Let's Drive ALL of the Miles

Location: Des Moines, Iowa strip mall parking lot “Katie, where is the ice scraper?” While sleeping in the car all bundled in our sleeping bags, the moisture from our breath had clung to the insides of the widows. This created a natural ‘tinted window’ and the illusion that our parked car was unoccupied. Adorned with sleeping masks, layers of Patagonia clothing and frost hanging from Chad’s beard, our Sunday started at 5:30am due to the extremely cold temperatures. The dash board on the Jetta read -12 degrees below zero, which is close to the temperatures we have been trying to avoid this holiday season. After aggressively searching the back seat, I could not locate the ice scraper and we listened to Outlander, the first book of a multi-genre novel, for over an hour waiting for the car to defrost inside and out. The inner city roads were silent, Interstate 80 was scattered with a light dusting of snow and the ditches were spotted with abandoned cars from last night’s dangerous weather. We were fortunate that we made the decision to make camp in Des Moines instead of pursuing on to Omaha, Nebraska. 30 minutes into Day 2, I found the ice scraper tucked next to the passenger seat and sheepishly finished scraping the inside of the windows with Chad. Oops.

Location: All of Nebraska, Interstate 80 Is there anything in Nebraska? Zooming along on the highway we encountered large herds of Black Angus cattle, a gazillion windmills (old and new), occasional ripple-looking hills of all sizes and thick dead grass. Rest stops seemed to be the only hub of excitement for us and one rest stop really surprised us. As I finished parking and was getting ready to sprint to the restroom (staying hydrated on a trip is hard when the nearest rest stop is 2 hours apart), Chad was approached on the passenger side by a lady holding cash. Long story short, the family of three had coasted into the rest stop on fumes because they ran out of gas and they had asked for a lift to the nearest gas station. *ALARM BELLS* Avoiding high-jacking or potential danger, we kindly took their gas can and went by ourselves to the gas station and returned their gas can free of charge. BUT, without this small detour and placing the gas can in our trunk, we wouldn’t have noticed that our glass containers of Pellegrino water had shattered and left frozen bubbly water shot all over the trunk floor and items. NO FULL LIQUID CONTAINERS WHILE TRAVELING IN COLD WEATHER. At the end of Day 2, we had driven 11 hours and made it to our first destination in Parker, Colorado. The GPS has now been set to avoid tolls, as that was a mistake on my part, and I was reunited with a long lost family friends - the Bourns/Christophers.

Chad is handling the trip well as the audio book has him captivated, work has been subdued until Monday and only shows signs of agitation when severely tired (go figure?). He was convinced he wanted to sleep in the car again even though the opportunity to sleep in a warm bed presented itself. At the beginning of the trip he didn’t want to get in the car and now he doesn’t want to get out of it. Really Chad?