postcards from...

... the corner of Kentucky when we crossed the little pointed part on the far south west edge. After leaving Nashville, aka Music City, heading northwest to get to St. Louis by the end of the driving day. The weather looked perfect for continuing the road trip, as we boxed up the cats, our belongings and were ready to load back into the Honda to travel on towards our goal of St. Louis. We ate some seriously over priced oatmeal in the hotel and went to collect the animals and luggage.

I am standing just inside the Hilton hotel, with the luggage and pet carriers on a trolley, waiting for the cousin to go out to bring the car up. As she neared the door,  I pushed the rolling luggage carrier out under the covered portico. Suddenly, and I do mean suddenly: a bruising storm blew up. High winds, heavy pounding rains, out of nowhere! Punishing winds, that might be considered what people in the airline industry call wind shear -really powerful, out of a clear blue sky, profoundly unexpected along with sluicing rain gushing from what had minutes before had been a cloudless sky.

We got back on the right road, in that driving rain storm, that was rapidly blowing through.  Dissipated just a few miles as it moved east, with the sky returning to it's previously bright, sunny clear state. No more blustery drenching rains the rest of the day, so it was pleasant traveling through the fields of soybeans and corn as far as the horizon.

I told my cousin about the little guy starting back to school, needing people to send him postcards from different states. Apparently some sort of summer break lesson in geography, as I think he was given a map of the US to mark states off as cards were delivered to his home address. His grandmother got people interested in supporting the project, so I brought along the mailing address and a few stamps. When we stopped for gas in that little far corner of Kentucky, I bought postcards, and wrote one right there on the spot. The cashier told me if I would stamp it and give it back, she would put the card in their outgoing mail. Vasa has a card coming from Kentucky!

I mailed the rest of "I'm in Kentucky" cards at a post office in Illinois. Did not stop to buy more, so hope I can get one today to send to him before I leave Missouri. A new navigator will take my place riding shotgun after they drop me off at STL Air today. I will present her with stamps and the Columbus address to send more cards to the little guy who is trying to check off all forty-eight states on his US map.