Starling Travel

This boot is the most interesting thing in a radius of 200 miles.

This boot is actually more witty than I thought it was at first. (Continue Reading…)

After our blissful night in St. Joseph, Missouri, we left early in the morning on our journey home. We knew we had a long day ahead of us, and we wanted to be able to visit whatever interesting things might be on our journey. The previous day, we had visited two very fun tourist attractions, so we thought we would see at least one or two things on our drive from St. Joseph, Missouri to Cheyenne, Wyoming.

We had the entire state of Nebraska to traverse. There must be SOMETHING there, right?

Umm… no… (Continue Reading…)

The beauty of leaving our travel schedule open was that Mike and I could drive as far as we wanted and when we were tired we could find a campsite to stop at and sleep. The irresponsibility of leaving our travel schedule open was that we were driving home during Memorial Day weekend. After visiting The Laura Ingalls Wilder House and Osceola Cheese, we planned on camping at Lake Jacomo near Kansas City, Missouri.

When we arrived there, however, it was packed full and the camp host assured us that the other two campgrounds near the lake were also full for the weekend. Mike and I took one look at the rowdy campground full of people excited for their long weekend and decided to move on.

Mike pulled up the Allstays App [iTunes link] and found Beacon RV Park in St. Joseph, Missouri, about an hour away from the lake. They had room for us and their prices were very affordable. Their office closing time was in thirty minutes, however. The owner told us to head over and he would stay long enough for us to get there. We did our best to get through the Kansas City traffic up north to St. Joseph.

I had a bad feeling about the RV Park when we drove down the Belt Highway. How good could an RV Park be when it’s situated between a used car lot and a Chinese restaurant? I envisioned a night of noise from the big road and an unsecured location. Instead, we found a haven, sunk below the traffic noise. (Continue Reading…)

Mike and I saw the sign at the same time. I said,

“Share the road? With what? The Amish?”

We laughed and Mike pulled out his iPad to do some research.

“Umm… yeah.”

“Yeah, what?”

“We need to share the road with the Amish.”

I suddenly felt like I was in a strange land. There was a possibility that I could actually see Amish people driving horse-drawn buggies, just like the movies. And I did! I finally understood how all those tourists who come to Utah to see the Mormons felt. They’re just people. They might wear funny clothes (or underwear), but in the end, they’re people just like us.

I had no idea that with the Amish comes really good cheese. We kept seeing billboards for the Osceola Cheese Company. The giant mouse on the billboards enticed Mike, so we stopped there. I’m so glad we did. (Continue Reading…)

Mike and I left Memphis and started on the long journey back to Utah. I was driving and in a bit of a road trance when Mike asked,

“Do you want to see the Laura Ingalls House?”

“What? Yes! Of course I would!”

He replied, “We just missed the turn off for it.”

It was all I could do to not slam on the brakes and attempt a u-turn on the interstate.

“It can’t be the Little House on the Prairie. That wasn’t in Missouri, was it? I thought they lived in South Dakota.”

Mike pulled out his iPad, doing research while I looked for another exit.

“It was the house she WROTE the books in. Take the next turn-off.” (Continue Reading…)

Our visit to Graceland was highlighted by lunch at Marlowe’s Ribs. We couldn’t visit Memphis without trying some BBQ. I wish we could have stayed longer in the city so we could have tried more BBQ places, but we only had one day there, so we visited the place with the huge pink pig trailer. (Continue Reading…)

Since Little Rock is so close to Memphis, Mike’s mother wanted to see Graceland, Elvis Presley‘s home and final resting place. We agreed to go with her because it was the only thing she really wanted to do on this trip.

We stayed at the Graceland Campground across the street while they stayed at the Heartbreak Hotel. Both properties were extremely clean and well-kept. It felt like we were staying at The Disneyland Hotel, except instead of going to Disneyland, we went to Graceland.

When the tour bus took us across the street and dropped us off at the famed house, I was surprised at how SMALL the house was compared to my imagination. (Continue Reading…)

The best thing about the Little Rock North KOA was that they are so close to the Big Dam Bridge. They loaned us bikes and we were able to enjoy the beautiful scenery without hauling our own bikes for 3000 miles.

(Continue Reading…)

On this trip, Mike and I spent the most time in Little Rock. Mike and his father were taking a class there, which was the whole reason for the epic journey in the first place. So, we spent our most time at the Little Rock North KOA than any of the other campgrounds, yet I have the fewest pictures from them.

Ironically, they were the best campground we stayed at during the whole trip. The bathrooms had plenty of stalls and showers, so I never had to wait. They were clean and because we were in a teardrop trailer, they put us close to them so we didn’t have to walk far. (Continue Reading…)

Growing up in Utah, I was a bug-lovin’ girl. I caught every kind of bug that inhabited our neighborhood. When Mike was a kid, he went so far as to have a fully stocked terrarium with pill bugs (armadillidiidae) and plenty of food for them to eat. The terrarium was such a healthy environment for them, they reproduced. Tons of tiny, white baby pill bugs grew to adulthood under Mike’s care.

So, both of us were fascinated by the lovely variety of insects available in the South. We’ve already talked about the Oklahoma Fireflies on our trip, but the day we left, we were swarmed with a huge variety of butterflies and moths.

The first, we saw at the gas station in Oklahoma right before we left the next morning. I believe it’s a Polyphemus Moth (Antheraea polyphemus). There was something the matter with him because he could barely fly and let me take a photo of him.

I wish I had (Continue Reading…)