After several days of delays in Houston waiting first for the refrigerator to be fixed and then for me to recover from a stomach bug that my daughter graciously shared with me we headed north.  But one final delay near Houston was required and that was to get the Lovebugs washed off of poor Wilda.  I had never heard of lovebugs until I moved to Florida, so for you other northerners I’ll try to explain.  Lovebugs remind me of lightning bugs or fireflies but without the light.  During the act of reproduction (or so I’m told) they get stuck together like dogs, but still manage to fly around that way.  My theory is that they prefer to have sex at an elevation of roughly three to twelve feet in the air and always over a major highway.  A couple of times each year swarms of them will be airborne and it is amazing how many of them can accumulate on a 900 mile drive at 65 miles per hour on that roughly 9 X 12′ rectangle that is Wilda’s front end.  And even the uncoupled few that get hit always seem to have a satisfied smile on their faces.  But I digress—back to the journey.

The particular bay of the truck wash that I pulled into was manned by a couple of very nice good ole Texas boys.  As they worked with the brushes and pressure sprayers, and I watched, we chatted.  They explained that they were brothers and I could certainly see the resemblance.  I also noticed that they seemed to have about three teeth between the two of them.  But Wilda came out spotless and we were ready to move on.

With the late start out of Houston we just made it to the first exit on the interstate in Oklahoma and stayed in a casino affiliated campground operated by the Chickasaw Indian Nation.  A very nice facility and they said since we had never been there before our first night was free.  I am really fond of free.  Usually in that situation we would drop a roll of quarters in the  casino slots and have dinner in the casino.  But this night we were both tired and decided to dine at “home” on my favorite health food, Spam sandwiches.

We passed through the rest of Oklahoma without incident and spent the next night near Wichita, Kansas.  During the night a southwest wind kicked up and in Kansas there’s not much besides cows and wheat-fields to stop the wind.  It continued to blow at about 35 miles per hour the next day as we drove northeast to Kansas City with even higher gusts.  Driving the WildaBeast with winds of that force hitting the side is a harrowing experience and a ton of work to keep her on the road.  We were glad it was a short ride that day to stop and see our old friends from West Virginia who now live in KC.  However, while visiting them we discovered that the refrigerator was still not working properly.  This repair entailed another delay of two more days.

This morning we finally hit the road and passed out of Kansas and into Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska in short order.  With no offense to family and friends we now feel that after being away from home for over two weeks the real Alaska journey has now begun.  No more visiting.  We are heading for the Dakotas.  Stops are planned in The Badlands, Black Hills, Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and anything else we see along the way that catches our fancy.