Lincoln to Hobart

Oh yeah. Traffic.

From the time I got past Sacramento, I really haven’t had to deal with much traffic. There have been occasional slow downs because of road construction, but not the mazes and offramps and merging I’m used to in the Bay Area. Until today. From Davenport, IA, to where I’m staying in Hobart, Indiana, it was several hours of being reintroduced to metropolitan commute hours. Made me really miss the long flat countrysides I’ve been barreling through. Note to self: take a southern route on the way back.

Here are some road shots.

The highlight of the day had to be stumbling upon the “World’s Largest Truck Stop!” I believe it. Iowa 80 it is called, and it is quite the smorgasbord of fast food, travel trinkets, and car parts. It also has fun facts in the bathroom about other World’s Largest things. Plus full size trucks with flashing light displays inside. Very entertaining.

Now here’s a milestone. I am now East of the Mississippi!

Another couple of rest stop shots. I’m beginning to think California rest stops are kind of…. not the nicest. Look at how nice these are:

And so the sad part of the day came after a grueling two hours of traffic and bumpy, pot holed roads when I finally bailed and called it a day. When I got to the hotel, I checked out the bikes more closely and noticed that they had both jiggled off the little saddle holders on the bike rack and mine was nastily scratched. 🙁 I was really quite upset about that, but I was also just coming off a brutal rush hour and was tired and hungry. Still, my pretty blue bike has a couple of boo-boos and I’m not happy about it.

I can’t get touch up paint to match, but the company says I could use model paint or nail polish. Anyone got any blue nail polish on them?

At least my day tomorrow might be shorter since I’ve gone a little extra the past two days. I wanted that cushion in case the border crossing takes time. Tomorrow, if all goes according to plan, I should be in Canada!

Total miles for the day: 535.8, Total engine time: 8 hours, 44 min