Day 3

Day 3: Sunday September 14, 2014

Planned Destination: Lincoln, NE

“Is this Heaven?” “No, it’s Iowa”

10:30 AM – “Where’s our jam?” Meg wants to know as she's packing our road cooler…. NOOO! we've left it at Joe and Reb's next to our junior mints in the refrigerator….awesome. Oh well, the kids and I just destroyed the continental breakfast then we practiced our cannon balls in the pool. Tough to beat starting days like that, even if it does mean not having two of my favorite things.

Noon – We’re tearing apart the van. We’re missing the working set of wireless headphones. This is the worst day of my life. Okay not really. They’ll turn up. And they do.

12:05 PM – “Guys, it’s fun living in the car!” exclaims Sam.  I’ve got to agree with the little guy, so far so good.

We spend the rest the day driving thru farmland and corn fields; we even unceremoniously crossed the Mississippi River….not that I expected a parade but I did expect a little more than the standard green sign. I mean if you can’t spell Mississippi by the first grade you get put in the slow group in reading class, shouldn’t the sign letting you know you’ve crossed that river have some lights or something?

I momentarily considered taking the 100 mile detour to visit the site where Field of Dreams was filmed.  Notice I said I considered this….  We ended up not going. Apparently the miles and miles of driving by nothing but corn fields was good enough for Meg.

Around supper time we see a glow off to the side of the highway ahead. As we get closer we see a sign, “Worlds Biggest Truck Stop”. It was like Vegas springing up in the middle of the Nevada desert…except we’re still in Iowa. I inform Meaghan that I’m treating her to a fancy dinner and take the exit. We end up eating at a little place next to the truck stop called Grandma’s Kitchen. I can remember the name because they gave the kids tattoos and I read it on Sadie’s leg for the next 5 days (at least she didn’t put it on her face).  After supper we took some time to run around Disney World for truckers. This place is pretty cool, complete with a game room with a pinball machine. Sam and I play his first game of pinball while Sadie spends 30 min in the bathroom. At this point it’s 8:30 and the late night last night is starting to catch up to me so I decide I’m going to treat myself to a liter of Mountain Dew. As I stroll toward the counter to make my purchase I hear a voice behind me sternly say, “put that back.” I whirl around half expecting to see an embarrassed parole officer who had mistaken me as her parolee. Nope, just my beautiful wife making sure I don’t waste $2.22 on a jug of caffeine and high fructose corn syrup. I decided on my own to just put it back and risk falling asleep at the wheel. Just as well, we drove another couple hours and decided to call it a night a little short of our goal. 

States Traveled: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa

Final Stop: Fairfield Inn – West Des Moines Iowa

Daily Mileage:  573 miles

Trip Mileage: 1,513 miles