Iowa

Well after being in travel-mode then without internet for several weeks, it's time to update where we're at and what's happening here in beautiful, sunny, Iowa. Oops, I mean wretchedly hot, flooded Iowa. Though in all fairness, it has gotten a little better since that first week we were here.

The move out of Old Town went fairly smoothly. The moving van was three hours late arriving, which gave us the time we needed to put the finishing touches on our packing. They were loaded and off by about dinner time, allowing us to clean our way out of the place and pack the car.

It's lucky for Lucy that Grandma loves her, because otherwise Eric & I would have let her actual birthday pass without so much as a cupcake. But, Grandma comes through again, with Ariel cupcakes, a new "prize" and lots of birthday songs.

We spent the night in Waterville after leaving our house, cutting about 60 miles off of our 1600 mile trip, but getting a good night sleep in a comfortable bed and hot meals were the real incentives. We said goodbye around 4pm from Grandma and Baba's and were off.

And too soon out of Maine, over the Piscataqua River. (Remember this bridge shot, it will come up later.)

Our trip was long and draining. Eric drove straight through the first afternoon and overnight, logging almost 700 miles and 12 hours (minus a fiasco stop for dinner in CT), when I took over at 4:30 am. I drove all the way through western PA, Ohio, Indiana & into Illinois. By this time we were exhausted and ready to arrive, though still about 5-6 hours away. Being from the northeast I never really though about how much closer Maine is to Ohio than to Iowa. In any case, the trip was relatively uneventful. Lucy was an absolute peach given the circumstances (mainly due to the portable DVD player we had in the backseat), and the overnight drive really put us so much closer without all the awful traffic we might otherwise have hit.

So we finally arrived in Iowa, strangely enough crossing a bridge that looks like we're headed back into Maine.

We were greeted by this fabulous view of the cornfields, which was pretty much what we expected to see on our whole trip across the midwest. We were not disappointed.

Finally, I'll have to double check with my dad, who tells me the world's largest truck stop is on I-40 in Tennessee, but apparently the claim to fame of Iowa extends beyond the Field of Dreams!

No, we didn't make a stop there so I have no first-hand account of how big this truck stop actually is. Maybe on our way back to Maine next summer.

All in all not a bad journey.