The Longest 40 Miles Of My Life...?

This morning I had a plan. Rather than stressing around to find a suitable Walmart for the night, I consulted the map. I was actually looking for a State Park in Ohio, fitting at a good days driving distance of 400 miles.

A little ways off Dayton, OH I discovered "Hueston Woods State Park. I told co-pilot Bea about it and then we went on the road. First destination was St.Louis. Bea found an excellent byway - I-270. We followed that Interstate and we never saw anything of the city. that is - other than lots of traffic. Once back on the I-70 we approached Indianapolis. The I-70 through IN is absolutely horrible. Patches on top of patches makes you jolt in your seat. It was a nightmare!

Meanwhile, Bea had located the OH State Park on the map and found that if we by-passed Indianapolis on the south side we would "run directly towards the State Park" which also would save us 10 miles of driving in total rather than following I-70 for later making some 20 miles straight to the south of it.

That sounded great to my ears, so we went for it. Total estimated time to the State Park was supposed to be around 2hrs. Great! But I was kind of getting tired too.

First part of the "shortcut" was I-465 - with tons of bad behaving traffic. The next turnoff was I-74 which was followed by Hwy 44, which led through every little forgotten town on the way. If you think the n"44" would cross these poor towns in a straight line , you are dead wrong. Nope, the town crossings ran in a ZIG-ZAG pattern. Hopelessly parked vehicles blocked intersections and it was like it was all planned that way by town council to make visitors enjoy the huge old churches, the boarded-up stores and private residences sporting couches and fridges on the front porch. One of thos featured a sign "CONDEMNED" in prominent yellow letters on the front door.

I was around that time that I asked Bea how many more miles we still had to do to reach camping haven in Ohio.

Her answer: 40miles.  OK, 40miles seemed like a lot to me and I just moaned. After a long time of continued driving and maneuvering our rig along now very narrow country roads (with sharp curves and deep steep valleys) I asked again:  "22miles", she said. WHAT? ANOTHER 22miles?

The procedure and disappointment repeated itself at 13 miles, then at 7 miles, then 4miles, and finally 2miles. During the entire drive the area got more and more remote looking. Confusing for me was also the fact that the GPS girl at the windshield had a different route than the Google map girl on Bea's phone. Sometimes they shouted at each other. 

But, yes, we finally made it to the park. There were more rigs in there than I had expected for a regular Tuesday.

Maybe they weren't the longest 40 miles of my life, but I dubbed them "Rubber-miles". 

The park is quite large, sites are electric with no water and there are lots of hiking trails, one of which I went to explore with Dixie. It lead down a slope to a small river.

Range burns in Kansas

Green fields make us forget the desert

A delightful contrast to the horrible feedlots in Texas and Oklahoma

The Mississippi

Springtime along the highways

One of several town along Hwy 44

Old Farm House

The narrow road straight ahead marks the state line between Indiana and Ohio