Early Evening

It's 5:54 and we are in Archbold, OH. I think we'll be hitting Illinois pretty soon. We've made fairly decent time, considering we are trying to balance efficient speed and gas mileage. We made a stop around 1:15 for lunch when we saw a sign for Wendy's (gotta' love the spicy chicken sandwich). Then horror of horrors, there was a Long John Silver's next door. I'm sorry, but what kind of people actually think that fast food seafood is a good idea? I first encountered Long John Silver's last summer when Derek and I went to North Carolina and I was hoping the west was smart enough to avoid them. When Derek suggested I co-pilot the eating of his chicken and vinegar fiasco, I promptly requested for him to pull over to switch drivers. Then I complained about the rank smell of vinegar filling the car.

We're learning a shocking amount about what we DON'T KNOW about our country. For example, a conversation we just had:

L: "What state is that license plate?"
D: "I think it's Illinois. We already have that."
L: "I don't think so. Look at the mountains on it."
D: "It looks like Mt. Rushmore. I think that's Mt. Rushmore."
L: "Oh."
D: "That's in Illinois, right?"
L: "I don't think so."
*long pause*
D: "Well, where is it then?"
*long pause*
D: "Look it up!"

I looked it up and apparently it's South Dakota. I feel like that knowledge was deep down in my brain somewhere, squashed underneath teaching philosophies and musical jargon. We stalked the car like winners and confirmed that the fancy script indeed said South Dakota. Kind of embarassing- but did you actually know? At least we can add that to our license plate list!

We filled the afternoon by playing an extremely fun game. Derek plugged his laptop into the stereo system and played movie soundtrack after soundtrack, and while I drove I had to identify the movie. Apparently, I'm a rock star and impressed Derek with my mad skillz.

We have 180 more miles to go- 3 hours and 14 minutes of driving. I'm looking forward to seeing a little bit of Chicago - neither of us has ever been there. We just passed into Indiana, where apparently they accept EZpass (but we remembered that we no longer have it).

There are dark clouds building here in Fremont, Indiana - might have a thunderstorm. Derek commented how he's excited to drive through tornado alley. I'm hoping he's not picturing a storm-chasers like adventure. At least I can lose the sunglasses- here comes the rain! We are suddenly in a wall of rain. I'm going to go document and co-pilot this serious rain.