Our sweet niece, Kim, is about to embark upon a big adventure. She came to Evansville in 2010 to earn her nursing degree at U of E and when she graduated, she accepted a position in the Cardiac ICU. It’s been 18 months and now it’s time for her to spread her wings. She is headed to Reno, Nevada for a new position at Renown Regional Medical Center.
Getting this job happened at record speed and suddenly we were at the point where she was talking about the logistics of getting from here to there. I offhandedly offered to drive with her and much to my delight, she accepted. We had gotten quite close over the last six years and I was glad that we to get a solid dose of one-on-one time.
We left at the crack of dawn on Monday morning and headed west through St. Louis. Excuse the blurry pictures. Many were taken from a vehicle moving at legally high rates of speed. Kim had an agenda and a goal to make it to Reno by Wednesday. That meant lots of driving and not a lot of stopping.
To make the logistics a little easier, we each packed breakfast and lunch for the travel days and planned to stop at night for a good dinner. Our first stop for Monday’s lunch at this gas station, an auspicious tip of the hat by my father in law and Kim’s grandfather who bore that as his nickname.
We continued to make our way west and finally found the interstate sign we had been waiting for.
Our time was spent doing a lot of knitting, listening to podcasts and music and chatting. Even though we lived in the same city, we had a lot to catch up on. Then sometime after lunch we heard an odd rattling sound coming from the engine.
(Yes, 81 degrees in Giltner, Nebraska in March!)
We stopped in Giltner at a lube shop and were delighted to discover that the car was far from falling apart. The repair was amazingly simple. The battery cover had not been returned to its rightful location when she had the car checked in Evansville.
We took our happy faces back on the road again. Drive and drive we did. Going west meant that the sun stayed up longer for us.
We drove a number of hours further and finally stopped for dinner at the Open Range Grill in Ogallala, Nebraska. We were in cattle country and that burger sure tasted like the best the area had to offer. Of course, after driving for ten hours, lots of things would have tasted pretty good. We plowed ahead for a few more hours, finally stopping for the night in a small town almost to the Wyoming border.
This is almost like BREAKFAST WITH THE BUDDHA
What a road trip!