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| Rosh Hashanah coming to Salina, Kansas |
Today was one of those days where we just needed to put the pedal to the metal and drive all day. Now that we’ve seen Natan and Ruby, our agenda is to head toward the Black Hills in South Dakota, by way of Ashfall State Park in Nebraska. We found out about Ashfall last summer when we were at the University of Nebraska State Museum, also known casually as the Elephant Museum. There, we not only had an incredible time, but we found out about Ashfall, a place where during prehistoric times, a volcanic eruption buried large numbers of extinct mammals, much like the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii. As soon as I found out about the park (which we had driven past, more or less, the day before!) I was determined to map my next route via Nebraska again, so we could go there.
I knew it would take either a VERY long day of driving, or two days broken up, to get there from Enid, and we really don’t do long drives the way we did during our first RVing days. So, with an almost 500-mile trip, today was given up to driving as far as we possibly could before stopping.
We didn’t do too badly--we made it 350 miles today. We left Walmart at 9 a.m., but we had to get some propane first (we are running our refrigerator on propane.) We found a good-sounding place a bit north of Enid, which was fine, since that was our direction anyway. When we got there, though, we discovered that it was impossible to just drive up to the huge propane tank at the business; we would have to back in next to it. So we unhooked the jeep, which took a little longer than usual because of the angle we were at (that was our fault), and then I backed up in place. The actual propane fill took less than 5 minutes! Then it took us another 10 or so minutes to hook back up (I had to back the RV carefully toward the Jeep, to line the two vehicles up properly), and then we made a very tight U-turn to get out of the parking lot. All in all, it was at least a 30 minute stop, and so it was 10 a.m. before we left the northern outskirts of Enid.
From there, we drove. I had waked up at 5:00 this morning, so I realized my eyes were a bit tired after only an hour or so. We changed drivers, and kept on until around noon, when we stopped for gas and lunch. Then we drove another couple of hours, and stopped again, this time for a rest break. We took that off the highway, at a Walmart, because I had realized we only had two gallons of water, and I prefer to travel with a lot more than that just to be on the safe side. So that stop also turned out to be about an hour, so that we could rest. That Walmart was also where I was so surprised to be greeted by the Kedem display above! We read up on the history of Jews in Enid-- it seems that (other than Natan) there aren’t any there anymore (certainly no organized presence, that is.) So seeing this set up for Rosh Hashanah in Salina, Kansas, was a surprise. I do think Salina is larger than Enid, but still, it IS just pretty much “the middle of Kansas someplace.”
After I shopped, I went back to the RV and while Joe snoozed, I was looking for a likely place to spend the night, and discovered that there were almost no choices. So that was how we ended up where we are-- at what amounts to a large parking lot about 100 yards from Interstate 80. The next closest campground was an hour further down the road, and that would have just been too much. Considering the extreme lack of ambience, the place does have the benefits of water and electricity, and a bizarrely designed but very hot shower. Since we needed water, like to have electricity hook-ups, and need to dump our tank in the morning, this is a fine overnight situation, despite the ugliness of the location. Also, one nice thing is that the weather has cooled down--it was overcast most of the day, and is quite comfortable at the moment.
We set ourselves up, Joey made us a steak with cauliflower and baked potatoes for dinner, I took a shower (he has crashed so he’ll have to do that tomorrow morning), and as soon as I finish this blog, I will go to bed. Tomorrow we hope to leave by 9:00 (I *really* hope!) for the last 135 miles to Ashfall Park. It doesn’t open until 11:00 a.m. anyway, so we should get there by noon or thereabouts, and after lunch have 3-4 hours to explore the fossils. Then, depending on the time and what the overnight options are, we will either head toward South Dakota, or spend the night at the state park and move on on Monday. I’m a little behind my original itinerary time line at the moment, but there are always ways to tweak the plans, so I’m not worried about it.
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