We set out from Indy around 10 for a long 700 mile day. If you think my personality is odd in general, you should see it when I’m glassy eyed during 12 hour drives. Surly is an understatement. Kari is good at humoring me. She lets me pick the music and an assortment of podcasts, I suspect as consolation for doing all the driving. Today we listened to Preet Bharara interview the author of Caste-Isabel Wilkerson, along with a few political pods. She also gets to listen to me report on our many irrelevant yet readily available truck and trailer monitoring devices-trailer light checks, trailer tire temps and pressures, miles to empty, truck tire pressures, average speed, trip duration, trailer blind spot settings, transmission temp, accumulated miles, and the worst, average MPG’s. Unfortunately, I’ve discovered many gas pumps automatically shut off at $100…
The day was full of forgetful sights-the Buffalo Bill Museum, crossing the Mississippi River, the world’s largest truck stop, and the Herbert Hoover Library. We passed through Omaha, the inspiration for Peyton Manning’s famous call at the line of scrimmage. But I gotta say, Iowa farmland is spectacular-rolling, beautifully terraced, “prairie strips” which are strips of native prairie vegetation planted as a conservation tactic. It’s beautiful land, reminiscent of some European ag areas we’ve visited.
Perhaps the biggest highlight of the day was our first visit to a Kum & Go gas station. For some reason, Kari was adamant we check out what those signs were all about, and she seemed oddly disappointed to discover they were just gas stations. That said, the experience was still a satisfying one, it was a pretty deluxe joint-they even sold sushi…really.
We “spent the night” at a rest area along I-80, first time we’ve done such a thing. Nothing like dozing off to the sound of thundering semis.
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