You continue making WY and MT sound as horrid as I always imagined, by the way. If the only difference between them and the Great Plains proper is being flat brown and black rock instead of flat brown and green fields, neither appeals to me much.

I also had never been on a turnpike as a driver, only passanger, which, combined with having never been in KS before either, made me apprehensive. I expected to pay when entering and periodically thereafter, so the single final bill was as pleasant as it was unexpected. Even the fact it came to a little over $8 did not bother me much, because I drove more than halfway across the state (N/S.)

Incidentally, several parts of the Kansas Turnpike you traveled ARE part of the interstate system: They are simply tolled. Various states toll interstates to greater or lesser degrees, deeply offending my Southern and Texan sensibilities (already outraged by Houston building a tolled loop when I was a kid, and Gov. Perry erecting toll roads all over the state since taking office.) All but one of many trips I made between WI and TX with moondog went through AR and MO, simply because all highway routes through OK are tolled at least part of their length (we did go through OK once, and pay the tolls, just for the privilege of crossing the Red River.)

That said, I sympathize with the states; for several YEARS, diverting through AR to avoid OK tolls led to a harrowing stretch of I-30 running nearly 100 miles between Texarkana and Little Rock. Construction reduced it to single lanes in opposite directions, separated by only a thin yellow line on the left, with a half foot drop to concrete on the right (no shoulders.) There is nothing so riveting as a two hour 70 mph trip on a vehicle-wide strip of road, with constant glare from approaching headlights in the face. We got what we paid for in a state with NO tax base, but it was the source of moondogs observation their motto should be "we're workin' on it...."

Just so you know, the part of OK we always avoided is widely known for hilly terrain leading to Arkansas' nearby Ozarks. You just happened to get the flat part of OK, where tornadoes plow unobstructed along the ground instead of hopping from hilltop to hilltop.

I somehow got the idea you came down through the Panhandle, but it sounds like you stayed on I-35 through DFW and past my moms house north of Austin (either that, or you swung a hard unnecessary right to I-40, but that makes no sense if you meant to reach the coast the next day.) I felt OKC fairly metropolitan (I even briefly thought I had managed to get lost,) but I went through just before midnight on a hurried half-day trip from Austin to Topeka. Here is hoping the construction I found on most of I-35 through OK (and north of DFW) was gone by the time you got there; its total absence was easily my favorite aspect of the Kansas Turnpike.

Looking forward to reading the rest, as you approach territory I know far better. I hope you at least briefly managed to visit the Piney Woods and bayous of south East Texas, the best part of the state. Honestly, I could cheerfully take that, the coast and the Rio Grande Valley and leave the rest. Of course, that would eliminate the ability to say TX has every terrestrial climate except tundra (which is hardly missed, as you surely understand.)