The Journey, Part 3 & 4: CO to NE to IL

When we left Denver, we were shocked to find it snowing. SNOWING, in MAY! I was flabbergasted. The kids were excited and jumping around, I was freezing and wanted to get going because our heater in our van doesn't work and I wanted to get out of the snow as fast as we could and get warmed up again. (I know: every party needs a pooper that's why we invited me, party pooper, super duper...) We loaded the kiddies up as fast as we could and drove off. I took the wrong exit and we ended up on I-70 instead of I-76. I finally realized my mistake and figured out how to get from the I-70 to the I-76 without having to turn around and start all over again when we reached Limon, CO. We got back on track and stopped at some truck stop in NE for lunch.

They have a challenge, that Steve just could not pass up. Their challenge is to eat a 2lb cheeseburger in under 60 min. If you succeed you get your picture put on the "Wall of Champions" and you get a free t-shirt (not free in my opinion since the burger costs $16). If you fail, your picture gets put on the "Tried and Failed" wall.

Steve took up the challenge and was doing well, but as we both noticed before he began, the establishment cheated. Instead of making fluffy (air-filled) burger bread, they mad heavy flat bread. We both knew that with the heavier bread filling him up he would be hard pressed to finish in the time frame. He gave it his best shot, but made it through 3/4 of the burger in 60 min, so his face now graces the "Tried and Failed" wall.



We stopped for gas at the other end of NE, somewhere between Lincoln and Omaha, and I turned around and saw this beautiful site.



We stayed overnight at Travelodge in Omaha, then headed out to Chicago. We made it all the way to Iowa (the Eastern end of it) before we saw a tree in full bloom. All the other trees had their leaves, but no flowers.



We stopped here for quite some time because Neena got car sick in the car and we desperately needed to air it out before we could drive on. The river in the background is the Mighty Mississippi River. It's really big, and it is also the cause of great headache to business establishments because it cuts off electricity and wireless communications every time it floods. (This is according to the Iowa State Information worker that we talked with while we waited for the van to air out.)