First big step to home.

All this land and they build their homes near the highways...?

As I'm writing this there's an awesome lightening storm fading away into Colorado.  We're at the Motel 6 in Colby at the end of an 11-hour drive and about 500 miles.

Driving through Kansas was like being in the movie Ground Hogs Day; it was the same scenery and the same smothering heat and the same choking humidity and the same buffeting winds.  Luckily, the people in Kansas are very nice (and so many from Oregon!).

Far too much of this!

 
It was hotter heading west and the humidity was high.  I had both windows down and my wing windows opened inward, pointing the air directly at me to help evaporate the sweat.  When we entered Kansas last week on our way to Carthage I put in an ear plug in my left ear since my window was down, thus reducing the white noise of the rushing air and reducing fatigue (motorcycle trick).  For this trip westward I put both ear plugs in since there was so much buffeting from the southern wind and truckers passing by.

Brian's gas mileage was up now so we made less gas stops, which helped our trip distance and time.  Our only long stop was for 45 minutes in Salina to take a much needed break from the cars.

One truck that I didn't mind passing me.

 Churches and silos were mostly what broke up the horizon.

We fueled up in Oakly and headed to our destination of Colby that was less than 30 minutes away.  As we approached, a behemoth of a thunderhead was looming over the horizon in front of us.  

Pretty soon it started producing lightening.  We hit Colby and as we put our stuff in the room it began to rain, not a lot, but hard and with a strong wind.  The lightening arched from cloud to cloud, vertically, horizontally, and in loops as well!  Strange to me that there was no thunder to hear.

Rain and lighening to the south east of us as well.

We're hoping tomorrow will be cooler so we can drive faster and make better time.  Our speeds are still 60-65mph at most, thus the long days/short miles.