I apologize to those of you who are uncomfortable with gas guzzling cars, etc. I don't have a hybrid. I do have a comfortable sedan, 8 years old, with 58,000 miles on it. I generally don't like long drives very much, but I will be in Indiana next week for six weeks, and didn't want to live in a dorm on campus. So I did a repositioning drive on Friday and Saturday last week, from NE MO to South Bend, IN.
I wasn't expecting to enjoy the drive, and actually Friday I really really didn't. I got food poisoning, and let me just say about that -- Febreeze works wonders (never used it before, never want to again...). But I ended the day right at the Illinois border with Indiana (Danville, for those of you who are interested), and had a really lovely drive rambling across Indiana the next day. No pictures, but I saw a lot of really lovely things.
So Saturday, I had a wonderful day to make up for my awful Friday, and in a thank you to Indiana for being so nice, here are a few word pictures from my drive -- follow me below the fold, if you please!
To start out with, I was avoiding interstate highways as much as possible -- not in that great a hurry to get there (in the end it took me six hours to get there, which included some wrong turns I was too stubborn to figure out -- essentially just pointed myself east and north and figured I would know if I were getting too close to Chicagoland). So I had the two lane local state highways. Generally things were pretty well marked, and I followed road signs.
Maybe ten miles along my journey I saw the most interesting road kill of the day. Summers in MO you have a lot of it -- possums, raccoons, cats, a deer or two. But this was a road kill that told a story. A small possum (small and grey -- didn't get out and look at it but it looked possum-ish to me) relatively unbloodied, but clearly dead, on my side of the road. Obviously looked yummy, too, as in the middle of the road was a badly bashed vulture, its wing waving in the wind from the cars going by either side of it. For a moment I thought it might still be slightly alive, but then realized the only part that was recognizable was this magnificent wing, its feathers catching the wind.
A bit further on (did I mention this was glorious weather -- 76 degrees and blue sky with a few puffy clouds? If not you need to know that. I think everything looks better on a day like that!), at the entrance to a small town, a welcome sign with the proud announcement that here was the home of the State Basketball Champions, 1913 and 1914. I wondered how many of them had gone to war, how many had died in the Great Influenza, and if any of them were still alive to see that sign (probably not, now that I think about it, but I was in that state of all years were flowing together, and I forgot I was in the next century).
There were garage sales all along the road, in the small towns I went through. I was still feeling a bit fragile from the day before, so I just admired them and went on, not really feeling like digging through bric-a-brac, and not really willing to deal with the finding of the kind of important things that I would find and not be able to leave behind (best find for me at a garage sale was the $2 unabridged Webster's Dictionary that I can hardly life myself -- Mom bought me a library stand for it and someday I will put it together and enjoy the ease of use it brings). I also saw a crowd by the side of the road just outside of one town, and slowed down to steer between the cars, and to the side was an auction. I love those, but again went on -- will try to go to a couple in what they seem to call "Michiana" this summer, I think.
Highway 25 south of Lafayette (on my way toward Lafayette) has sections that are really straight and the countryside is pretty flat. There aren't enough hills that the highway needs to be banked or anything like it. But that road wasn't flat. Going along at some 55 miles per hour, you would go over the top of a small rise, and sink down into a small low spot, and then up again. It had the gentle feel of a roller coaster for children. Just enough of an up and down that I could feel my stomach go up and down just after the car had decided to go in the opposite direction. It was not unpleasant and I was fine by that point and it was just kinda fun.
I don't remember where it was now or the exact name, but along the way I saw a gas station named "(somebody's name)'s Fossil Fuels" which I thought was the coolest gas station name ever. Hand painted brontosaurus (Apatasaurus?) on the sign, not exactly the Sinclair sign, but clearly an hommage.
I loved the drive. Pretty towns. I also was really interested in the Hispanic restaurants, taquerias, and food shops in Logansport. Was I just imagining things, or is there a relatively large Hispanic community in North Central Indiana?
No great impact diary, I am sure, just a pleasant drive that I wanted to share with you folks.