Day 2 began bright an early in Columbus, OH. Beautiful weather and not humid at all compared to NYC. It was fabulous. We ate the hotel's free breakfast, and then loaded up for the day's 9 1/2 hour drive to Des Moines, Iowa. We were scheduled to cover the most ground this day (662 miles) and four states (which included three of the four "I" states).
While Brian was getting the GPS situated I pulled out my sunglasses and realized that they were broken. Blast! I loved these glasses. It was a good omen though. Brian broke his favorite pair of sunglasses when we were in Salt Lake City getting ready to fly to NYC for the first time. And our time in NYC all went well, so I guess this means that our new life in Utah will be great.
My two ivy plants survived drive day one, and were looking good for day two.
All ready to go with caffeine for the driver, some great music, and our GPS ready to go.
This day started off much better than the previous day. Although we had to drive through some traffic as we passed by Columbus on our way out, it wasn't nearly as confusing and stressful as driving out of NYC.
Soon enough, we were on the open road. There may be lots of highway pictures, because that was our view the entire time. Sorry about the bug splatters.
The further west we drove in Ohio the flatter the land got and the more corn we saw. We passed hundreds and hundreds of miles of corn fields by the time we were done with our four day drive.
Ohio was pretty flat, but there were a good number of trees and a few hills here and there.
The corn fields were broken up every now and then by fields of beautiful dark green foliage. I couldn't tell what the plants were at first, but eventually figured out that they were soybeans.
We traveled along I-70 most of the way across Ohio. At one point, not far from Indiana, we passed a sign for Grandpa's Cheese Barn--that just sounds so sketchy and it made us laugh.
Soon enough we crossed the border into Indiana.
Again the land changed a bit. It was still flat-ish and covered in corn and soybeans, but there seemed to be more trees than in Ohio, and they seemed greener.
- 19th state to join the Union
- 38th largest by area and 16th most populous
- State bird is the cardinal
- State flower is the peony
- State beverage is water (oh Indiana, couldn't you come up with something more interesting?)
- State tree is the tulip tree
- The name Indiana means "land of the Indians"
- Nicknamed the Hoosier State; If you live in Indiana you are known as a hoosier; Hoosier was a term used in the 19th Century to describe someone as a woodsman or rough hill man
Indiana was fairly uneventful. We stopped for lunch at an Arby's nearby the Pilot that we stopped to gas up at. We were still happy and not sick of driving yet.
We passed this sign for an Amish Cheese Shop, and thought it sounded much better than Grandpa's Cheese Barn.
We were both much more relaxed on the drive during day two. There was no heavy traffic, rain storms, or road construction to slow us down. We had fun talking, listing to and singing along with music, and just being together without having anyone to call or any boxes to pack.
We passed by Indianapolis while in Indiana. The traffic got a little heavy, but nothing too terrible.
It was the largest town around for miles and had the largest buildings we'd seen since Columbus.
Another funny thing in Indiana -- there was this 10 mile stretch of highway along I-74 where the dashed lines were so obviously crooked. It was ridiculous, not only the continuous line of lines was crooked, but some of the individual lines looked more like accent marks than dashes. It was hilarious and made us laugh a lot. You can kind of see it a little in the next two pictures, but they don't do the crazy zig-zagginess justice. Oh Indiana...with your water and crooked lines.
Not long after crossing into Illinois, we passed by a sign for a restaurant called Possum Trot. I'll just let that one sink in. And no, we didn't stop.
Illinois was the flattest state yet, and surprise, surprise full of corn. Illinois also has a lot of those giant windmills, something that we hadn't seen yet on our trip.
Illinois Facts:
- 21st state to join the Union
- 25th largest by area, and 5th most populous
- State bird is the cardinal
- State insect monarch butterfly
- State flower Illinois native purple violet
- State tree is the white oak
- The name Illinois comes from the word Illini, a confederation of six different Indian tribes native to Illinois.
- Nicknamed the Prairie State
There weren't a lot of trees, at least close to the interstate, so we could see across the land for miles. I loved it so much. Just look at all that space.
The sky was gorgeous too. So blue, and we could see so much of it!
I think the biggest city we drove by in Illinois was Peoria. The rest of the time it was open land covered in corn and soybeans.
After Illinois, we crossed into Iowa.
I bet you can't guess what the major crop in Iowa is. At this point we were getting quite bored with mile after mile of corn. I was surprised though, that Iowa wasn't as flat as Illinois. I mean compared to Pennsylvania it was flat, but it had rolling hills, where Illinois was completely horizontal the entire way across.
Iowa State Facts:
- 29th state to join the Union
- 26th most largest by area, 30th most populous
- State bird is the eastern goldfinch
- State flower is the wild rose
- State tree is the oak
- The name Iowa is derived from the word Ioway-- the French term for the local Bah-kho-je Indian tribe
- Nicknamed the Hawkeye State
Our tank was getting pretty low about an hour out from our stop for the night, so we pulled off to gas up. Afterwards we missed the turn to get back on the interstate, and found ourselves driving down a two lane highway. There was no place to turn our truck around. The GPS directed us off onto a side road smaller than the first, which quickly turned into a dirt road.
We ended up turning around in the driveway of a small farm. They were probably wondering what in the world a rental truck was doing in their driveway. We retraced our steps, back to pavement, and eventually found the interstate again. That was a fun little detour.
Besides that little off-road jaunt, we experienced no other delays. We made it just fine to our hotel in Clive, Iowa, just outside of Des Moines.
We got out of the truck to go check in, and were immediately assaulted with this horrendous buzzing noise. It sounded kind of like a lawn mower and was SO loud. We realized that the nearby trees were filled with cicadas, who were very noisily making their presence know. The sound they make is called their song...not very melodious in my opinion! I took a short video so you could hear how noisy they are. The sound doesn't quite translate over the same, but you can get the general idea.
Near our hotel's entrance, we found this little cicada just hanging out. I'd heard stories about cicadas before, but never experienced them first hand until this trip. They look terrifying...that's the stuff of nightmares right there.
After checking in, we realized we were hungry and hadn't had dinner yet. We were sick of fast food, so started looking for something a little more home-cooked. We discovered a nearby BBQ restaurant called Wobbly Boots, which sounded good, so we walked over. It was so nice not to be sitting, and the walk felt really good.
We made the right choice, because their food was amazing! Brian ordered ribs, and I chose a pulled pork sandwich, with dill pickle slices on the side. Yum! I love dill pickles. We also got three small sides between the two of us -- baked beans, coleslaw, and potato salad -- it was heaven on a plate. It was so nice to eat some real food again after two long days on the road.
The day's anticipated 9 1/2 hour drive ended up taking us about 12 hours again, due to stops for gas, food, and to get out and stretch our legs. The last hour seemed to go on forever. All in all it was a good day though, and we fell asleep quite quickly once we turned in for the night. We had made it halfway there.
Cicadas sound like insanity, don't you think?
ReplyDelete