be in the middle of an evacuated area and not allowed to go there. Jan and I were hoping like crazy that it would fizzle out over Cuba, but as we all know, that didn’t work out. Fortunately for us, Ike took a left turn through the Gulf and it looked like it was going to hit Texas. (Again, I send to everybody who got impacted by Ike because I know some people will be recovering from it for a long time.)

So…. This was all cutting it very close and it was only a few days before our departure date that I was feeling well enough to start preparing for our trip. I bought $450 worth of groceries for the kids, had a hair appointment and finally got into Packing Mode and started packing up clothes, shoes, jackets, and various other paraphernalia that I thought we would need for a trip that would encompass Summer and Autumn and quite possibly early Winter weather.

The night of September 9th, Dan packed up the van with all the suitcases and Rubbermaid totes, his bicycle and his golf clubs, our winter survival gear, and all our maps and AAA guidebooks. All that was left to do was throw in our toothbrushes and start driving early the next morning!

Coming up.... Ummmm, it's a CANADIAN passport....

[christiejay]

Yay, you've started your report! I really enjoyed reading about your last road trip and was excited to see that you had another one planned. So sorry about the bike accident! Looking forward to hearing about all your experiences - a whole month - WOW!

[magic mickey]

I can't wait to hear about all your adventures, Donna. I am sorry that I wasn't able to come to the PA passporter meet and meet you in person.

[MickeyMAC]

Great start, looking forward to following your adventure.

[Tigger1221]

Great start. Can't wait to read more. I am really sorry I missed you this time around when you stopped in my neck of the woods though!

[Minnie Lor]

I'm so glad you started but what a start. I didn't know that you got hurt and were hurting. I'm glad that you got to still do your trip (you weren't very far from me So glad that you didn't have to go the wheelchair route and I hope that you are completely mended.

[CaseyC]

I am glad that you and Dan made it home safely. I was hoping so as I hadn't seen you post this past week. It was great seeing you again at the PA PP meet! I am definitely looking forward to your report.

[DrDolphin]

Yeah!! I am so glad you've started your TR.... can't wait to read all about the parts I didn't get to see personally.

[chezp]

I'm so glad you've started this trip report, as I'm really looking forward to reading all about your travels through the States.

[LizardCop]

Good Start Kiddo!!!

[emtpej]

Sorry I didn't see you on your trip. I still want to hear all about it, though!

[wdwmom23boys]

I just found your TR this morning! I'm sorry you've had such a rough summer physically. Can't wait to hear all about your road trip adventures!!

[GoofyMom]

Day 1, Wednesday September 10

We woke up at 3:50 a.m. After showering, leaving a note for the kids, watering the plants because I had forgotten to the night before and finally piling into the van, we pulled out of our driveway. It was 4:50 a.m. The odometer read 97953 km and it was 12º C (54F).

We made good time getting out of the city and we were at the American border at 6:00. I slept through some of the drive to the border because I was fortunate enough to be developing a migraine. Thankfully I caught it early and managed to take my drugs in time to ward off anything major. I woke up and we pulled into the only gate open at that time of the day; watching the van ahead of us get searched by the border guard. He wasn’t doing a major search, but just enough to be a pain in the butt. We hoped he had got it out of his system with that van, but apparently the answer was nope. We hand him our passports. He looks at them and asks "What country are you residents of?" Um. Canadian passports; Manitoba licence plates on our van. So obviously we're residents of Japan. He then asked us the usual questions – the “Why” “How long” and “Where” ones. Dan told him we were on a 5 week road trip and the furthest south we were going was Walt Disney World before we would turn back north and come home. The man actually asked Dan “What’s in Walt Disney World?” Both of our jaws dropped. Um, you know – Disney World? One of the top tourist destinations in the world? He then made us open the doors of the van so he could check it. Luckily he just peeked inside the van and didn’t ask us to open the suitcases or totes because I didn’t relish the thought of putting the totes back together again if he decided to look all through them. I had them packed like tetris and it would’ve taken me forever to get them back so they could close!

