Day 1: Last plaza in Ohio

First, just to help Danielle prove her point... time to play Find That Farm! Match the following road-side farms with the correct state's license plate.

Was up early this morning to re-pack my car and grab some breakfast with Lindsay & Danielle. They gave me a bitching antique travelling bar set as an early Christmas gift, and I had to find room for that and the road-side tools my grandfather got me. Everything fit just fine.

Eggs and hash browns, coffee and brown bread. Second day in a row now that I've had this familiar breakfast, and am completely happy with it. Simple things are so often the best.

Filled up my gas tank, and was on the road just after 10am. Today's drive clocks 385 miles at just around 6 hours. I left Ohio, skirted the Indiana/Michigan border, traversed Illinois, and landed just across the Mississippi River in Iowa.

 

My friend Meghan made me an excellent mix to listen to while driving. 72 songs got me nearly the entire way! I'll have to list the tracks out in a side bar later. It's a good mix of French music, Ditty Bops, some old-school tunes, and just general music with a good driving beat to it. My iPod plugs in through my cassette deck (something I'm truly grateful to have in my car, even if it does have a disc player too) and for some reason it's always playing the B-side. I'm not sure why.

Musings along the way ... it rained on and off. My car gets approximately 30mpg when set to cruise at 65mph. Brownberry bread is perfect for PB&J and has no HFCS. All roads seem to lead towards Chicago. Between Ohio and Indiana you pay three tolls - total was around $11. The GPS does not warn you when you're about to turn down a one-way street. There are wind turbines in Illinois - Rock on... why doesn't Ohio have these?! There's a Peru, IL too.

Tonight I'm staying at the Isle of Capri Casino Hotel in Bettwendorf, just outside of Davenport. The casino is in a large building built along the edge of the Mississippi River, designed to look like a river boat. I'm not sure if it's cool or hokey, but at night it and the bridge crossing into Iowa look pretty nifty. Got a good price on a corner hotel room via HotWire. My windows have a nice view.

Tomorrow I'll cross Iowa and put some miles behind me into Nebraska - both are rather wide territories. Maybe I'll see some more corn.

“Whoever makes two ears of corn, or two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, deserves better of mankind, and does more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together”  Jonathan Swift

"Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field." Dwight D. Eisenhower

Answers to Find That Farm!: (A) Iowa, (B) Ohio, (C) Indiana, (D), Illinois

Holiday Hiatus

I left Cleveland on November 23 for Maumee, OH (just across the river from where we went to high school) where I spent some time with my long time friends Lindsay and Danielle. Over the holidays I had the chance to see my grandparents and all my relatives that live in Michigan. We had a very nice Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday hosted by one of my aunts. Most of the week was spent relaxing and just enjoying the time off work before my trip. I'm certainly looking forward to moving across the country, but at the same time I'm going to miss my family and all of the friends I've made in Ohio. While certainly not a stranger to leaving home, it wasn't easy to say good bye to my parents and grandparents, my family, my friends, co-workers at CTPartners and Grand River Cellars, and the French meetup group. However I know I'll see everyone again, and am looking forward to what the future holds. What is life if we are not meant to make it an adventure?