We’ve arrived in Springfield, Missouri and have about 20 minutes until we get to Jim’s house. The directions are clear and the map says it’s not difficult. Driving across country is an interesting experience. I’m always impressed with how large the country is and how much open space there is. I’ve been told that we could take the area from the Canadian border to the Texas border, from the Rocky Mountains east to the Atlantic Ocean and put the entire population of the world in that space and be able to give every family an acre of ground. Someday I’ll need to verify that, but driving across Kansas and Missouri sure seems to validate the theory.

We’ve seen a lot of police on this trip. We’ve been driving around 65 or so and thus below the speed limit, so that has been no worry. However, yesterday afternoon and this morning we had folks fly by us at speeds in excess of 90 mph — and a mile or so down the road, we pass them while they’re getting a ticket. Sweet! This morning’s incident had a sports car flying past us and sqeezing between to cars ahead of us. Had that not worked, we would also have been in the accident as there wouldn’t have been to avoid all the cars flying around. We particularly appreciated seeing him off to the side of the road with two police cars! Ahhhh, joy!