"Boy, it sure is windy here"

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Internet has been scarce, but I'm finally updating. I've concluded Day 2 of the road trip and successfully made it through three states and one time zone. And now I'm in Illinois.

I made it to Denver easily enough and my road trip companion and I spent all of Thursday prepping for the trip. We bought healthy road snacks at Whole Foods. We went to Target and I got stuff for my living situation in Maine. We found enough time to pamper ourselves and get manicures and pedicures. I know my nails will just get destroyed once I start work in Maine, but it was kind of a pre-trip bonding activity, and that's what vacations are for.

And then the big anticipated departure day came, Friday. And we hit our first obstacle. My companion had suffered from some sort of food poisoning or something in the middle of the night and had since then been unable to keep anything down and was pretty much opposed to any form of movement. So leaving was not an option that morning. We decided that there were two possibilities. If the sickness passed early enough, we could leave later Friday evening and get into Omaha super late, or we could skip Omaha and drive straight through to Chicago the next day--a 14 hour drive. There was a bit of debate and kind of a standstill for a few hours. I picked up the rental car, and since my co-traveler was incapacitated, I was the only driver on the contract, so needless to say, I was not in favor of the 14 hour drive option.

Luckily, the sickness passed enough that she felt well enough to leave Friday afternoon. We got on the road by 4pm, and spent our 7.5 hour drive to Omaha driving primarily in the rain. It was kind of scary, especially as it got dark and rainy, but we made it to Omaha alright by about 12:30am. We checked into our slightly ghetto hotel (no elevator? in a three story hotel? are you kidding me?), and went straight to sleep.

Today, we left Omaha and drove to Chicago. Having a car is sort of a liability. Parking is expensive (like San Francisco expensive) and since it was about dusk when we got here, it got really cold, really fast, and it was really hard to explore the neighborhood. We tried walking around to look for a pizza place, but the hotel personnel gives lousy directions and this part of Downtown Chicago doesn't seem too active and thriving after 8pm.

We have a lot of activities we're trying to cram into tomorrow before we leave for Ohio. Mostly museums are planned. There are a couple key areas that we can get to easily enough by train--it wouldn't be a trip to Chicago without a trip on the El--and I'm hoping to be back on the road by late afternoon, so we can get into Sandusky before 11pm.

To re-cap, I've been through Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois so far. I've seen a lot of cows, many farms, a plethora of water towers, and one Mississippi River. We hit traffic in Chicago and saw very little of the city so far, but I'm hoping to get my tourist crash course badge tomorrow.

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