Day 1 - Monday, 7/24/2023: Nashville to Kansas City, KS

Rolled out of Nashville at 8:00 a.m. with 23,565 miles on my odometer. I’d spent weeks preparing for this trip, reading books and researching potential collection sites in Missouri, Kansas and Colorado, so of course the first thing I did after filling my tank was take the wrong onramp onto the interstate and head east instead of west.

After about thirty seconds of calling myself an idiot, I followed Elsa’s advice and let it go: too many miles ahead of me to let this ruin my day. I hit the next exit and got myself back on course headed west on I-24 toward Kentucky.

The day was sunny if hot, but the truck’s AC was working fine. I’d had everything checked out the week before I left, so I was as confident as I could be that Barry (my truck) was in as good a shape as possible. You can’t foresee flat tires or accidents, but the oil was freshly changed, the tires properly inflated and the fluids topped off, so I’d at least done my due diligence.

After crossing the Illinois state line, I left 24 for I-57, grabbed some lunch at a Culver’s (a burger but no concrete; the drive-thru line was crazy long, and it took me long enough to get through it the first time, so for the first time—and hopefully the last time—in my left, I left a Culver’s without frozen custard), then headed east on I-64 toward St. Louis, where I picked up I-70. My final destination that day was a hotel on the Kansas side of Kansas City, but I planned a side trip on the Missouri side of the state line.

I’d spent some time with Charles G. Spencer’s Roadside Geology of Missouri and learned that the Burlington-Keokuk Limestone can be seen in several roadcuts both north and south of I-70 along US Hwighway 65. The rock is Mississippian and full of crinoids, as you can see in the photos. I headed north first then circled back south, making several stops. In addition to the tons’o’crinoids, I found one piece with a few brachiopods and a few pieces with crystals that I believe are calcite. Traffic was a little heavier than I expected for a Monday afternoon (I had hit the area around the time most folks were headed home for the day), so I didn’t spend as much time combing the cuts as I usually would. Plus, it was hot and I was hungry, so I headed toward the hotel, took a much needed shower then grabbed an omelet as big as my head at the IHOP next door then hit the hay.