Finally we satisfied the Border Guard and he handed us our passports back and told us to drive safely or something like that. It was 6:20, 57ºF and we were on the 75 mph Interstate! Wait a minute. Construction? Reduced speed to 65 mph. Well, that’s still fast. So we managed to make good time getting to Grand Forks. It was 7:30 when we pulled into a gas station there. Now, I know that gas prices have increased in the USA to the point where it is financially difficult; however…. Gas is sooo much cheaper in the USA than in Winnipeg, so we had purposefully left only enough gas in the tank to get us to about Grand Forks or Fargo, ND. We put 20 gallons in at $3.699/gal -- a fill-up that only cost $74! Our last fill-up in Winnipeg was $106. Dan got a coffee and a cinnamon roll for breakfast. I still couldn’t eat anything because of my headache, but it was getting better.

Meet Bob. He's the bobbing flamingo that Jan gave me the last time I was at their place. So he came along on the trip with us and he'll probably make a few appearances in our photos....


Bob and the construction cones


Continuing on, we made the N Dak and S Dak state line by 9:25.


We tried to take a picture of every state's welcome sign when we drove through. Some turned out nicely, some.... not so much Luckily this one worked.

It had warmed up to 63F, but it was windy and overcast. We switched drivers at the rest stop at the border because Dan needed a nap. I didn’t see it, but Dan made a note that there was a Sunoco gas station in northern SD selling regular gas for $2.559/gallon! Bummer we couldn’t have waited until then to fill up! We got to Sioux Falls, SD at noon but neither of us was ready to stop yet, so we continued on to the S Dak/Iowa border (12:45pm, 71º and rainy) where we stopped for lunch and gas.


Typical scenery



Lunch was McDonalds; gas was 19 gallons at $3.359/gallon. We switched drivers again and it was 1:20 when we pulled out of Sioux City. We were quite happy with the time we were making! It looked like we would be able to arrive in Kansas City early .


We saw lots of windmill blades being transported somewhere while we were driving through SD, Iowa and Missouri Due to our goal of driving through every state, we did a little detour off of I-29 into Omaha. It only took a few minutes, but we were officially in Nebraska. It was 3:00 and 78º.


I can't find a Welcome to Nebraska picture, but this is us driving into Omaha. It was a quick little detour and soon we were back in Iowa, headed for Kansas City.




Some places have cool water towers. This was one of them. As I lined up for this picture, Dan grabbed his camera too. I told him to find something else to take a picture of or else all we'd have is the same pictures!


The Black-Eyed Susans were bushes as high as the van!!! At home, they're just little things, only about 18" tall at the most.


We crossed into Missouri at 3:45. As we approached Kansas City, we took a little detour to ensure that we were going to drive into the state of Kansas. It was literally only about 15 minutes, but it did accomplish our goal.


Sorry 'bout the bug guts....


Then back to Missouri.

I had made an online reservation with our favourite hotel chain, Drury Inn, the day before we left. I wish I’d checked a little closer because although the rate I got was a good one, if I had booked a room in a St. Joseph Drury Inn (just west of Kansas City) we could have got an even better rate. Oh well. You live and learn, right? It was 6:00 when we checked in. One of the perks at the Drury Inn is 3 free drinks from the bar during happy hour which starts at 6:30. So we hustled buns over to the adjacent Denny’s to grab some dinner, then made it back to our hotel for Happy Hour drinks. After relaxing over a few beers, we were pretty much ready for bed because it had been a long day.

The weather today was…. Mostly overcast, low 60s
The best thing today was… hitting 6 states; 2 of which we’d never been to before
The worst thing today was… all the road construction
The funniest thing today was… me lining up on a photo shot, then telling Dan to take a picture of something else and not steal my shot!
Today we tried…. To leave the house at 4:30 a.m.
And the result was… we almost made it – it was 4:50 when we left the driveway
The most magical moment today was… the 3 free beers each at the hotel.

Coming up next.... Yeeeeeehaaww!

[debsta922]

Great start Donna... can't wait to read the rest

[chezp]

Wow, you did cover a lot of ground on your first day.