Re-starting the Blog October 13th

 We haven't posted in several days even though we just started our road trip.  Here is the problem.  We spent our first night in Litchfield IL at a Baymont Inn.  It was not bad, but the management seemed a bit lacking and the hotel had seen better days.  Still, it was okay and we had a great meal at the Ariston Cafe, a Route 66 original with fabulous fried chicken.  

The next morning we packed up and headed to Joplin MO - a five hour drive.  The terrain changed dramatically from the green and gold of a midwest harvest to a very hilly, rocky landscape.  The soft voluptuous land of the midwestern states gave way to open prairie.  We noticed that water levels in the rivers were very low.

When we reached Joplin, we realized that we were a bit early and so we went to the Old Chicago Taproom for a beer and a snack.  This was a great break and we headed to the Drury Inn to check in.  That's when we discovered our BIG problem.  We had left our computer behind at the Litchfield hotel!

We called the hotel and were reassured to find that they had found our computer and locked it in a safe so the manager could find out where to send it back to us.  That's when the anxiety really set in.  We were traveling from city to city and we had to find a way to get the computer to the right location on the right day!  Oh, and the post office closed early on weekends, closed on Sunday and closed on Monday for Indigenous Peoples Day.  We finally asked the hotel to overnight the computer to us at my brother's house in Tucson.  We arrived in Tucson late yesterday - just a few hours after our computer arrived!

 I wrote my blog posts long hand and will try to catch up in the next few days.  Some adventures are totally unexpected.