I made it to Colorado!! 12.5 hours of driving and nothing to show for it but 2 more states under my belt and a sore gluteus maximus -- not bad, eh?

Yesterday's List O' Stuff, from Lexington KY to St. Louis MO:
Best Names: Waddy, KY; English, IN; Birdseye, IN; Santa Claus, IN (yes, that's a real town in Indiana. Who knew?); Burnt Prairie, IL; "Skeeter Mountain Rest Stop."
Best Plates: JOY X 5; BG-LOVE; and TRL ATTY (on a convertible, green lincoln town car, naturally).
Most Exotic Plates: Alaska. Yup that’s right – saw some Alaskan plates.
Road Kill Factor: Minimal.
Bug Kill Factor: Yipes.
Most Beautiful: Horse pastures all over KY; and the Arch in St. Louis is a tall and awesome as ever. My God parents’ house should be included here too -- lovely.
Biggest Annoyance: getting lost trying to find the Thomas Edison House.
Best Personal Educational Experience: The Thomas Edison House. Though Larry and I think his biggest collection of stuff is in Fort Myers, FL, there’s a teeny tiny house in Louisville, KY that he boarded in at age 19 for a while. A man by the name of Charlie gave me (the sole visitor on a Saturday morning) a personal tour of the place. Though Thomas Edison is most famous for inventing the light bulb, his favorite invention is, of course, the phonograph. His first invention was a vote counting machine that he presented to Congress, but Congress didn’t want it because it was too quick! (I told Charlie I was pretty sure that was the machine they were still in using in Florida elections…) They wanted time to filibuster…so he vowed only to make things that people would actually buy. Thus his next invention was a stock market ticker-tape reader, for which he was paid $40,000 – in HIS time – which is roughly $1 Million these days. Get thinking people!!
Thanks to the Umlaufs for stuffing me full of *home cooked* nutritious food and for being dazzingly fun people.
Number of states accumulated since CT: 10.

Today’s List of Stuff: St. Louis, MO to Denver, CO.Best Names: Pottawattamie County, Kansas; Enterprise, Kansas; Manhattan, Kansas.
Best Plates: Hey – U.
Road Kill Factor: Disgusting. Gross and prolific enough that I am hereby eliminating this category, cuz I don’t want to think about it any more. (And neither do you, trust me.) I only started it because I was shocked at how little there was a couple days ago. Sorry.
Bug Kill Factor: I now know what it’s like to BE a Pollack canvas.
Most Beautiful: Aw, C’mon guys, Kansas wasn’t THAT bad – I’ve heard you can even drive past fields of sunflowers at the right time of year. Now is not that time, but pasture land has its own charm. There was an informational sign about the pioneers saying they called their wagons “schooners” because the visual and emotional allusions to the ocean were so strong, and I definitely agreed. Though I do have to say the mountains off in the distance as I arrived at the outskirts of Denver were pretty magnificent.
Biggest Annoyance: Aggressive Pick up Trucks, as always. And a sore butt.
Number of States Accumulated since CT: 12.