Day Five

We had another three state day today! We started in Sioux City, IA, and decided to make it a big driving day. There weren't any sites in either Iowa or Illinois on our list of things to see, so it made sense to just power on through. We made it to Des Moines, where we had lunch at a Cracker Barrel! I'd been trying to have a meal there since we first realized we were in Cracker Barrel country. Yes, I know, they're all over the country. But they're not in Oregon or Washington. The food was good, the service friendly and the store was full of cool stuff! I bought a Josh Turner live CD (Cracker Barrel exclusive) and DH got one of railroad music. The servings were large, so we packed up leftovers (and had them for dinner!). This was only our second restaurant meal of the whole trip, as we realized that not only would eating out cost a lot of money, but even more important, would eat up time.

After lunch, we got right back on the highway and headed east for the Iowa border. Along the way, we checked maps and found a likely stopping spot for the night: Merrilville, IN. It's right at Highway 30, which we'll need to take to get to Ft. Wayne, our next planned stop.

Nothing much to report about traveling across two whole states. We saw corn, lots and lots of corn. It's kind of beautiful...although it makes me sad that it'll be turned into high-fructose corn syrup.

We did hit a lighting storm on the way through Illinois, close to the Chicago area. Man, was that a bear to drive in! Huge thudding rain drops, lightning, other cars and trucks going way the heck too fast. After that, the Chicago area (we were on I-80 remember, so we skirted the worst) was full of huge trucks, cement walls, a friggin' toll booth of all things, and people just going way too fast. I don't mind speed, I enjoyed going 85 through stretches of Montana and South Dakota, but in those conditions, 80 just wasn't safe. Anyway, we did make it safely to Merrilville, our hotel is cheap (thanks to a coupon book I found at an Illinois rest area--look for those, you can save $20!), and the kids are letting off steam by jumping on the beds. Nothin' like a bed you can jump on! We have futons at home, which aren't nearly so much fun.

Tomorrow, we'll arrive in Ohio via Ft. Wayne, IN.

Pictures soon!