September 22, 2008 - Wichita to Branson, MO

I spoke with the person who handles mini-leases at the rental office. He said I could extend the vehicle for less than a month. There is a flat day rate no matter how many days I chose to rent.

Since I did not have to rent for a month, I elected to skip Texas and Oklahoma. They're both out of the way for me. Although it would be nice to add Texas, I can see it on another day. I chose to go through southern Missouri instead.

I had some errands to take care of in Wichita and then I would be on my way. The errands took me through the aerospace industrial area. My friend had shown me this area on my first or second visit to Wichita years ago.

My destination for the evening was Branson, MO. Branson has all sorts of live shows year around. They even have an amusement park called Silver Dollar City which operates year round. It would be over five hours with no stops at all. I was leaving around 1pm. I thought that if I did it without any stops beyond gas, I could make it in time for a show.


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Wichita is a huge, sprawling city with a population of over 350,000. For the most part, neighborhoods consist of homes with a tenth acre piece of land. There are of course lots of business and shopping areas. After spending so much time there, I was not happy with the surroundings. Once I got out into the country and saw the rolling hills, farmland, etc., I felt so much better. It was great to start seeing these things again after two weeks of just seeing a sprawling city. I guess I simply like small towns and wide open spaces as opposed to medium and large cities.

I had driven these roads when going TO Wichita from Missouri. But in both instances (September 2006 and July 2007) I drove it at night. It was great to see all of this beauty in the daytime. Of course, in this case I was going in the opposite direction.

Oklahoma visit - the cheesiest token visit yet
As I looked at the GPS, I noticed the Oklahoma state line was very close to my path. I decided I couldn't resist making a token visit to OK. When it came time to do this, the GPS went crazy, screaming "Recalculating" over and over. Since I was headed east, going directly south was not making the GPS happy.

I drove into Oklahoma near Coffeyville, KS. I spent only a few minutes there. There was basically nothing in the area other than the road. Finally, I found a place to turn around and head back to Kansas. This has got to be the cheesiest "token visit" to a state yet. I did not even buy gas or postcards in OK since there was no place to buy anything. But, in any event, I can now say Oklahoma was (briefly) a part of this trip.

Once I got into Missouri, for old time's sake, I stopped at a familiar truckstop in Joplin. In 2006, when I just wanted an excuse to say I had visited Missouri, this is where I stopped and had dinner. Then I said I had been to MO and took a four hour trip back to Wichita. At least this time I will have real destinations.

I stopped at a few more places along I-44 as I drove further. Each stop cut into the time. I finally realized I wasn't going to see any shows in Branson that evening.

There was about an hour of driving once I got off I-44. This is the Ozark Mountains area. There were lots of twists and turns in the road. It reminded me a bit of West Virginia since they have the same situation.

The GPS doesn't like the Ozarks. On at least one occasion, they GPS showed me driving in empty space with the road running parallel to the area where I was driving. This got me nervous as I couldn't tell where the hotel would be located. Finally, the GPS began to realize that I actually was driving on a road. It was and got me to the hotel.

By the time I arrived, it was 9:45 pm or so. I definitely missed any opportunities for shows in Branson by then. But, I was exhausted anyway.