Three is better than two

Day three was pretty mild compared to day two.  My dad and Barry, his buddy he is traveling with came over to go out to breakfast with me.  Ali stayed back at the room with the dogs.  I had not seen Barry in at least 20 years.  He seemed like the same Barry albeit a 77 year old version.

It seems like my dad and him are having quite an interesting trip so far, they are a bit like the odd couple.  We had a good breakfast at Cracker Barrel as we chatted about stuff.  I told dad I would call him when we are at the western side of our trip, just in case they are in the vicinity so we could maybe meet up again.  He is doing an inverse route compared to us, heading south first and then swinging north. Schedule-wise it may not work but you never know.  As always, dad paid for the meal.

After driving us back in the van I bid the gentleman adieu and started packing up the van for departure.

Despite losing over half of the day yesterday due to van repairs, we wound up today back on schedule with our original plan thanks to adding a couple hours to the drive.  We left at 9:15ish and arrived here at about 6:30 central around a 10 hour driving day.  It felt pretty long but the idea of erasing the mileage deficit kept me glued to the captains chair.

Today we drove through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri.  As always there were interesting sights along the way. 

In Kentucky when we stopped for gas there was a family in a pick up truck.  The two obese parents were in the cab and the three children were in the back.  One of the children was quite young and was crying.  I speculated the child didn’t enjoy sitting in the back of the truck in the blazing hot sun possibly.

The caring mother turned around and without asking what was wrong yelled “You better shut up back there” in a deliciously ignorant sounding southern twang.

Ali slept right through St. Louis and the arch.  I did the best I could to snap a few shots of the arch with my Iphone as we sped by.  It still looked as cool as ever.

We were bummed that we never saw an official Welcome to Illinois sign to take a picture in front of, it was one of the states we are missing.

The van and it’s $700 of new rubber performed just fine today.  The AC blows so cold that while I was laying down on the bed in the back I covered up legs with a towel.  It definitely is a step up from Party Van 1.0 accommodations.

I felt a bit rammy and lazy when we got to the hotel.  I was bummed this one didn’t have an exercise room.  I had to make do with three sets of 20 burpees.  Those things are tough as hell. I hoping to get out and run a couple miles tomorrow morning since our drive tomorrow to Omaha, Nebraska is rather short so we can relax a bit.

We haven’t taken a whole ton of pictures yet and most of what we have taken are the Iphone variety.  I guess it is because most of this area we have been through before so we haven’t felt the need.  I am sure the picture quota will pick up greatly during the next few days as we push more northward and westward than ever before.