Wednesday April 21th - Look What We Wake Up To!

Soon after sunrise in John Brian State Park, Ohio. The park had been transformed overnight into something magical. 

We took a short detour on our way to the highway to visit the Old Clifton Mill. 

From there it was on to Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. (No welcome to Missouri sign. I was asleep when we drove past)

We stopped in St Louis to take a short walk in Forest Park and get takeout from kosher Gokul Indian restaurant which we always go to when we are driving through, and due to a slight mishap, what was supposed to be a 15 minute stop ended up taking 3 1/2 hours. (Long story, maybe another blog post.)

After dinner, we drove another 120 miles to Columbia, Missouri where we spend the night boondocking in a Cracker Barrel parking lot.

9 hours driving, 521 miles.

Tuesday April 20th - On the Road Again!

We are off on another adventure! Our immediate plan is to be in Denver for Shabbos, then a 10 day flatwater canoe trip on the Colorado River through Canyonlands National Park, Utah. Followed by a few days in Canyonlands this time on land, and Shavuot in Phoenix. After that, who knows?

But for the next few days we are going to be spending most of our time driving.

The past week had been extremely stressful due to a family medical issue and even though we continued preparing for this trip, we were not even sure we would be able to go until about 17 hours before we left.

Once we started driving, however, we started unwinding. We enthusiastically sang Simon and Garfunkel’s “Looking for America,” off key and settled in for the long haul.

This first day, we drove from home to John Bryan State Park, just east of Dayton, Ohio. 9 1/4 hours driving, 587 miles. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. We could see redbuds and something(s?) with white flowers blooming along the highways most of the way!

By the time we got to the campground, the adrenaline that had been fueling our drive along with plain old gasoline, had just about run out. This was not the nicest campground, but we were very glad to be here.

We walked around a bit just to stretch our legs. Tons of spring wildflowers! Perfect end to the day.