Are We There Yet?

Friday, July 8th: We left Bowling Green at 7:00 a.m., with a neatly packed car, Daniel (until Chicago), and only a vague idea of how long it would take us to get to Colorado. After visiting the opulently designed Indiana Tourism Center, we found the South Shore train station and dropped off Daniel. I could have done without Indiana and Illinois altogether, but Iowa was surprisingly beautiful. Rolling hills, bright green grasses--a good representative of the Heartland.

Nebraska quickly became my favorite state, as it is the first with a 75 m.p.h. speed limit; though, it's flatter than Ohio and wider than we thought. At this point, we'd been on 80W for most of the trip, cruise control set on 85, and Jenna offering to drive ever so often. Little old neurotic me refused, and continued the drive no matter the physical cost. I didn't know what to expect from such a lengthy road trip, but I soon felt stabbing stiffness in my knees, tense muscles in my neck, a tired from focusing in my eyes, and the overwhelming panicky feeling from too much air conditioning and enclosed music.

In the end, I can now say that I drove all the way to Colorado on my own, without relief. It took us 19+ hours to travel 1,200+ miles. The last leg of the drive was fairly brutal, as we underestimated both the time and distance to Aurora and got lost in the last 15 minutes of navigation. Cindy had to guide us by cell phone. She greeted us with a glass of ice cold water (to combat the elevation change), two guest beds and an offer to sleep as late as we wanted. And so it begins...