Chicago, IL

Trip miles 8063
Daily miles 482

Wednesday morning McNomad and I left Omaha for Chicago. This was a luxury (i.e. short) leg. I was very excited by the prospect of getting to Chicago, since we planned to meet up with Junior Nomad and some of our friends and have a really nice meal.

Prior to this trip I didn't appreciate that Omaha is on the border with Iowa. So we left our suburban chain hotel and got on I-680, and before we knew it we were in Iowa.

Another thing I didn't appreciate beforehand is how Iowa and Nebraska differ from each other topographically. Nebraska was indeed as flat as I had expected, but Iowa actually has rolling hills.

The land is pretty.

We passed some interesting sights.

This must be the most environmentally friendly motel in America.

We saw this pig truck when we tanked the car. The pigs made a lot of noise and I couldn't help thinking about what would happen to them when the truck reached its destination...

I thought this sign was interesting. I'm pretty sure that is not an exact quote from the Bible...

I found it even more interesting that this sign followed after about a quarter of a mile.

I assume the first sign came second.

McNomad and I agreed that driving through farmland has a calming effect. There's something primal about being close to a source of food. I found this picture striking because it shows how high corn grows.

For some reason it felt good to see all the farmland in the US, probably because it represents food self sufficiency, which most countries don't have.

This seemed interesting.

We passed a very long line of trucks. I wondered why they were there.

The answer soon presented itself...

It's a pity we didn't have time to really check this out in detail...

If I hadn't read that the Mississippi had flooded in Iowa and closed I-80 a few weeks prior I would have had no idea that it was in that state rather than further east.

The water level was still pretty high.


After crossing the Mississippi we entered Illinois. Getting closer!

We successfully resisted the urge to pull over...

It turns out that Reagan was born in Illinois, which I didn't know before.

Seems that people don't pay sufficient attention when driving through construction zones.

Seems like the fine should be higher for something that carries that much jail time.

It would be righteous to have this town on your address.

Here's an unusual looking construction site.


After sitting in standstill traffic and dealing with a weird stall of the car in a busy intersection we finally reached Chicago!

We had a great dinner and enjoyed the city's nightlife. I was also happy to have a day of rest on Thursday before Friday's epic drive to New York.