Tuscola, IL to Greenfield, IN, 170ish miles (over two days)

Yesterday and today are combined into one post, because they will stick out as two of the most memorable days of the trip. Memorable? That must be a typo...I meant miserable. It was almost, but not quite as miserable as the stench I am dealing with right now...there is a microwave in the computer room, and the manager just finished nuking a dish that I can only assume is native to Bangalore, India. I am seriously breathing through my mouth right now...ah... I can almost taste it... Anyway, yesterday we had a great temperature of about 70 degrees all day. It was the only thing that kept us going. The wind was absolutely brutal, and I believe it was about 15-20 mph right in our face all day. During our first stop 30 miles down the road, there was a 12" wrench connected to the bathroom key. So, Dad entertained himself by quoting Rip Torn from the blockbuster movie, Dodgeball..."If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!" For the last 90 miles, I could hear him talking to himself, but I couldn't hear what he was saying. Once we finally got to the room approximately nine hours later, I could hear him talking to himself in the shower. By this point, I figure he only has a few non-dormant brain cells left battling it out inside his head, but I asked him what he had been saying under his breath all day. With a belly laugh, he said, "If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!" Well, we stayed at a Super 8, and it wasn't that Super. The morning breakfast consisted of bagels, cereal, the same waffles we have been eating the whole trip, and some of those chocolate covered hostess donettes that were about as old as Mother Teresa. That was it.

We got started this morning from Lebanon, IN, and there were thunderstorms and 20 to 30 mph headwinds in the forecast. Not too ideal. We made it 20 or so miles down the road, and we went into a Starbucks just as it began to downpour. We each ordered a regular, black coffee (which still gets me sideways looks from Starbucks employees) and began to wait out the rain. The people working were great, and one of the guys checked the forecast for us, and it looked like the rain might let up. So after about two hours, we made a break for it. Yeah...the rain never let up. It only got worse. In fact, it turned into a regular monsoon. We started to head out of the Indianapolis suburbs on a side road when we said enough was enough. After about two miles, there was no one that had passed us. We honestly thought we both might get hypothermia and perish in the middle of nowhere. After about ten minutes, we flagged down the one and only vehicle that we had seen on this particular road up to this point. Luckily it was Donny, and he brought us to the Cracker Barrel right on I-70. By this point, we only had 50 miles to go, but the rain was only getting worse, and so was the lightning and thunder. After we ate, we went and checked into the Comfort Inn right next door. As of this morning, the winds are supposed to be on our backs at 15-20 mph tomorrow. If this is the case, we should be able to do the 50 miles of make-up as well as the 105 originally scheduled for tomorrow. But, it's all about the wind. So, pray for tailwinds... I am going to bed. Goodnight.

Blake

P.S. Dad is getting pretty random with his speech by now. Yesterday, I told him we had gone ten miles instead of the seven he thought we had gone. He informed me that I "was full of yams."