| September 27, 1999 Macedonia, OH to Coralville, IA 563 miles …only to wake up five hours later to start driving again. Our limbs were already stiff; how would we manage to make it across the whole country? Callie once again volunteered to drive. She ended up behind the wheel for the whole trip. I swear I offered to take over, but she insisted that she was comfortable behind the wheel. Today we passed through the flatlands of the Midwest. I didn’t take many notes because, once again, this stretch of Interstate 80 is just more functional than scenic. We drove, periodically stopped for gas/bathroom breaks, listened to radio and cassettes. In Indiana we ate lunch at Steak ‘n Shake, a Midwest-and-South-only chain that serves delectable (if greasy) food. We passed just south of Chicago, but couldn’t visit because a) we had a tight schedule and b) it’s hard to navigate a huge Ryder truck through crowded city streets. A fierce rainstorm struck around Joliet, IL, and followed us all the way past the Quad Cities and into Iowa. Here we saw the first appearance of Kum & Go gas stations/convenience stores, a business name so grotesque I wondered how the company’s directors and shareholders allowed it to exist. Coralville is a town/commercial strip just outside Iowa City. After checking into that night’s Motel 6, we dropped the cats off and went to get dinner. Callie located a Panera Bread, a Midwestern sandwich chain (similar to Au Bon Pain) that has incredible onion soup. Callie knows all the best regional food chains, let me tell you. Panera Bread turned out to be in the local shopping mall, a glittering citadel complete with ice-skating rink. We walked into this mall feeling like a couple of refugees. I was grubby, unshaven, and dressed in shorts and a T-shirt despite the cold Midwestern autumn weather. I didn’t care. I was just happy to have some relatively real food for the first time in a couple of days. We passed out as soon as we returned to the motel. There was a farm convention in town. We were the only obvious non-farmers in the entire Motel 6. |
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| tomorrow | yesterday |