Road Trip – Day 5-8 – Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey

After getting to spend a few hours with my family in Lake Forest, IL on Friday I met up with some friends from college.  I hopped into another car with them and we drove just about 300 miles to Quincy, IL on the border of Missouri right on the Mississppi River.  We were in Quincy for our friend Adam’s wedding.  We had a great time at the wedding and reception on Saturday, and we had even more fun out at the bars in Quincy unitl 3am! 

We woke up Sunday hurting a lot from all our fun and it was back in the car once again.  We drove back to Chicago and arrivedi n town around 6pm Central time.  My dad met me and I got out of my friend’s car, and into my car.  My dad and I drove out of Illinois through Indiana and into Ohio.  It took us around 6 hours, and when all was said and done we checked into our hotel in Maumee, OH at midnight Eastern time on Sunday night.  We were both pretty exhausted, and after all my wedding fun I was ready to hit the pillow and crash. 

Our alarm went off around 5am on Monday and we both slowly dragged ourselves out of bed and we wereon the road by about 6am.  We drove the rest of the way through Ohio (and I napped).  We came into Pennsylivania and made a stop in Erie to see my sister.  She attends Gannon University and we arrived at her place around 10am.  We went out to breakfast and showed her the travel pictures and told her some of our stories.  I think it was around noon when we got back in the car and I did the driving from Erie all the way home to Rochester. 

As we pulled up to my house there were 3 ‘welcome home’ balloons in the front yard and I honked my horn all the way down the street so my mom would know we had arrived.  By the time we landed in Rochester my dad and I were both pretty exhausted.  We spent a low key day telling stories, eating dinner and crashing early.  My mom was really glad to see us and I’m really happy I got to see her along the way in this trip.

Rochester may have been the last stop for my dad, but I still had to finish the journey and touch down on the ‘actual’ east coast.  I FINALLY got to sleep in and didn’t wake up until 8am.  I put my car back together and made sure I had everything and by 9:30am I was back out on the road.  I made my way through New York, and then into Pennsylvania for a bit, and then finally onto New Jersey.  I pulled into Hoboken, NJ around 2:45pm today (Tuesday), and that was it, final destination. 

So here I am, back on the east coast.  It was a great week on the road and I can’t believe we covered the entire country coast to coast in  a week. 

Road Trip – Day 4 Leaving S.D, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois

We were on the road again today at just before 6am.  I was exhausted and went back to sleep until around 7am.  Dad tried to wake me up to take a picture of sunrise, but I coudn’t keep my eyes open.  We were still buffalo hunting on our way out of S. Dakota, but we left without a confirmed sighting, which had us both bummed. 

As we rolled into Minnesota we grabbed some breakfast at a Country Kitchen (not Perkins again thankfully!) and I settled in behind the wheel for a while.  We were excited to try and find adventures in MN, but there wasn’t much to explore (at least off of 90E).  There was the 60ft tall Jolly Green Giant, but we coudln’t see which exit number the sign said, and by the time we figured it out, we had already gone past the exit.  We hoped to find something more just down the road, but all we got was corn fields.  Miles and miles of corn fields. 

So Minnesota was a slight dissapointment.  Lucikly as we headed into Wisconsin the landscape changed and the rolling hills began again.  We headed over the Mississippi River, and throug the Dells which was very pretty.  I really wanted to find something cheese related in WI, and luckily we saw a sign for a Cheese Factory, so we pulled over.  It was a small roadside store for the award winning Carr Valley Cheese.  We picked up some assorated fun cheesec and were on our way.

Initally we were supposed to stop in Madison Wisconsin for the night, but we would have arrived there around 3-4pm.  My Aunt and Uncle live  just across the border into Illinois, and getting there only added another 2-3 hours of driving to our trip for the day, so we decided to drive on.  Dad’s new GPS came in handy to find us the fastest way into Lake Forest and with no trouble at all (and no real traffic) we arrived in IL at my family’s house around 6:15pm central time.

