Statistical Update from Elkhart Indiana

Thought it might be time to update the statistics of our trip so far:
Days on the Road = 18
Mileage = almost 4000
No.of States Visited = 13
No. of motels/hotels = 10
No. of License plates = 41 states

No wonder we are getting tired earlier these days!

On the highway first thing this morning, leaving Madison Wisconsin we saw a small fishing boat with an outboard motor. What is unusual about that you say? Well, this one was painted with camouflage. Now I ask you, when you are on the lake or river fishing, why on earth do you need camo paint on your boat?

We stopped off in Beloit Wisconsin this morning. It is a little town with a great college campus. Wayne thinks his grandfather may have attended that college. The town was very cute and the campus was beautiful. Beloit is right on the border with Illinois. Just a few feet outside of Beloit was the "Welcome to Illinois" sign.

We had lunch at a very unique place called an "oasis". It was built over the freeway. You pull off the freeway and park then walk into the building which goes all the way across the freeway. It has a variety of fast food sort of things to eat and some small gift shop places. It was really neat. I had a Gyros sandwich. I love that stuff!

We are still surrounded with CORN fields everywhere. All the way through Illinois and now in Indiana too. I think we are all going to be using Ethanol soon and seeing all this corn shows me how easy that would be to produce. We've seen it for miles and miles through at least 3 states now.

We are learning about toll booths today. From about an hour before we got to Chicago until we stopped tonight in Elkhart Indiana, we went through a total of 13 toll booths! That is not a misprint, it was 13! It cost us anywhere from $0.40 to $2.50. It is incredible. They will be very close too, only minutes from each other. Sometimes you go through one and they give you a card with the date and time on it along with the type of vehicle you are driving and the location that you are passing through. Then, when you get OFF the freeway, you pay according to how long you traveled on that part of the road. In all, the 13 toll booths cost us $10.55 !!!

Note to Pat: Thanks so much for all your emails. We love reading them. You asked me about how I got the job in Wall South Dakota. In another lifetime (early/mid 60's) I was married to a guy in the Air Force. He was stationed at one of the radar sites out in the Badlands. My oldest son Todd was born while I lived there. The nearest Air Force Base was 50 miles away. He was born there. A few days after we brought the baby home from the hospital, there was a horrible blizzard (you can google the blizzard of Feb 1966). It was a traumatic experience I'll tell you all about it another time.

Note to Todd: Thanks for the comments on the blog. Tonight I am including a picture of your mother in the back of a cruiser in Chicago. Not to worry, it was a great cop we ran into at Wrigley Field today and he invited me to get in the back of his car. Wayne told him we have a son on the job and he asked about where, etc. Wayne showed him your card. He also volunteered to put me in cuffs, but I declined that pleasure! When Wayne finished taking the picture of me in the car, the cop said to Wayne "Ok, I have one question for you, how much do you want her back?" Wayne had his chance for sure, but he quickly said yes, he wanted me back so the cop told him to open the door and let me out! What an experience that was. I have never been in the back of a cruiser before. This cop was a lot of fun.

After lunch, we went through Chicago and saw Wrigley Field. It was a lot different than when I was there with Todd a long time ago. Lots of security now, all gates closed tightly, lots of people standing around to be sure you don't get in. We walked all around the stadium and found one gate open with a very nice guy guarding the gate. I asked him if I could just step in and take some pictures. He said "right from there, yes", indicating that I couldn't step in through the little breezeway a few feet from the entrance to the field. I just stepped in a little at a time, started snapping pictures and the guy was following me every step. Wayne kept saying Colleen, Colleen and I just kept on stepping a bit closer. As we left, we both thanked the guy for his patience, Wayne apologized for me and I told the guy "you know, he always has to apologize for me" and he really laughed out loud so I guess he wasn't too upset with us.
Didn't get really good pictures, but got some anyway.

We decided to stop around 4:00 this afternoon and got a room at the Quality Suites in Elkhart Indiana. We went a little ways down the road to a restaurant and got a bite to eat. We hadn't unpacked or sat down to rest because we knew if we did, we wouldn't want to get up and go eat so we left right away. After having a nice meal, we came back to the room and I noticed the clocks were blinking. I turned on the TV and got nothing but snow. Then the air conditioning turned off, the lights went out and guess what, NO POWER. Wayne went down to the office and found out no one knew what happened and so he told the girl we were going to leave. We didn't have a good feeling about it anyway. Two soft drink machines were broken, one of the side doors didn't work, one snack vending machine was completely empty and Wayne just had a bad feeling about it from the beginning. When the power went off, that was it, we loaded all our stuff back on the luggage cart and off we went. She couldn't check us out of course because no computer.

We drove 15-20 miles down the road and found a Holiday Inn Express which is where we are now. Not sure what town we are in but we were in Elkhart when the power went off.

It is stiffling hot and very humid here. We didn't want to take the chance that it would be a long time before the power came back on, no air conditioning is NOT the way we wanted to sleep tonight. So, we are fine now and cool as cucumbers!

Forgot to tell you, after Chicago, we drove to South Bend Indiana which, as my daughter Lisa can tell you is home to a certain university named Notre Dame. We drove all through the campus. What a great place that is. Very nice campus. We took lots of pictures which I will email to Lisa and put a couple here for all of you to see.

We are near some Amish communities here and plan to find them and check that out tomorrow. Not sure where the road will take us other than that. We have to talk about it tonight and decide.

I sure don't want to sound like a broken record here, but this trip has been and is so very special to Wayne and I that it is just beyond words. We are both like a couple kids and having so much fun. We have had incredible good luck and absolutely no problems. The only things you could even consider small glitches would be not being able to find a room in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and having to drive on to Alpine, not a big thing. The only other one would be tonight's power failure and quick re-location of hotels. Both of those things are minor, I know, but that is the closest thing to glitches that we have experienced. We are almost embarrassed that things are going so well for us.

We are both so very grateful and thankful that we are having this great trip. It is providing us with such great memories as to last the rest of our lives.

Love to All
Wayne and Colleen