The First Leg

The solo flight has begun. I waited till afternoon to leave Pine Knot and headed for Mount Vernon, Illinois -- just west of St. Louis. By leaving late, I was able to plan an early morning attack on the hated St. Louis - Kansas City route and hopefully avoid some of the worst of that traffic and poor roads. Of course, it has been a few years since I last drove these roads, so maybe they are all fixed by now.

Mary Ann and I poked around this morning. I got the oil changed in the car and we picked up a few goodies for me to munch on during the drive. Then we met Dee for lunch. I wish I had more time to be with this part of the family -- I love them.

I smugly thought that I would avoid the high gas prices in Pine Knot and fill up the tank in Somerset where prices would surely be lower. They weren't, so I carried on. I smartly waited till Bowling Green where the gas was a good ten cents MORE expensive than in Pine Knot. By then, I had no choice. I just now filled up here in Mount Vernon where the price is pretty much what it was before I began this trip today!

Kentucky is rife with "parkways". I travelled on the Cumberland Parkway, the William Natcher Parkway, and the Audubon Parkway.

When we got up this morning, there was a different "feel" to the air. It tempted us with a cool, fresh feeling and seemed to carry the promise of a lovely autumn day. By the time I left, it was beastly hot again, but I think the season is turning. On the drive up to Somerset, there was just a hint of colour among the trees -- again, the promise of the gorgeous fall colour that can be seen everywhere a bit later in the year. Interestingly, by the time I was on the William Natcher Parkway (just past Bowling Green in Western Kentucky) there were definite colours in the heavily treed sides of the highway -- delicate yellow -- not yet bright, and a bit of darker bronze on some of the trees. It will be stunningly beautiful in a few weeks -- I'm sorry to be missing that.

I noticed another remarkable feature of Kentucky country -- at least until you get to Western Kentucky. Most of the major roads seem to run along the ridges of the hill country. Little rural roads wind down into the valleys, or "hollers" and up again on the opposite side. However, the highways often have bridges across these little valleys or rivers, and these bridges are SO HIGH. If any of you know that high bridge on the Blueberry Paulsen route between Christina Lake and Rossland, you would have a picture of what these bridges often look like. (Well, maybe not quite THAT high.) Similarly, sometimes the overpasses on the parkways are very high as well since they span from one ridge to the other.

So much for all that. When one drives along, there is a lot of time to look at things and think about them because there's no one to talk to! I miss my driving parter. I'm about to tuck in now and get up about 4:00 so I can beat the St. Louis curse. I'm hoping to make it to Sioux Falls, South Dakota tomorrow. That's a pretty long drive, and I'd just as soon get there before dark, so I'm leaving early.