Day 1 Complete: Whitman - Indianapolis

Distance traveled: 990 miles
Time in transit: 16 hours 20 min

After a longer than expected evening of packing and some delicious dinner at Issac's in Plymouth Thursday night, we awoke at 3 am with hopes of being on the road at 4 (before bed I said 3:30 because I knew we would probably be a good 1/2 hr behind whatever I said).

4 on the dot we left, and with only a few hours of sleep I was having second thoughts about having to drive nearly 1,000 miles in one day. I started to realize I had no clue what I was getting myself into, but was still optimistic we would survive. My great co-pilot Alyson was conked out by Worcester, and it was only at the state lines that I could get her to open her eyes for more than a minute or two to snap a picture. Finally, just past Scranton I decided I needed a rest, and after refueling shook her and said "your turn!". She was not very amused, but nonetheless after some convincing I got her in the driver's seat. The start was rough, and the mile to get back to the highway was filled with doubts and the occasional threat of pulling over to make me drive, but she stayed awake and got us through a couple of hundred miles of highway.

We hit RIDICULOUS road flooding thunderstorms past Pittsburg and into Ohio, after which it finally cleared up as we left the hazy mountains and valleys of Pennsylvania and arrived in the flat farm country of Ohio and Indiana. We also got a real treat of 10 miles in West Virginia during which we stopped for lunch, and everyone had accents, the lady making my coffee messed it up (I asked for black, and when the lady at the counter got it, she looked at me, goes 'you wanted no cream right?' so she goes to dump it out and the lady who made it just looked and smiled in oblivion.

Also, the highway was closed for 1/2 of the drive so the traffic sucked (I think it was a conspiracy for us to say, crap, traffic sucks lets get off and spend some money in W. VA). Nonetheless, we got through the traffic of Ohio and into Indiana where the speed limit is now 70, so I can drive 85 with less fear of a ticket :-)

We stayed with an old friend from high school in Indy who showed us around the downtown. It was great, and her company she works for has sweet views of the monument in the center from their 10th floor roof-deck. Our drive back to her place left us remembering we had driven for over 16 hours and we both passed out within minutes of getting to her apartment.

Slept in a bit this morning, but we are now off to Omaha, which should be a cake walk at 600 miles!

-Dave


Only this morning did it hit me that I was going on a roadtrip when Dave woke me up saying, "Let's go to Indiana!" I was so excited that I fell back asleep (this was 3am after going to sleep after midnight). It took Mrs. Vaillencourt bouncing on the bed, uncovering the blankets off of me to wake me up. Surprisingly, we were out the door and on the road at 4am (considering it took me so long to wake up and get ready). The first few hours were very peaceful, and by peaceful I mean, I was sleeping the entire way until we got to Pennsylvania (minus occasional photos I took).

We stopped in Penn (which in my opinion had the nicest scenery yet) at a rest stop, and this was when Dave decided to wake me up and make me drive some. Unhappily I got into the driver's seat and drove 200 miles (stalling once and freaking out at least twice about construction-pretty impressive for just learning stick a month ago!). Luckily we switched back to him driving in time for a line of thunderstorms going through. For anyone who knows Dave and thunderstorms, I’m sure you can guess how this went. Once he saw the thunder clouds, the scanner was on in a second tuned into the weather.

Along the trip, Dave realised that he forgot pillows and that the zipper to the cooler was broken. I think these were the only "bad things" about the day (other than in Indiana when he freaked out about the huge bugs that kept hitting his windshield and splattering everywhere).

It was a long trip, 16 hours, but when we made it to Indianapolis in a shorter amount of time than we expected (especially because he immediately increased the speed when he saw that the limit was 70 in Indiana), we were in pretty good moods. It was so cool to see that it got dark at almost 9:45. Tonight, Lisa, who kindly let us stay with her, showed us around the city. She showed us her office, her roof deck of her office building, the state building, the canal, and lots more! It was really exciting, especially the part where the homeless guy started washing his shirt in front of us after making friends with Dave! By the time we got back, we were ready to pass out...so here I am saying goodnight! Getting to sleep in until 7am tomorrow for the trip to Omaha, what a treat : )

-Alyson