Douglas County

85 degrees and sunny (all day)\
514 miles
7 hours 18 minutes
1000 smashed bugs on the windshield
1 mass
150 fruit flies that found, grew or emerged from the fruit we left in the van overnight
1 University
1 Capital
3 amazingly well behaved kids who actually enjoy road tripping (who wouldn't want to Van-Go)

Today, before we left the Lou, (and after we found a car full of fruit flies) we went to mass at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. It is an enormously beautiful cathedral. It may have been the longest mass we've ever been to. Paul looked at Elizabeth and said, " We may have to skip Denver because this mass is so long." It was nice though. I like taking them to different churches so they are comfortable going wherever they are if they decide they want to go to church.

We hit the road again for a long haul today. We wanted to knock out a bunch of hours off from St. Louis to Denver via Kansas City. We passed through Kansas City and headed for the University of Kansas on recommendation from our friends. A good one, too. What a beautiful campus and area. They told us to start at the Oread Hotel. We stuck around there for a late linner (lunch/dinner). We ate at the Bird Dog in the hotel. We ventured up to the rooftop as recommended by the hotel staff. Pretty awesome view of everything including the campus. We like to see campuses if we can, not so the kids can get a feel for different ones around the country.

As we drove into a beautiful sunset that painted the Kansas sky pink with temperatures in the 80s, I get a text from my sister-in-law saying, "Seriously, you are leaving a disaster in your wake." with a radar pic from the national weather service that says, "Missouri: tornado warning just northwest of St. Louis!!! Please take cover now if inside red line." What?! We saw nothing. Not a drop of rain. Not an ominous cloud. I am not sure how it missed us since we should have been driving into it. Very strange but we are happy we missed it.

We arrived in Hays around 10 pm. We are staying at a Fairfield Inn. It is a nice Marriott for a lower end variety. Though, we needed a rollaway bed for one of the kids and it was more like a rollaway box spring. My kids aren't picky but Matthew couldn't sleep on it. Paul couldn't even kneel on it for that matter. He said it is worse than crawling through the tubes at the City Museum. He'd be better off on the floor. Ewww . No, we didn't do that. All three kids slept sideways on the one bed. We'll see how they do considering Ben and Elizabeth shared last night and Ben, in a dream, nearly pushed her off.

We will get up early to drive to Denver tomorrow. Looking forward to it. Can't wait. Though we are only there for one night and one night in Colorado Springs. I'll take it.

See you tomorrow. Good night.Read more