Day 66 – Hustle to Russell – June 26, 2018

Karen came up with today’s headline and it tells you all you need to know about how we spent the day on I-70. Starting off, however, was punctuated by some lively thunderstorms this morning in the campground here in Missouri. At dawn, I walked down to the pond, where everything was very calm and peaceful. But I’ve learned that when my weather app says there’s a 30% chance of thunderstorms, it means it’s really for sure going to rain a lot.

The road through western Missouri and eastern Kansas is straight and goes through cornfields and green prairie. I thought it would be much drier and brown/golden in color, but we were surrounded by green, except when we passed through the crimson and blue Jayhawk zone of Lawrence (yes, Andrew, we felt the power), KS.

In keeping with the ‘Presidential’ tone of the past few days, we zoomed past the home of Harry S Truman and saw the signs directing tourists to the home and presidential library of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Our goal today was to get to Russell, KS, the hometown of two former presidential candidates, Bob Dole and Arlen Specter.

Russell is a town of about 4,000 people. When we stopped at the local grocery store, the young guy bagging our groceries told us he was from California, too. It turns out he grew up in Chino and moved here a few years ago with his family and finished high school in Russell. He said we should move here, but I don’t think so – the 91 degree temperature with 70% humidity made it feel a lot hotter.

The billboards on the interstate proudly proclaim Russell as Bob and Arlen’s home. Once you get off onto the main drag though, everything seems a little anticlimactic. This is a town where they roll up the main street before it even gets dark (see below).

We have a nice RV park tonight, complete with an ‘oil patch’ museum and a miniature golf course that has gone to seed and now serves as a pasture for miniature horses. The name of the street we’re on even has a familiar sound to it.

As I’m typing up these notes tonight, Karen’s turned on the air-conditioner and the electrical power has failed…I’m back now, after frantically trying to figure out which fuse we may have blown. It turns out that the entire north side of the interstate is without power, compliments of a huge lightning storm to the south of us. We're now on propane and battery power. It’s 10:30pm, 78 degrees, with 82% humidity. 

Toto, I think we’re in Kansas now.

Next: Colorado