4-18-18  Knoxville - St. Louis:

Time to continue on to St. Louis. At least the weather was a lot better then last time we drove through this area!  Last time it was snowing really hard.

Didn't have to get too far West and into the East Tennessee mountains to see the green in the trees disappearing.

I assume this is a confederate flag, but I've not ever seen one like this before.

Gotta love all the road work along the way. 

back down in elevation the trees were a lot greener.  There were also lots of yellow blooming cover crops along the way.

It was a pretty day for a ride

Usually we skirt around Nashville on Briley Parkway, but today it looked like traffic was moving through the city, so we stayed on I-24. 

West of Nashville and more farmlands.

an yellow cover crops.

the expansive yellow fields were really pretty.

the YellaWood barn is still standing.

Looks like some of the farmers were readying their fields already.

Love all the old barns in the Midwest!

and the scummy cow ponds.

finally some more spring blossoming.

I think this is my favorite time of the year---finally getting to see colors again.

back to the drab of winter.

One of the big rivers

The bridges in Paducah.

lots of calves around, too

a little barge on the Ohio?

Don't know what these purple blooms are, but they were pretty.

Somewhere in the Illinois

a better constructed "barn"

The wind had picked up, too---as seen here by how rough the pond surface water is.

We did stop and visit with David and Jane for a couple hours.  That's always a nice break.  Then we continued the final 1 1/2 hours.  Nice that it's daylight until about 8:30 now so most of the drive was by daylight.

Almost Vermont like---all that's missing are the mountains.

Lots of purple fields along I-64.

I love when the clouds break up the sunlight into rays.

Looks like they're still getting a lot of rain.  The rivers were still overflowing their banks.

clearing skies for the end of the day

more purple haze.

lots of aluminum silos in Illinois

The St. Louis Skyline as seen from I-64 about 10 miles away.

closer to the city as we were skirting around it on I-70. 

The "new" I-70 bridge.  The old one took you to the middle of the city.  This one skirts around to the North. 

Got to the house as the sun was getting low in the sky.  Angie, Josh, Layla, and the pups all arrived a short while later.  Bet that was a long 11 or 12 hours with a 4 month old baby and 2 dogs!  But it was nice seeing them again.