On The Road, March 2006 trip to Chicago and Valparaiso

One lovely thing about having a digital camera: you can be qualmless about taking LOTS of photos. I know that professional photographers have always had to take waaay more photos than they keep, but I had to pay for processing, even of photos I wound up not liking. With digital, I can just load them into the computer and cull with a clear conscience (and a freshly-emptied memory chip). I have never (yet!) anywhere near approached the capacity of the 256MB chip I bought along with this camera.

There was a front with severe storms that went through Thursday night, so there was a fair amount of water standing in the fields and ditches as I drove north Friday. Also some ground fog, which I didn’t think had come out in the photos until I got a look at them on the big screen.

Pulled out of apartment parking lot at 5:35 a.m.
Had a bank deposit stop to make before getting out onto the freeway.
I lost the NPR station signal about Brinkley (typical) and launched the CD player with Tom Smith’s Digital Acoustic Compilation.

View of the same bunch of clouds, gradually getting pinker.

And then suddenly not pink at all, as the sun cracks the horizon.

I-40 between Little Rock and Memphis is, on average, on a bearing of 23.5 degrees north of due east. This sunrise was very near the spring equinox, thus not squarely on the hood ornament. When I go to Atlanta in June, I’ll need to leave a LOT earlier in the morning.

This view is from pretty much the highest point on the route, Crowley’s Ridge just east of Forrest City.

I-40 (sunrise with headlights) and I-55 (daytime shot at right) are major transport routes. Other times I’ve left early in order to miss the sunrise on I-40, I’ve typically been part of a tiny minority of smaller vehicles on the road at that hour.

Observed fuel prices: $2.19 at Love’s Truck Stop on I-55 Boomland’s price was $2.18.
[eat heart out: gas in LR as I type this is at $2.60 and still climbing)

Boomland has been totally rebuilt since Sharon and Morris went north in January of 2005.
Wally’s ChewChew is back, and they’ve added a pizza parlor and a "Fudge Factory" gift shop as well. I managed to limit myself to photo’ing the building front.

I had lunch at Marion IL; this was the same Pizza Hut as we had stopped at on (I think it was) Sharon’s first Valpo campus visit trip. The one where the girl bringing our drinks had advised Sharon to be sure to finish college before starting her family.

Onarga IL: Bork Garden Center!

Commercial nursery; got a photo of their billboard next to the gas station where I pitstopped. Fuel $2.46 here

Gordyville!

Spotted on an "attractions" sign northbound but didn’t get the camera out right then.
Got it on the flipflop; turned out to be at Rantoul IL.
Looking it up online, it turns out to be a gigantic auction barn/arena. Upwards of 3.5 acres under one roof. This "Gordy" is Gordon Hannagan, the main auctioneer

As Chicago gets closer, I’m having trouble holding to Economy Cruise (65 mph) because Everyone Else is going much faster.
Spotted a warning sign about construction on I-294.
I’d been looking at avoiding the tollway by taking US-30 west to US-45 (LaGrange Road); this decided me.
If I’m going to be in PM drive-time traffic with Chicago drivers at 45 mph or less, I’d rather be on a road where they’re expecting the stoplights rather than frustrated at unexpected stoppages.
There was a surprising stretch of 2-lane on US-30 just east of US-45. Looks like it hasn’t been updated since I was a kid. Unfortunately the traffic was too dense for me to risk single-hand driving to get a photo.
5:39 at hotel parking lot. Checked-in with Morris before going in, because I figured once I got to the consuite I wouldn’t stop moving until the filking ended.

I wuz right.
Wimped-out Friday night about 12:50 a.m.
But-then, I’d gotten UP at 4 a.m…

The pictures from the convention itself are in a separate file.
A few of the pictures from In Valpo are in a different separate file.

Weather Channel expectations before I left were for possible snow showers in Valpo on Tuesday morning, but all I found on the truck when I was ready to leave were a few snow crystals drifted on the windshield wipers and window ledges.

I paused in Momence IL to make a pitstop and look for some more breakfast.
This Kinda Kool Truck was in the parking lot there:

There was a stiff wind out of the west, which I could feel grabbing at the camper shell even before I turned south (and thus crossways to it) on I-55 at Kankakee. I noticed when I figured things up after the trip, that my mpg was perceptibly worse on the southbound leg than it had been northbound.

More fun with the digital camera. Back on I-40 headed toward Little Rock, as the sun was setting I spotted these billows of smoke against the horizon. Somebody burning crop stubble before plowing for the new season.

Most fun of all with the digital camera: I must have taken a dozen tries at getting this view,
once I realized that I had the rising moon in my side mirror.