Vermont Relocation Vacation {11/5-11/8: Getting Home}

On Thursday (November 5th) morning, we left Davidson and drove west out of North Carolina, though half of Tennessee, then northwest into Kentucky and Illinois and Missouri. We stayed that night on the western side of St. Louis. Stops on this stretch included Fort Southwest Point in Tennessee, an old fort on near a river/lake, complete with playground and disc golf course, of course. And just after dinner we stopped again at a park with a playground and disc golf course in Kentucky somewhere. The rest of the drive was in the dark, so I worried that we wouldn't be able to see the St. Louis arch as we drove through. But, thankfully it is all lit up (probably should have guessed that one, but nope - ha) so Gregg and I got to see it (the kids had fallen asleep).

Tennessee COVID instructions. (No
signage about mask wearing, though,
which I thought was interesting, after being
in New England where masks were required
everywhere we went.)

Cute visitor's center at the edge of Tennessee and
the Great Smokey Mountains. This section of the drive
was way more mountainous than I was expecting! So pretty!

Down by the lake at Fort Southwest Point.

In the stocks at the recreated fort.

Pretty fall disc golf setting.

Sunset at the park in Kentucky was pretty spectacular!

St. Louis skyline - the arch is on the left side of the pic.

Yet another cool bridge to cross the
Mississippi!

Since our bodies were still on Eastern Time (some version of it, anyway), but we slept in the Central Time Zone, we woke up at 5:30 ready for the day. We grabbed breakfast to eat in the car and were on the road by 6:15. From St. Louis we moved west through Missouri to Kansas City then north into Nebraska (with a few minutes in Iowa). Then it was west, west, west through Nebraska till we got into Wyoming (with a tiny detour into Colorado because of a missed exit - not the last one of the trip, by the way.) Somewhere in Missouri we found a great park with an easy disc golf course for all of us to play and stretch. We made lunch in the parking lot and ate it as we drove out of town. Before dinner, we stopped again (before sunset, I should say) in Kearney, Nebraska at another park with a great playground and disc golf to get our last wiggles out. We ordered pizza hut as we drove further and picked up (at a drive through window! what kind of times are we living in?!) in Gothenburg to eat as we drove. Our hotel in Cheyenne was ready and waiting for us when we pulled in at 8:30 MT (which felt to us like 10:30 ET, so we went right to sleep).

Breakfast of champions.

Slingin' discs in the woods.

Dinner of champions.

Saturday morning (November 8th) we woke up before the sun again and hit the road shortly after 6:00 am. We drove with a most spectacular sunrise in our rearview that reflected off the windmills and trucks ahead of us. (My picture doesn't do it justice, but it was really pretty.) Our six and a half hour drive seemed like cake after our two 12+ days before, but I think it did help to be moving west and gaining hours as we went, so we weren't doing so much in the dark and could get early starts. We were at a rest stop when we learned that the New York Times had called the election for Biden. And we saw it confirmed by all the other major news outlets at a park in Rock Springs. (I feel like this will be one of those "where were you when it happened" sorts of deals in the future. What a wild ride!) We stopped for a quick Wendy's lunch in Evanston and carried on toward home, where I missed the exit for Mountain Green and we ended up in Ogden instead - but it actually turned out okay; we could pick up groceries at Smith's and pick up the kids' ski rentals next door before we got home. And it gave us the few extra miles we needed to bump our trip total over 8000 miles! 8008 to be exact!!

Sunrise reflected in the west.

Home!

 What a trip! Truly a trip of a lifetime, but I wouldn't mind doing it again next fall. ;)