Day 1 Salina, Kansas.

We started our summer vacation journey on July 3rd, leaving home and traveling 580 miles for our first overnight in Salina, Kansas. After about 12 hours total time on the road (with gas and food stops) we are calling it quits on our journey west.

We stopped for a bit in Hannibal. Missouri to see a few of the Mark Twain sights. Unfortunately the town was packed for an annual festival weekend. We walked around town and vowed to return on a weekend this fall when it isn't so busy and crowded.

We walked to the Mark Twain Memorial Lighthouse. It is 54 feet tall, 200 feet above the Mississipi River and 244 steps to visit. There are names carved and written on the side of the light house.

Downtown Hannibal is quaint mixed with tourist stores and shops. When it isn't wall to wall people it will be a fun place to explore.

Missouri is lush and hilly with corn and bean fields mixed with livestock and fence rows. Kansas starts out the same but transforms into vast rolling hills of grass and sparse trees. Heards of cattle look like dots on the hillside as they freely roam the hills and valleys. The sun was setting and the shadows excentuated the shapes and lush green colors of the horizon filled landscape.

We are roughly 6 hours or so from Denver. I look forward to rolling hills of grass giving way to the Rockies! We will be traveling through Colorado tomorrow. Wondering what our 4th of July adventure will be like this year? We shall see tomorrow.