Stephen H. Long Trail 1819 — 1820

Day 26: September 18th, 2008 Wichita — La Junta

Map Wichita to La Junta

Today I slept in again. It’s already 8am when I finally wake up. My ear plugs are really awesome!

I hurry up to get ready. Then I drive over to IHOP for breakfast. There I receive my table immediately, even though it is very well visited for a regular working day. It seems to be really trending around here to have breakfast there. My server Rebecca also recognizes me again and I even receive again a table in her area. There I have a perfect service!

Highway 54/400, Wichita, KS

Around half past ten I depart. My first destination is Cowtown. Let’s see, if I am able to catch up with my new friends there.

Steam Engine, Douglas Ave, Wichita, KS

But only David is around. Catherine is with her family at a Bluegrass Festival. This is something like an annual fanily vacation for her. And David is also very busy and don’t really has time for a chat. Back at his house he has very bad mobile phone reception and in the evening they had a church event. So they wouldn’t have time to meet anyway. Well, it was worth a try…

I search my way out of downtown again back to Highway 54/400.

Highway 54, KS

Highway 400, KS

Train, Highway 400, KS

Highway 400, KS

Near Mullinville I continue now on Highway 400. Then I must work my way through a road construction behind a pilot car.

On Highway 50/400 I reach Dodge City. Because I am already running late, I am exceptionally not visiting my mechanics there from back then. Maybe next time when I am in this area.

Highway 50/400, KS

Highway 50/400, KS

At Garden City I have a brief stop over at a gas station.

Highway 50/400, Coolidge, KS

Highway 50/400, State Line KS and CO

Highway 50/400, State Line KS and CO

Then I cross the time zone to Mountain Time Zone and a short distance later the state line to Colorado.

Highway 50/400, CO

Highway 50/400, CO

Highway 50, Lamar, CO

I make good miles today. Only the road construction before I reached Dodge City kept me up for almost a quarter of an hour. Additionally, my cruise control slowly drives me nuts. Somewhere I have a very small vacuum leak, which is there since I own this truck and where I am not able to locate it. Whenever there are small inclines, the cruise control is not able to accelerate. This means, that you must always step on the gas to keep up your speed. And today I am driving around 2500ft uphill, but very slowly, spread over a couple of hundred miles. You don’t really see this. But you can tell by the cruise control, who always loses speed.

Highway 50, CO

On Highway 50 I drive through Las Animas in Colorado.

Highway 50, CO

Colorado Ave, La Junta, CO

A bit annoyed from my cruise control I arrive in La Junta. There I forgot to program the Super 8 motel as destination into my software. Therefore the navigation software directs me into downtown. Indeed, it was nice to see downtown. But I still want to get to my motel. Anyways, I still have the coordinates in my handheld GPS. So I use this one for now.

Finally I arrive at my Super 8, which is almost empty. Now I am back on Mountain Time Zone, which means it is just a quarter past five. There I check in for two days, because the weather forecast showed nice weather for tomorrow.

For dinner they recommend the Boss Hogg’s Saloon & Restaurant, which is a steakhouse. Alternatively, I can also go to the Mexican restaurant next door. I decide to drive over to the steakhouse today and try the Mexican restaurant tomorrow. But first, I put my stuff into the room, check my emails and check the first hour of video taping.

Around half past seven I leave for dinner. The steakhouse can be found easily — and it is exactly there, where my GPS software gave me the coordinates to. This is really handy: In my GPS software I get the coordinates which I can type into my handheld. This saves me the struggle of searching for the restaurants!

The service at the restaurant is good, so is the steak. Only the baked potato is not really convincing me. All in all, it is more a simple steakhouse. I assume, if I would have not chosen the filet, I would have probably not been this happy. Around half past eight I pay and drive back to my motel.

There I check the rest of my video taping. Eventually I made it and checked all of my video taping! Then I write my diary. To my pleasure, I can hear a train passing by a couple of times. Because there is also a railroad crossing, the train blows its horn accordingly. Now I really hope that my ear plugs are sufficient. The noise is really extreme. This reminds me of the motel in Texas, which was directly next to the railroad. Hopefully I am able to catch some sleep here…