Our third longest planned travel day of the entire summer took us from east central Kansas to southwestern Iowa. We left our beautiful Kansas campground and headed north on I35. We’ve been driving up and down I35 for years so this is very familiar territory for us. Not seeing new things and traveling with a “destination oriented” mindset (“let’s just get there”) made the 280 mile day feel longer than it was.

The pickup pulled fine. However, the rolling hills were hard on our fuel mileage. We’re doing better than the 8mpg that I budgeted, but not much better.

The main stop of the day was in the town where Jackie was born, Mt. Ayr, so we could pay respects at the graves of her mother and father, grandmother and grandfather. She laid roses at each headstone.

One interesting camping feature was “buddy electric sites” in which two campers basically share one camping spot. All I can say is that you had better like your neighbor and also, you had better be good at backing a camper in!

Our stay here was just one night. If we got the right site, I wouldn’t mind returning to this pleasant, out-of-the-way spot.