North to Alaska - Day One - Home to Belton, MO

One of the tough parts about starting any trip is getting away from home.  You have to leave on roads you are familiar with and simply make miles to get out of your home territory.  Today was no exception to that rule since we had traveled pretty much the same route within the last year.  

Today would see us traveling through Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas and Missouri to get to our first planned stop in Belton, MO.  

We launched early around 5:30 in the morning and made a stop in MS for breakfast.  Luckily we made it through Memphis without any issues.  

Eastern Arkansas is flat and nothing to see but field after field of rice, corn, cotton, etc.  

We entered southern Missouri and started to enjoy the rolling hills of the Ozarks.  A brief rainshower outside of West Plains, MO kept us cooled off.  

Some nice curvy roads and more interesting scenery was found between West Plains and Springfield and up through western MO to Belton.  

We grabbed supper in Belton and checked in to Comfort Inn for our first night on the road. I always read motel/hotel reviews on Trip Advisor before making reservations.  This Comfort Inn was given good reviews so we expected to find just that.  We were disappointed.  

As we pulled into the hotel, the desk clerk and several "acquaintances" were sitting outside the door smoking.  The clerk finally meandered inside for me to check in.   There were maybe 5 cars in the parking lot.  I always ask for a ground floor room but when we checked in she had us on the 2nd floor with no elevator!  The clerk was not the least bit interested in changing our room assignment even though the parking lot was virtually empty, so rather than being a total ass, I accepted and lugged our stuff upstairs.   That one won't get a good review!

Day 1 is in the books and we are looking forward to tomorrow as we tackle Nebraska.