Heading South

We are on the road again. I love cruising down the road, seeing the new and the familiar, watching the world go by. I am becoming increasingly aware that I may not be able to do it for too many more years, so I want to grab the chances I have. And Andrea, bless her, agrees to go along.

Last night was the longest night of the year. The coming days will be longer, perhaps just a minute each day for a while. But we are heading south, so the days are noticeably longer. Today at home, there are 8 hours and 42 minutes of daylight. Here in Ashland, 288 miles south, there were 9 hours and 5 minutes of light today. By heading south, we are heading toward the light. I love this shift of seasons and lengths of the days – noticing it somehow makes me feel more connected to the planet on which we live. It brings to mind once again that there are larger things than just what’s in the newspaper or my sore foot.

We left early in the day, for us. It usually takes longer to leave the house than to leave a motel. Leaving a motel, we don’t need to make the bed or wash the dishes or reset the thermostat or forward the phone or all the little things we do the morning we leave home. When we left this morning, it was light but gloomy in the winter rain. By the time we got far enough south to leave most of the traffic, we also left the rain and much of the gloom.

I had planned to stop in Springfield to charge the car and get lunch, but we were there by 11, so we continued south. We finally stopped for a light lunch and a car charge in Sutherland. It’s a huge charging station, with fast food nearby.

From Sutherland, Andrea drove for a while. She was ready to switch drivers as we approached Wolf Creek. Getting off the highway, we saw a sign for an historic inn and decided to stop there.

The inn was built in 1883 and is part of the State Park system. Intrigued, we went inside to look around and stayed for hot chocolate and pie and an informal tour. We saw the tiny room (and narrow bed) that Jack London and his wife stayed in for several weeks while they hiked in the area and he wrote stories. We didn’t find the room Clark Gable stayed in, though.

We’ve stopped for the night in Ashland, arriving earlier than I had expected thanks to our early start. We had a mix of clouds and sun until hitting a little light rain here. It has been a very nice start to our trip toward the light.