We have liftoff

 We finally left Illinois. Better late than never. Although it was really windy most of the way down I-39 and I-55, it cleared up when we got into the southern part of Illinois. Our first stop was outside of St. Louis. It was already dark when we got there and we got to see the famous St. Louis Arch, gateway to the west, all lit up. As many times as I've been to St. Louis, I've never seen this iconic structure in person. I thought it'd be bigger... 

We overnighted at a local campground nearby and tried to leave early, but ran into a small problem. We always do a light-check before we hit the road, and this time Penny found a taillight on the toad that wasn't working. Fortunately it was a beautiful warm and sunny morning. Bless God for gifting me with good troubleshooting abilities and an aptitude for technology. Tracked the problem down to a loose wire on the plug. Tightened her back up and we were on our way, late, but moving none the less.

Since it was already afternoon, we decided not to drive for too long, so we made our way to a nice campground called The Landing Point in Cape Girardeau, Mo. 

The campground had laundry facilities, so we took advantage of the unscheduled free time to freshen up our skivvies. By the time we finished, it was after dark and getting cold, so we had a bite to eat and hit the hay.

In the morning, we were off again, heading southwest.  The winds had calmed and it was getting a bit warmer, which brought out A LOT more Asian Lady Beetles. We we going through corn and soybean country where these pests like to live, and with the crops all being harvested, they had nowhere to go except everywhere else, especially the HOW. By mid-afternoon we had made it to the Little Rock, Arkansas area. We stayed at a place across the river from downtown Little Rock. It was nice and warm now, so we were able to sit by the river and enjoy the night skyline.

The next day we headed south, and in a few hours were out of farm country and driving past horse and cattle ranches. We knew we were in Texas when the road kill changed from racoons to armadillos. Sure enough, we were in our new home state!