Blogs from Missouri, United States, North America - page 8

Today, we chased totality. What started out as a carefully planned trip to see an eclipse turned into a race and an adventure. At 6am, a new cloud cover report from the National Weather Service predicted 65% cloud cover in St Joseph (where we were) at the time of the eclipse. Two hours away, a small town called Marshall was boasting 39% cloud cover. I packed up our stuff, woke the family up, and piled everything and everyone into the eclipse-chaser minivan. We set out for Marshall! We took smaller highways to stay within the path of totality and (hopefully) avoid any serious eclipse traffic from Kansas City. We arrived and settled into an aviation museum in Marshall. The kids ate hot dogs and watched an airshow. The sun teased us a few times from behind ... read more

We left Omaha this morning at 7:40 AM and 63 degrees. (The temperatures actually got up to 93 before the day was through.) The goal was to reach the Mississippi River Byway in Fetus, MO by the end of the day. Festus is a small town of 11,000 just a few miles south of St. Louis. We made it, but it was a struggle. I was very tired today and had some difficulty being attentive. In fact, I will confess that I almost nodded off a few times, which is very unusual for me. It wasn’t so much the drive as it was a lack of sleep. Last night we had a room in a hotel where there were long-term residents and it reminded me of a college dorm. They were socializing in the hallway and ... read more

We got going early again today. We started out at 7:30 and 72 degrees and set out to find the Great River Byway and drive north on the west side to cover areas we did not see yesterday. The map that we obtained for the byway, showed that the road we needed to follow was Hwy 79, and it showed that this highway intersected I-70 just north of St. Louis, and so we headed off to find this intersection. Our hotel was about 15 miles west of the city, so we drove east. We drove east three times and back again. We never found this intersection. We even asked a policeman who was sitting in his cruiser by the side of a road. He could not find it either. Together we decided that the old Maine ... read more

July 5th On the road again and enjoying the sights, we left the State of Montana and headed Southeast for the state of South Dakota. Passing by old towns, open country filled with beautiful and interesting scenery. Our first stop on this leg was the city of Spearfish South Dakota, Chris's Camp RV park and a cool dip in the pool. The park is well laid out and far enough from the highway that there is no traffic noise. They have good shade trees and are family friendly, with two pools on the property as well as a small play ground and petting zoo. The WiFi was lacking but we were able to access the satellite to catch some TV shows. The staff is great, helped us get set up and take care of the facilities. ... read more

Chasing the race. Up and out around 7am this morning. We had to make our way from Gunn Park back to highway 54. A slight misdirection quickly rectified only added about 1km to our riders journey. We were only 6 kms from the Missouri border and glad to be leaving the flat lands of Kansas. At the border were we stopped for photos there were a number of RAAM support vehicles. Of note there was Maria Parker who holds a number of world endurance records for cycling. Maria was off the bike to support some other riders who were about to come through. This was not officially part of the RAAM Race (I don't think). It was called Heroes on Wheels. The race was over the same course and was a being done by a team ... read more