Wednesday, May 20th

Faye
We had (probably) our longest day on the road - 12 hours - 9 to 9. That includes meal and gas stops of course, and everything went well. Illinois and Iowa vary between flat farmland and rolling hilly farmland, which can be quite pretty, except that there's a lot of it.

We're spending the night in Sioux City, Iowa and enjoying a little of the Bushmill's Irish whiskey that Joe brought back from Ireland for Kelly. Kelly's been celebrating the end of each day on the road with a little Bushmill's. We learned 2 main things today. Iowa has wireless internet in their rest areas, and the state capitol building in Des Moines is a very large, very impressive building

Kelly
In addition, I have now crossed into my first new state (Iowa) and have added one more wine onto my 50-state wine checklist (Iowa makes 15!). Des Moines seems like a nice city, and yes, the capital building overwhelms everything else.


TUESDAY, MAY 19th
Kelly

Started off the day at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Again I lamented the lack of people downtown, because the waterfront area is beautiful. And totally safe, really! Come back people! The Museum is great, you must go if you find yourself anywhere nearby. The sheer amount of stuff from different genres and decades means that everyone can geek out over something. Also, I can say pretty confidently that I am taller than Mick Jagger, but shorter than Keith Richards.

From the museum it was 5 hours, four more tolls, three rest stops, and one wrong turn to Midway Airport to pick up Mom. We had planned to eat dinner at the airport to wait out rush hour traffic, but were thwarted by the fact that Midway does not have any eateries outside of security. We experienced a bit of Chicago traffic (the end of my streak), and eventually made it to the home of the Morlans in Bloomington. They were all good sports in waiting up for us to have drinks and dessert. And the bed was never more welcoming than that night.


Faye

I left Manchester NH via Southwest Airlines and learned a helpful hint. If you want to get some plane seats to yourself, on a plane that's only 2/3 or so full, you go down toward the back and choose an aisle seat. Everyone who got on after me looked for an empty aisle seat, even if that meant sitting next to 2 other people. No one sat in the empty middle or window seat next to me! I don't think it was anything about me, but that's ok if it was. Anyway, Kelly met me and we worked our way through Chicago traffic and down to Bloomington IL. We had a very nice visit with Joyce, Larry & Clif Morlan and enjoyed their comfy guest beds.