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Day One
Picked up the 2019 Ford Explorer from Enterprise around 7:30am, came home and packed it up with everything we decided we need for the two week trip. Heather and Diego came home around 8am with the turtle cake Martha had requested from Savoia Bakery, we did some final packing and loading, had an extended goodbye with Gracie and we were on our way.
First leg of the trip had us scheduled to visit Barrio Taqueria in the Tremont section of Cleveland, but unfortunately this marked my first planning fail of the trip as we were greeted by locked doors and a sign that said Monday, open at 4pm. As we were there at 12:30pm and still had a 6 hour drive ahead of us to the hotel, we opted for alternate fare. Found an open restaurant around the corner called Fat Cats, and it was pretty good. Heather and Olivia had veggie rice bowls, I had the house burger with bacon and Diego had his signature crispy chicken sandwich with bacon and mayo.
Finished up with lunch and hit the road again, headed for Terra Haute, Indiana.
About halfway to Indianapolis, I suddenly realized that
we could stop in and see Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which is home to the Indy 500 as well as many other races. We made a very slight detour and stopped to take some pictures. The area around the speedway is quite run down, we were surprised by how many businesses were closed and how poorly kept the entire area was.
On to Terra Haute! The first day is the most extreme of the trip by far and by design. I figured if we could get a lot of travel knocked out on the first day it would set us up well for the rest of the trip and be pretty tolerable as the road trip is all so new. The kids were super troopers throughout the entire 11+ hour car ride from Rochester to Terra Haute, IN. Couldn’t ask for better travel companions!
We settled into our hotel (the Holiday Inn Terra Haute) and headed down to the attached restaurant which is a Longhorn Steakhouse. Had a really nice meal with a server named Madison who was a delight. So nice and accommodating to Diego, who had a minor tantrum over his chicken dinner not being what he
wanted to order for dinner (my fault). She had the kitchen make him a special piece of fried chicken off the menu, to go along with the fries that were approved from his original order. We weren’t charged for either order...just amazing customer service on their part. I ordered a cowboy ribeye, Olivia had a chicken dish with artichokes, and Heather had a steak salad with bleu cheese crumbles. We all shared a shrimp appetizer and an item similar to a bloomin’ onion which wasn’t all that great. The entree’s were all excellent.
After dinner we were all pretty tired (understandable as it was almost 11pm) so we headed for the room and did our night time routine. Diego had his shower and we read a bedtime story, and then it was lights out for the clan.
It’s Tuesday morning about 6:15am, three of the four of us have been up intermittently but at the moment Heather is downstairs in the hotel gym getting a workout in while both kids sleep in a bit and I write the first chapter of our journey thus far.
Today we’re off to the great state of Missouri! First time for
all four of us. It’s about 2.5 hours to St. Louis, should be a fun day.
States visited:
New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana
First time:
Olivia - (Indiana)
Diego - (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana)
Miles Driven (day) - 643
Miles Driven (total) - 643
Notes:
We ran into six miles of standstill traffic between Indy and Terra Haute while authorities cleaned up a bad accident ahead of us. It was all clear by the time we got there but added about an hour to our drive time. Other than that it was clear sailing the entire way.
Our rented Ford Explorer is really nice, Heather and I have both commented that a full-size SUV would be a very nice addition to our driveway someday. It has third-row seating so the adults are in the front, Diego has the back seat to himself (with some luggage) and Olivia has the third row to herself (again, with some luggage). So far it’s working out quite well, we have enough room for everything and everyone without being too cramped.
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