'The Worst Is Over...You Can Have the Best of Me'

Well Good Morning!! I wanted to try to blog while I was on the road (clearly when I am not driving!!!), but it's really hard to take photos and edit and place them on a tiny little iPhone screen. So it will have to be a day late.

Do you like my The Starting Line song lyric blog title? Clearly, it describes the first length of the trip: roughly around 827 miles of pure highway until we arrived in destination 1: Joliet, Illinois. Plus the next few days of traveling arent going to be as crazy, there will be more to see, and not as crowded and more open!

The long car rides were full of deep convos, jokes, Walkie Talkies, naps, and throwback jams to high school music faves!

Roughly 830+ miles and the longest traveling day of this trip.

We began the journey waking up around 5:30am to shower and do some last minute packing (Nate).  Arrived with both my Little Blue and Nate's Prius to Sean's house in Bradley Beach to finish loading everything into Nate's car and drove to Little Silver train station to drop off Sean's girlfriend, Lyndsey.  Upon refueling with some coffee to caffeinate the soul and to help us push forward, we set sail with the east at our backs at 7:30am EST.

Sean next to us jamming to some tunes!

Hit PA around 8:45am encountering loads and loads of bands of rain. Some more intense than others; Little Blue got a nice morning shower which was nice, since she prolly isn't getting one anytime soon there after!

Around 10:30am made a pit stop past Allentown then roughly 11:30am we made another stop to switch drivers, which meant I got a break!

Taking a nap on the road is a little hard and uncomfortable, especially when your driver is blasting Clarity by Zedd on REPEAT!

I want everything that is in the back of this truck!

However, the most glorious moment in the world, was waking up to a BEAUTIFUL SIGHT!  A Jack Daniels whiskey truck!  My life is complete! Well sort of!

Roads and Roads...

Nothing too special was seen, well at least out of the ordinary.  Mostly just westward, flat, highway and farmland!

For some weird reason, I thought I was coming here for WGI...wah!

Two hours later, we finally crossed PA borders into Ohio.  After more than 35 additional miles later we finally found one of the Ohio Turnpike service areas where we could break for lunch - peanut butter and banana sandwich with some trail mix!

Nate finally got a break to take a nap and I drove solo.  We stopped for gas about 2 hours later since my car is nearly not as cool as Nate's Prius and needed gas. Bah!

After the fill up it was back again for Christy to get a break and another nap.  Let me tell you, it was either because it was so late in the day or we're starting to feel the colder climate!  Totally needed to layer up from my tank and shorts. Haha.  Always a good nap when you have a moose named Zeus on your side! Shout out to Luke!

Zeus about to take some Z's with me on this long ride.

You're definitely in the mid-west when you stop seeing corn fields and start seeing fields of wheat.  It was pretty cool, I don't recall ever seeing wheat fields before so it was a pretty cool sight.

Wheat fields!

Another cool sight was when we saw this crazy remnants of I think a tornado!  Look at the barn we passed!! Totally irks me to think about being in Tornado Alley.  Gotta keep at eye out for Helen Hunt and Dorothy! #twister

Scene from the movie, Twister!

Around 5:30pm we crosse into Indiana!  During the trek through this state, Mom texted me about being on the look out for the Exit for Aunt Sheila's alma Mayer university.  Exit 31 for Valapasalso University-tried to get a little snapshot of it but Nate drove a little too fast to get in in time. Oh well!  

Aunt Sheila went to school in that town!

Please note when you legit drive west, and you're still driving when it starts to get dark, you will be driving straight into the sunset!  Please be prepared with sunglasses, visors, and sunblock! (Just kidding about the last part!). The sunset views were gorgeous!!! Shades of red, orange, magenta, pink, and purple was ridiculously out of this world!  None of the pics can compare or even do justice to what we actually saw!

Chicago Sunset...in mad traffic!

For the last three-ish hours, we pulled the final painful stretch of crossing into Ilionois and journeying to Joliet!  We got in around 8:30-9pm-ish Central Time!

We made it to our destination!

To be continued...we're spending the whole day taking a break from driving and having a fun day in Chicago!!

TheChristyBel