Hello again! Denise and Catherine reporting on another road trip – this time instead of a line through all states southern, we are looping up through the Dakotas and heading home.
First, a note. While somehow there are no pictures of Catherine today, at some point there probably will be one. She’s not fat. Well, not fat because she ate too much. There is, in fact, a 23 week old parasite that weighs more than a pound living with her. While this parasite was along for the ride from CA to NC, it is now much more in evidence. He’s got 46 normal looking chromosomes, and last time we checked, 10 fingers, 10 toes, 2 kidneys, a 4-chambered heart and a brain. Also, even though Catherine says he and calls him Squirt, she has no idea if Squirt’s a he or a she. But he’s better than it.
On to the trip. Today we rode. Well, Catherine drove and Denise rode. No wait, that was last trip. This trip Denise actually started the day by driving on I-40 from Apex to Asheville including some Blue Ridge Mountains.
After a quick stop for Subway (for Catherine), gas (for the car), cheese, fruit, nuts and Kind bars (for Denise), and tick removal (Catherine), Catherine took over the driving. These green NC hills are lovely, but Catherine was left wondering what happened to the mountains she remembers driving through on the way to California. John thinks we took a different pass (not I-40) and Catherine hopes it’s true – otherwise she was a real wimp.
We crossed the Tennessee border and the scenery didn’t change much.
Knoxville actually had 4 lanes of traffic going in both directions. Catherine thought she might be back in LA, but it only lasted a few miles. Thankfully, due to the time change, we went through the country music capital of the world (Nashville) before rush hour, picking up I-24. Tennessee has a lot of rolling hills, and impenetrable green stuff, but little else to report.
We crossed over into Kentucky and the landscape became a patchwork of mostly corn and wheat fields.
We stopped for gas (and so we could use the restroom again). Denise is now laughing at poor Catherine because Catherine actually stopped at 2 rest areas in Tennessee. Catherine can’t believe normal people live like this and notes that Denise has been taking advantage of rest areas as well. Denise took over driving again and crossed 2 rivers – the Grand River at Paducah (tourist trap/artist community town)
and the Ohio River
to get into Illinois (who knew Kentucky connected to Illinios? Not Catherine).
Denise notes that Illinois has a lot of corn and wheat and is not simply the state of Chicago. Of note, there was a live deer beside the interstate. While there had been a lot of water for several hours, once we found I-57, we started noticing trees growing in the middle of rivers and bridges that seemed to be only a few feet tall.
We stopped in Mount Vernon which is simply a collection of chain hotels, restaurants and gas stations. If you want the nicer hotels (Hampton Inns, Holiday Inns, etc go left at the top of the ramp). On the left are Super 8s and some rather sketchy looking places. It’s now past our bed time – good night from Illinois!
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