Fayetteville, AK

 Wow.

What a trip!

We decided to leave early.

So we headed out on Sunday instead of Monday.

We were actually going to leave Saturday

around noon, but then luckily I remembered 

I needed to teach that night!

(sheesh)

So instead we got up and headed out Sunday.

It took us until about 9:00 to get the truck

all loaded up and ready to go.

We drove to Jackson Mississippi 

to stop for the night.

It was a long drive, but not bad.

I drove for a couple of hours, but

as usual, Kyle did the majority.

The GPS took us through a neighborhood

to get to our hotel, which would have been

fine except 3/4 of the way through

the road was closed.

Looked like most everybody was

going through anyway, so we

braved it, but ended up in a 

spot that was nothing but red clay.

The tire tracks headed on through,

but we decided it wasn't a risk we

were willing to take.

Especially that late at night.

So we turned around.

We have stayed at this hotel before.

When we were driving a Pensky truck

to move some friends to Logan.

Up and back on the road the next morning

for a LOOOONG 14 hour drive.

I drove through part of the mountains

and a city - yuck - but we survived.

LOL.

We stopped at a really nice rest area

and made some lunch.

I freeze dried a bunch of food for the trip.

I'll talk about that later in the week.

Got to our hotel in Hays, Kansas about 11:30.

(which is 12:30 our time...)

We were exhausted and glad to get stopped.

Had another good night's sleep and then

up to grab some breakfast and head to the ranch.

Our first view of Hays.

We stopped in the town of WaKeeney

on the way and looked at a little house

Kyle had been eyeing on Zillow.

It's adorable, but the yard is terrible.

Reach out your window if you want to

borrow a cup of sugar from your neighbor.

SOOO close together!

Anyhow.

Then on to the ranch.

It has been a VERY dry year this year.

The ranch was very brown.

If you looked closely, there were little

green shoots, but mostly it was brown.

Not nearly as flat as we expected.

Rolling hills, valleys, ravines...

So random trees here and there.

There were some random old foundations.

For a VERY small building of some sort.

And some fun "yard art".

An old plow. I actually saw an intact one in a little town

we were driving through.

Anyhow.

It is beautiful land.

A little different than we were expecting,

but beautiful.

And now I'm laying on a bed in a Hampton Inn

in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

And I'm TIRED.

(Even though Kyle did all the driving today...)

I'll update more later.

I'm going to grab a nap.