Thanksgiving 2021 / IA to KS
Thanksgiving 2021 in Iowa | Beginning of Arizona Trip 2021 | Iowa to Kansas | November 24-27, 2021
In my last post, I alluded to another work trip that Curtis had at the end of November that we had spontaneously decided to turn into one last road trip for the year. After all our driving this year, we were feeling travel fatigue and maybe wouldn’t have gone on this trip had it not been such a special location. That place was none other than Tucson, Arizona — the city where we had made our first home as a married couple, where we made so many memories from the first 2 years of our marriage, and where we still have so many dear friends that we’ve managed to stay close with despite years of living far away. It had been over 5 years since the last time we were there together, and exactly 6 since we had last lived there. We were a little concerned about what driving across the plains and higher elevations could be like weather-wise in December, but knew that spending a week in the desert and with friends would make it worth the drive.
But before we would begin our drive to the Southwest, we first drove Northeast to go celebrate Thanksgiving. It was a priority for us to spend the holiday with family since we live so close now, and don’t know if that will always be the case. We left on Wednesday afternoon once Curtis was done with work, and arrived just before 8 that night.
My mom did a fantastic job hosting Thanksgiving this year, making all of our favorite dishes and plenty of desserts to go around. We enjoyed spending the day with my parents, 3 of my siblings (+ one significant other), and Nanna. We stayed until Saturday morning, doing fun activities such as walking the dogs and playing PokemonGo at the park with my parents, hearing all about Joel’s new job and big move coming up, discussing the new Taylor Swift album with Sarah, and talking about future plans and another new job with Gina.
Time flew by, and Saturday morning came way too fast. We had breakfast, packed up the car, and said goodbye to my family — but it wasn’t too difficult knowing we’d be back in less than a month! There was actually some freezing rain that morning, so we left a little later than planned just to give the weather and roads a chance to warm up.
We drove through Iowa and made our first stop at a rest stop on the MO/IA state line. There was a short trail there, and Charlotte was thrilled to get out of the car and sniff around for a bit. Then it was back on the road. We drove through Kansas City, taking different routes than we have previously, which gave us a couple new counties. From there, we took I-35 to Emporia (also a new route for us) and then exited on US-50 and took KS-150 to US-56 for the rest of the evening’s drive. Our other stop for the day was in McPherson, where we parked near the courthouse and walked around the nearby park.
Our original idea was to camp at a Fort Zarah State Park, which was a small roadside park just East of Great Bend. That way, we could go and visit Fort Larned National Historic Site first thing in the morning. However, we realized two things at this point: First, it was around 5PM and the sun was beginning to set, which meant we’d be sitting in our dark tent for the next 14 hours. And second, Fort Larned was on winter hours, and wouldn’t open until 8:30 the next morning. As much as we wanted to see it, we realized that with all the plans we had made for the rest of the trip, it would be smart for us to drive further tonight and cut this one out of our itinerary. As we would later find out, a lot of smaller national park administered sites have limited winter hours and even stayed closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. This and the limited hours of daylight would prove to be a challenge for the rest of our trip.
I quickly checked my other saved campsite ideas, and we chose one North of Dodge City another 2 ½ hours away. We got back on the road and continued driving as the sun dipped below the horizon and the last light faded away. Driving in the dark through the Kansas countryside, and then passing through small towns lit up with Christmas lights made me incredibly nostalgic for the days when we used to live in AZ and made the drive home for Christmas a few times. The biggest difference between us now and us then was that for this trip, we actually brought our tent and made plans to camp rather than drive straight through the night, or just pulling over at a rest stop and sleeping in the car for a couple hours. It made more sense then to get home as fast as possible, but I liked our plans this time more that allowed us an extra day to drive and full nights of sleep lying horizontally!
We arrived at our chosen campsite in the dark and set up our tent in the empty campground. While the limited daylight and NPS hours were a downside to off-season traveling, we lucked out with finding empty campsites every night, and most nights were free! Tonight we camped in Ford County State Park, which was right on a lake. The temperature dropped into the 20s that night, but we stayed warm and cozy in our tent with extra sleeping pads to keep us off the cold ground, extra sleeping bags and blankets, and a propane-powered space heater – we may be crazy camping this late in the year, but at least we’re prepared.