So we’re here in IL for a few days now.  I have a wedding to go to in Quincy, IL (a few hours south of Chicago) and Dad gets to catch up with the family and relax.  We’re back on the road Sunday.

Until then, here are Day 4 Pics.  Have a good weekend! 

Road Trip – Day 3 Leaving Montana, Wyoming, S. Dakota

 

After tough negotiations last night I was able to gain a few hours of sleep.  I woke up this morning at 5am, and we were on the road by 5:30.  As we drove out of Montana we drove through the Crow Nation Indian Reservation.  There is the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn.  We tried to see the battlefield, but we got there an hour early and it was closed, so we took a quick picture of the sign and were on our way. 

Wyoming was very open, and there was very little to see off the highway.  There were a serveral oil refineries, and we saw a few ‘Halliburton’ trucks.  We made it through the state without much issue and we were headed into South Dakota before we knew it.

The western portion of South Dakota was the most populated area we had driven though thus far.  It was almost strange to have cars driving around  us and to see several exits in a row with houses visable from the highway.  We also saw an airplane in the sky, which made us realize that since we left Washington, we hadn’t seen anything in the air. 

Further into South Dakota it gets more desolate, but then out of nowhere for about 20 miles are bilboards for ‘Wall Drugs’.  “Free Ice Water, Wall Drugs”, “5 cent Coffee, Wall Drugs”, “Homemade Ice Cream, Wall Drugs”, “Western Wear, Wall Drugs”, “New T-Rex Toys, Wall Drugs”.  We were both intruigued and confused.   We checked it out and Wall Drugs has become the place in the middle of no-where S.Dakota for people to stop and eat and get souveniers and help boost the economy of a small one street town.

Eventually we came into Chamberlin, our resting point for the night.  We ate and checkedc out Al’s Oasis, a miny version of Walls 150 miles down the road.  There was also a large buffalo statue by the side of the road that we went and took pictures of.

Here are today’s pictures.

Time to relax now, more driving tomorrow. 

Road Trip Day 2

 

Today we had an early start.  Dad woke up at 2am and asked me if we should get on the road, I called him a ‘crazy man’ and rolled over and went back to sleep.  He woke me up again at 4am, this time fully dressed asking to get on the road.  I pulled myself out of bed and we were out onto 90East by 4:30am.  Like I said, we had an early start…

We drove out of Idaho and into Montana.  The western portion of Montana is very mountainous and there were some spectacular views.  We crossed the Continental Divide, and rolled on through Bg Sky County.  Around Bozeman, MT we saw signs for The Museum of the Rockies.  We decided to give ourselves a break and stopped in.  The museum was not what we expected.  Montana is apparently a hub of paleontology and Montana State University is known for it’s research and programs in this field.  There have been many big dinosaur finds out here, and they have all the real fossils and bones on display, including the world’s largest t-rex skull. 

We got back on the road and made our way to Billings.  We stopped in for some dinner at a local sports bar and spent the rest of the night arguing about how early (or not early if you ask me) we should get on the road tomorrow.  Until then!!

Also as promised, here are some pictures
Weekend at the Gorge with Nick
Day 1 Roadtrip Through Washington
Day 2 Roadtrip Through Idaho and Montana

Road Trip – Day 1

After a great weekend of camping and Dave Matthews Band concert going I was up at 7am driving to Seattle to pick my Dad up at the airport and drop Nick off to head home. 

I hopped in behind the wheel and drove the 331.1 miles from Seattle to Coeur D’ Alene, Idaho.  We basically drove straight across the state of Washington and just over the border of Idaho.  Total drive time was around 5 hours.  We pulled into the hotel at 4:30PDT. 

The landscape of Washington was much more diverse than I expected, and it’s amazing how much open land exists here.  We drove literally for over an hour without seeing anything besides open rolling straw color hills.  I have a few pictures of the weekend and the drive today, but I’m pretty exhausted, so I’ll post them later.