After the movers picked up the furniture I finally got them to commit to a 5 day delivery window. Then I planned my cross country drive. Google said it was 1791 miles and would take 26 hours to drive it. I gave myself 3 days since I would be traveling solo. I chose the I-80 route across Pennsylvania, through northern Ohio, south of Chicago, through Cedar Rapids Iowa, Grand Island Nebraska (an island in land-locked Nebraska?) and then entering Colorado at the north-east corner of the state and down to Fort Morgan Colorado and Denver before heading into the mountains. I filled that pickup to the brim, got in the truck and left Joisy for a little adventure. I probably hadn’t done a long road trip like this in over 30 years. Driving a big luxury pickup was very comfortable – even a 10 year old truck with over 100,000 miles on the odometer. Sort of like sitting in a cushy leather chair at 70 miles an hour and watching the miles click by.
It turned out that there was a lot to see in “fly-over country.” I was familiar with Pennsylvania and Ohio but after that I was discovering a lot about this part of the country. I was in fact doing a tour of Presidential birthplaces. Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell NJ near the start of the trip, then in Ohio I passed by birthplaces of William McKinley, James Garfield, and Warren Harding. Illinois had Ronald Reagan and Herbert Hoover. Finally Omaha was the birthplace of Gerald Ford. Few people realize that the great inventor Thomas Edison was born in Milan Ohio, and I zoomed right past that one too. But I didn’t stop for anything but food, gas and rest.
Another highlight was the world’s largest truck stop – where I got food and fuel and of course a picture.
The second night on the road I stopped in Grand Island Nebraska and discovered that the island is in the Platte River – which starts near my destination in Colorado. My last day’s drive pretty much followed the Platte’s route up into the mountains.
Seeing the sign at the border I could smell the barn and then stopped at the Pony Express park soon after you enter Colorado I felt like I could coast from there – even though it is all uphill!
After three days on the road I pulled into the driveway safe and sound, and a few days before the movers arrived with the furniture.
Time to unload the truck, unwind, unpack and wait for the furniture. The jersey girl will be flying out in a few days to help get settled.