Waking up Early, Longer Day, Bowling Anyone?

For some reason, slept out perhaps, I was awake at 5 am on Monday, Oct. 29^th. At 5:30 I looked at the clock and thought it said 6:30 so got up and hopped in the shower. I shouldn’t trust my blurry morning eyes, obviously. Bill followed soon after and advised me of the ‘real’ time. Lordy oh Lordy. Oh well, we were up now! I had my tea and then we read on our laptops for a while.

Our sky started out cloudy but eventually it looked like this

Our wifi usage this month is low so I dallied longer on Facebook than I normally do. Bill had his shower and then made his cereal and coffee. Clemson was up through the night apparently so was still in bed. I warmed up a bowl of hot oatmeal for me and that hit the spot. Today would be a 6-hour drive day so we hoped to get away a bit earlier and hit the bigger cities of Cincinnati and St. Louis at decent times.

Bill with his halo?
We are blessed to have him driving us from A to B

It was 8:20 when we pulled out of Arrowhead Lakes, 44F, and cloudy with the odd sunny periods. As we headed out, Bill led the way through the rest of Ohio and I started to notice the American flag was at half-mast at a few places. I was curious. What did I miss? 

Half mast in Ohio

So, I googled it and discovered that the Ohio Governor ordered public buildings and grounds to lower flags to half mast today to honour the life and service of Vietnam p.o.w. vet and Arizona senator, John McCain. He died on Saturday after a year, dealing with cancer. Now we all know!

Yay! More brand new Ford trucks being shipped out

Near Dayton, the skies cleared even more and we drove for an hour and a half before stopping at a Rest Area. What a busy place! 

This was a huge place but we had to wait for 2 trucks to leave so we could park

We basically had to wait for a couple of spaces just to use the facilities but we also got a brief leg stretch at the same time.

Roads are pretty well marked as long as construction doesn't
get in the way

We were back on the I-75 SB watching for Exit 16A-B (towards Cincinnati) to catch the I-275E bypass, and then onto I-71S at the south end. With our GPS leading the way along with some instructions we’d printed off, we caught the exits easy enough.

A pretty water tower today

Before we knew it, around 11:30 we were crossing the bridge into Kentucky. We pulled off to Love’s for a diesel fill-up and it was a bit less than yesterday @ $3.39/gal. Nothing for a while will beat the price we paid at Murphy’s in Wapakoneta. It was a sweet $3.169. 

Some really pretty colours along the way today

Back to today. Rob teased me yesterday that at a fuel up, I should be washing the windows while Bill pumped. So, today, I thought I’d show him that I was no slouch!

Bill pumping and I washed Black Beauty's windshield

Then I noticed the Paparazzi!

When we got back onto the Interstate it was sunny and now 56F. The temperature is definitely going in the right direction! They were going too slow (60 mph in a 70- zone compared to our 65) and more of a nuisance than anything, but I thought it was neat to see 4 ladies traveling together in the right- hand lane in their individual VW vans. It struck a cord with me that they were probably single and still taking their lives on the road any which way they could. They were French Canadians too. Neat!

We stopped at a Rest Area around 1:25 for a late lunch. Well, Rob and Pat had eaten their sandwiches on the road. They were much better prepared than us today, so we opened slides and made ourselves a cheese sandwich and got a drink. It felt good to walk a bit more, Clemson too, and stretch the kinks out of our legs. 

This was such a pretty rest area
It just spoke "Kentucky" to me

It was so pretty there and a warm 62F. I know I’m hung up on the temperature a bit right now, but it will pass. It just feels so good right now!

I love the way this cloud is just hanging there

Louisville, KY and the huge Ford plant

I didn't get very good pictures of the plant at all

But I like this one with the painted mural on the side of the building
This is where Black Beauty and Rob's truck came off the line!

Bill picked up a couple of Kentucky maps for us and we were back on I-65S. Pat texted at 2:17 to let us know that we just jumped from EST to CT so we gained an hour. Good! We could use it today. 

Backed in at Camping World but not an overnight spot

We arrived at our destination at 2:45 and even though it took a bit of scrambling in the crazy busy Camping World parking lot at Bowling Green, KY, one of the staff helped us park so we could go in and shop. It was obvious that there was no room to camp for the night so we didn’t hang around too long.

Did I say it was sunny? You'll need your sunglasses for this picture

We pulled out, following Rob this time, 6 miles down the road to a Wal-Mart. Pat had called to verify approval for overnight camping. It seems to be harder and harder to get that final ‘yes’ at these lots but we had already found a good spot and didn’t want to have to move. We were pleased with the 70F on this later afternoon and it took a second look at our watches to confirm that it was only 4 pm not 5 pm.

We drove by the road to the Corvette factory in Bowling Green

If it works out, we'd like to check out the Corvette museum tomorrow

It was agreed to eat inside at Mcdonald’s tonight rather than cooking and at least it filled us up. We can’t say anything good about the service or the warmth of the food but we ate it and the guys left Pat and I to wander while we looked for a couple of things. Soon, after a bit of silly-ness, we all said goodnight and agreed to meet in the morning for an early start. Between an issue with Rob’s front truck tire and Bill’s HP laptop, the night ended with some concerns.

The guys should know better than to leave us two alone
together!
Pat said 'no Facebook' but she didn't say 'no blog'
I love you Patricia!

Bill sat with Clemson to read while I caught up on this blog. I downloaded today’s pictures to see which ones I would include. This has been a long but good travel day. We got around Cincinnati and Louisville easy enough, missing the rush hour traffic. I hope you’ve had a good day too.

And goodnight from Wal-Mart at Bowling Green, JY

Thanks for stopping by. We’ve made it to Bowling Green, Kentucky and tomorrow will be a short drive day for us. Thank you for your comments!