07-06-04
Left Fort Wayne this morning about 8:00 or so (eastern time) and
continued on route 30 west. We decided to just to stay on
it. Most of the road was pretty good, although there were areas
that about rattled the burners off the stove, even with the cutting
board on top. After missing our exit (and not knowing it) - we
drove about 30 miles out of the way to get back to route 30.
However, we did find the Dan Quayle museum in Indiana during our side
excursion. Parts of route 30 were 2 lane, parts 3 lane, and some
of it 6 lane in selected spots, when we got near the suburbs of
Chicago. Traffic was light until the suburbs of Chicago, then it
increased along with the traffic lights, the majority of which we (yes)
hit red. Eventually, route 30 crosses with route 80, so we
decided to get on it and run that for a while to add some distance to
our travels today. Weather started to warm up in to the lower
80's by early afternoon. When we got into Iowa, (by the way -
where we crossed the Mississippi river - it's not that wide - reminds
me of the Susquehanna) things started to cool off some and the sky was
mostly cloudy. The temp. dropped from the low 80's to about 69
degrees by the time we stopped in Des Moines (in case you are not
familiar with it - Des Moines is roughly in the middle of the
state). We are currently sitting in a Flying J parking lot, which
has Wi-Fi access, which I was able to connect to. I am not using
it however, when i opened my web browser, I found out they charge $2.95
an hour, or $4.95 a day for the service. They also have a monthly
subscription service or even yearly if you like. No thanks.
I'll use my incredibly slow cell phone with my free unlimited nights
and weekend minutes, thank you very much. Earlier today, I bought
a 400 watt inverter from Best Buy (found one on route 30) to hook up to
the the batteries, so I can use the computer (yes, dead battery in the
computer), (what, you think all my computers run perfectly just because
I repair them)? Dream on. Anyway, we plan to spend the
night here and drive on in the morning. Got gas again today, and
averaged just a touch above 9 mpg. By the way Chuck, Flying J
does not have a $50 credit card limit on the pump when you are filling
up. Don't know if there is a limit at $100, because I
didn't need that much. Anyhow, it's about bedtime, I will try to
upload this and then go to bed. See ya......
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