A 4,000 mile trek in 8 days....

OHIO • INDIANA • ILLINOIS • IOWA • MINNESOTA • SOUTH DAKOTA •
NEBRASKA • WYOMING • COLORADO • KANSAS • MISSOURI •

Back in the 1991, we decided to take a trip “somewhere” out west. The factory we both worked at had shut down for summer vacation, and we had a little less than two weeks left until we returned to work. I can still remember sitting on the back porch deciding to go. We live in Pennsylvania, and our goal was to drive west until we reached the Rockies (that's them below!) and drive back home in eight days. We left the next morning.

It was a spur-of-the-moment trip but we did do a little planning. First of all, we had a budget of $250.00 cash plus about $20.00 in Canadian coins “just in case” we got near Canada (we never know where we'll end up!!) There were no credit cards to fall back on. We decided to camp in our tent, and took our Coleman stove along to save money on meals. We had a Chevy Citation that we’d just bought (used, but new to us) that got pretty good gas mileage, so we were all set.

Since we'd been there before, the trip through Ohio and Indiana, was rather uneventful, but we were excited to find a Hen House restaurant in Illinois! The Hen House has the best coffee on planet Earth. Back when we made our first trip to St. Louis, we discovered one just outside the city. Daena drank an ENTIRE pot of coffee the first time we visited! We've made several stops there over the years. Check out the Citation's hood at the bottom left of the picture!

We made it to Iowa at sunset and found a cheap campground for $5.00 next to a gas station. Pretty much just a field, and you had to use the gas station bathroom (no showers! just a sink). The first thing we didn’t plan on was rain. We woke up at 2:00 a.m. to a fierce wind that was blowing the whole tent sideways! We looked at each other and said, "we have to get out of here NOW!" Unbelievable streaks of lightning filled the sky. We grabbed our stuff, yanked the tent out of the ground (there’s still a tent stake in Iowa!) and ran for the car. The only word to describe it was deluge. While it cleared off by daybreak, it rained every single night for the entire trip, and we were unable to camp! We ended up sleeping in the car for eight nights. Oh, that aching back!

But back to the lightning....It was unlike anything we'd ever seen back home. The streaks filled the sky just like on television or in the movies. We actually drove for a couple more hours as the storm raged, in awe of the light show above us. By daybreak we were exhausted.

Dawn brought a few clouds, but the sky soon cleared and we were treated to a beautiful, sunny day. It was time to try out the sunroof on our "new" car, but we couldn't figure out why it had been sealed shut. Dave managed to pry it open, and just for fun we took it completely out to let the sun shine in. We cruised through the rest of Iowa, stopping in Sioux City for a few groceries. We even found Wild Cherry Pepsi, which in 1991 was a rare treat and couldn't be found back home in Pennsylvania. We grabbed a case and headed for South Dakota.