Cumulative Miles: 4,688
States Visited: 20
Number of Speeding Tickets: 1
Lesson Learned: Every day doesn't have to be fab.
We are, without a doubt, in the heartland of our country, but headed east slowly towards home. Robert keeps estimating what day we'll arrive at my parents' home in North Carolina, but I find myself zoning out when he does. I think I'm in denial that this trip is winding down.
Springfield was great, but it was time to move on, so we headed for Evansville, Indiana. Robert says he's never been to Indiana before, so it's a new state he can color on his map. I've been to Indiana before, but not to the part where we are headed.
Evansville is on the Ohio River, with the state of Kentucky just on the other side. Between Springfield and Evansville it's mainly farm country. Lots of cornfields, now mostly brown awaiting the harvest. Speaking of which, the combine machines that they use to harvest the corn are huge. We saw dozens of them today, methodically gobbling up the drying corn and spitting it into open bed trailers. This corn is dry (or drying). It's not destined for grocery shelves. Instead, it will either be animal food or made into stuff like ethanol or corn meal. Between Springfield and Evansville, we drove through a dozen or more small towns, some with populations of 100 or 200 people. I think it would be hard to live somewhere so isolated, but if I were born there, I probably would be happy for it to be my home.
Lunch was a picnic: Chicken salad on croissants. Last night we had a roasted chicken in our Airbnb for dinner, but there was a lot left over. I can't stand throwing away perfectly good food, so I bought the ingredients necessary to make chicken salad. Celery was on sale: $1.99; A small jar of mayonnaise was $3.99. We had leftover croissants, a packets of dried raisins and cranberries not used in my starbucks oatmeal, and some nuts and seeds that I pulled out of a bag of trail mix. Gotta tell you, it was a treat of a lunch. We ate our feast at a roadside picnic table near Olney, Indiana, with a nice breeze blowing and only some traffic noise to contend with. Not too bad for six bucks.
I'm writing about lunch because, honestly, there isn't a lot else to write about. It's been a nice day, but not remarkable. That's ok--every day doesn't have to be over the top magnificent. We'll stay in Evansville for two nights, then head onward toward either Louisville or Lexington KY.
Before I go, please join me in wishing President Carter a Happy 100th Birthday. What an incredible man!
Goodnight!
