On the road

We hit the road about 5:15 on Weds and headed towards Champaign, IL. Big surprise (not) we were hungry before we even got to Dayton and ate at a Tim Horton's in Huber Heights. Good stuff, but MAN are their restaurants cold! I guess they keep it refridgerated like that for the donuts, but thank goodness for the decaf coffee or I would have been blue all over.

Between Indianapolis and Champaign we started seeing a terrific light show - lightning from cloud to cloud and from cloud to ground. I'm not sure what was in the air but the light was amber rather than white, very pretty. I saw one particular flash between clouds that reminded me of my heart cath (those of you who've seen it will relate) with one major "vein" that branched out into others before fading. Am I too fixated on medical stuff or is all of this inter-related somehow? Like a great cosmic heart cath (just kidding!)

We took a stab at a Baymont Hotel in Champaign but unfortunately had to stay in a smoking room - cough, cough! So funny, being an ex-smoker, to see the telltale burn mark on the bedside table - oh, God, did I use to do that? The stench was amazing, as it always is to us ex-smokers (did I smell like that when I smoked? Yuk!) but we were too exhausted to care and fell asleep pretty quickly.

Baymont has those "business" breakfasts in the lobby so we grabbed our Raisin Bran there and chatted with a crop insurance salesman about Hawaii. His company has regular meetings in Hawaii (nice!) and we said we were headed there for the first time next Spring, so he had great suggestions for side trips for us. We may have gotten too cozy there and didn't hit the road until after 8:00. Oops.

On 74 N through IL I saw an apple tree by the side of the highway and had to laugh. As kids driving (pre-interstate) from Newark, OH, to Dayton several times a year to visit our Dad's mother, we'd be allowed a snack of apples in the car. The best part was throwing the core to the side of the road and imagining that the next time we went by there'd be an apple tree! Our own little Johnny Appleseed adventure! I've not gone on those roads since to see if apple trees popped up on some farmer's field edge, but saw today that our family wasn't the only one out there sowing seeds.

We saw our first wind farm in Pawpaw. Pretty spectacular, even though there wasn't much wind. Just the size of those posts and blades was awesome. They were white, which blended into the hazy sky pretty well - maybe they stood out more on a sunny day. I thought they should be candy-striped and all those fun colors the pinwheels we'd get at Woolworths would be. So much more fun!

Wisconsin was a great break from corn - soybeans - corn -soybeans... We saw fields of sweet corn and trucks loaded with it, and will forever think of Wisconsin when we buy frozen or canned corn. Still, after hours and hours and hours of rural, I was screaming for a city! Drew was feeling a bit tired after driving all that way, through several rainstorms, and after a stop at a Panera that we found completely by accident (fate) I took over driving all the way into Minneapolis. The Jetta isn't hard to drive, but certainly fits Drew's style and body size more than mine. After four hours, my lower back and hips were screaming, and still are.

Drew is feeling better, but sacked out (can't keep up with Conference pace!) This is his last week of MBA classes, and he's got tons of homework and a presentation online. We've made a deal to basically meet for dinner. This is a challenge for me to remember - out of about 7 conferences I've been to, he's been to one before. Needless to say, I have my own schedule.

It is way past my bedtime...