Our hotel last night was a Super 8 in York. We left at 9:40am this morning, took I 80 to Route 14 and made a stop at the Plainsman Museum in Aurora. It was interesting to see the old school house, pioneer home and blacksmith shop from a bygone era. Aurora is also the home of Dr Harold Edgerton, inventor of flash photography and the strobe light. At the beginning of the day we passed miles of corn fields. Our starting temp was 60 degrees and rose to a high of 74, with fabulous blue skies. The air was fresh and clean until later in the day when a haze developed from the fires in California. En route, we crossed the Platte River. The Platte drains one of the most arid areas of the Great Plains ... read more

Cape Girardeau where we stayed last night is the largest city between Memphis TN and St Louis Missouri along the River. It has evolved from a tiny trading post to a frontier settlement governed by a French-Canadian commandant to a thriving, culturally-rich community of 37,000 residents on the world’s only inland cape. A teaching university was founded in Cape Girardeau that is now Southeast Missouri State University. We set out for the 110 mile trip to St Louis at 10:30am. This time we took the interstate which had been marked on the AAA map as a scenic route. Jeeves (the GPS unit) is now mounted on the dash in a place of prominence and seems to have much less of an attitude now that he can see where he is going. (not serious here....just a little ... read more

The day started in Vicksburg with a stop by the Cedar hill cemetery. We came upon it quite by accident and it was interesting. Cedar Hill Cemetery is one of the oldest and largest cemeteries in the United States that is still in use today. It is also the final resting place for the Confederate Soldiers of the Civil War. A section in the Cedar Hill (Vicksburg City ) Cemetery was set aside to provide a fitting burial place for Confederate soldiers who died of sickness or wounds. Known as "Soldier's Rest," the plot in Cedar Hill Cemetery is the final resting place for an estimated 5,000 Confederate soldiers. Once again we picked up the Great River Road. It's interesting that it's called the Great "River" Road because we saw the Mississippi only once during the ... read more

We left Pensacola at 9:30am and started heading further west towards to Mississippi River. In the interest of time we decided today that we would take the interstate highway I-10. We were very quickly leaving Florida behind. The gulf coast portion of Alabama, and Mississippi are very narrow and so we were through those two states in a matter of a few hours. We saw the Mobile River and Bay, the downtown Mobile skyline and the battleship Alabama which was anchored in the harbour. Mississippi was next and for a while we were on a very long causeway over some lovely wetlands. The grasses were multi coloured, with gorgeous lighting hitting them as they swayed in the breezes. The waterways snaked around through the grasses and there were many wading birds out there searching for lunch. ... read more

I-75 heading north was the usual....just a busy non scenic interstate but it served the purpose to get us heading north. At Ocala we turned on to US 27. I'd not remembered how hilly Florida can be. It was a gorgeous drive on a 4 lane highway with miles of rolling hills, horse farms and huge live oaks covered with Spanish moss. Some of the horse farms were amazing, complete with luxurious barns which could have housed up to about twenty horses. We had intended to take Alternate 27 most of the way but made a wrong turn (and this is just the start of the trip) and ended up traveling along the regular route 27 instead . All was not lost (no pun intended). It turned out to be a lovely peaceful drive through many ... read more