Chicago: Day 2/Iowa: Day 1

The plan for today was to get up and attempt to get into downtown Chicago, seeing as how it was Saturday and the traffic wouldn't be as intense.  But when we all woke up and Jasmine opened the curtains in the hotel room, we saw that it was a miserable, rainy day.  So we nixed the Chicago idea.  I was disappointed, because I really wanted to be able to say I had gone to Navy Pier.  But taking the kids down there in the rain would have been a stupid idea.

Starting off on our trip!

We decided to have a leisurely morning in the room, then pack up our stuff and get on our way to Iowa so everyone could relax at Jasmine's house.  I wasn't looking forward to the 5 hour drive because the longest Punkin had ever been in the car was about 2 hours and I didn't know how she would do.  She wound up surprising me, though.  After we were checked out and loaded into the car, we took off and she fell asleep pretty quickly.

Iowa Scenery

The drive itself was quite uneventful.  Jasmine's car doesn't have A/C so it was warm, but the airflow from her open window made it bearable.  Most of the beginning of the trip was cloudy as we were driving by Illinois corn and soybean fields.  I really liked the scenery - Jasmine says it wasn't as pretty as the route she took to get to Chicago, but I still enjoyed it . It reminded me of when I was a kid and we would drive from Texas to Pennsylvania.  Lots of low hills and farmland, with big white farm houses and fields of cows and horses.  The kids weren't nearly as interested in the scenery as I was, so thankfully they were really interested in Punkin's Dora and Barney videos on her DVD player.

The gas station we stopped at

At one point as we were driving through Illinois, we realized we needed gas soon, so we got off at the next exit.  The only gas station on the entire exit was 3 miles off the highway in a tiny little town called Lyndon (population 1,500).  I loved the little town - you could tell, even just driving down the two lane road, that everyone in that town knew each other.  We found the little Conoco gas pumps, which were sitting in front of a little place called Gibson's General Store.  The station was right across from a corn field sitting between two houses, and it was so CUTE!  I swear... if I could be sure that I was within a reasonable driving distance of a Wal-Mart and a Taco Bell, I would LOVE to pack Punkin up and move to a tiny little town like that.  I even looked on Zillow as soon as we got to Jasmine's house to see if they had any houses for sale in the town (there were 2).

The People of Iowa Welcome You!

The Mighty Mississip!

Not long after we got back on the highway, we passed into Iowa and I was able to cross state #26 off my list of states visited.  I am officially half finished with my Bucket List goal of visiting all 50 states!  I'm still behind, though.  I wanted to hit a new state every year until I turned 50, but I'm 29 and I'm still only at state 26.  So hopefully for the next couple of years I can hit at least 2 new states per year to catch up.  I was driving, so I made Jasmine pull over so I could take a picture of the Iowa sign, lol.   I even took one with my phone so I could upload it to Facebook and show people that I really WAS in the land of corn!  Not long after that, I got really excited because we crossed the Mississippi River - something else that reminded me of when we used to take road trips when I was a kid.

We stopped in Cedar Rapids to have lunch at Olive Garden.  It was nice to get out of the car to stretch, but disappointing that we still had an hour or so to go to get to Jasmine's house.  We ate fairly quickly and got back in the car.  Punkin put up a fuss - I think because she was hot and was REALLY tired of being in the car.  She didn't do too bad though.  I really am proud of how well she has handled all of the traveling thus far.  She's not been good at long car trips in the past but she seemed to make the best of this one.  I think it's because she had her DVD player.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to buy her one of her own since the one we have is my friend Michelle's and we'll have to return it.

We drove through downtown Independence, but I was so tired that I didn't pay much attention to it.  I'm hoping we'll get to go into town one day while we're here so I can take some pictures and experience a taste of small-town life.  Once we got to Jasmine's house, we did a whole lotta NUTHIN.  No one even really wanted to move.  The kids played in the playroom while the adults just vegged out.  I met Jon, Jasmine's husband, and their friend Dave, who kind of lives in the basement like some old hermit of an uncle.  He's nice though, so I can't really complain.  We had Hamburger Helper for dinner with ground beef (only important since Jasmine has been trying to sell me on the idea of eating ground deer meat - ew) and again I was surprised with Punkin - she's not a beef eater but she totally polished off a big bowl of that enchilada Hamburger Helper!  Bedtime went easy - I rocked her in Silas' wicker rocking chair and sang Rock-A-Bye-Baby to her over and over and she fell asleep on my shoulder.  I love rocking my babe. :-)

Jasmine and I watched part of The Proposal with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds until I fell asleep on the couch.  It was a damn long day, and I was tired!  Thankfully the couch was comfy and I was able to sleep all night!