Yesterday, Labor Day, we spent mostly on the road, driving from Columbia, MO to Bartlett, IL, which is approx. 400 miles. The way we do it, it takes about 8 hours. We go on Rte. U.S. 54 over to Louisiana, MO, and cross the Mississippi there, and then work our way over to Jacksonville, IL where we pick up I-72, which runs into I-55 at Springfield. That takes us up to Chicago, and I-355, and then Rte. 20 takes us to Bartlett. Only this time I was so tired, I dozed off and we missed the Rte. 20 exit, and the Elgin-0'Hare expressway exit, and had to take Golf Road over to Bartlett road and then go down to M&J's. We got there a little after 6pm, which was fine. The one big difference in this trip was the hot, humid weather. It was in the 90's and sticky all the way. We have been blessedly free of that most of this trip.
Back at Columbia, Katie had an 8am filming date with her film crew, so she came by our motel room a bit after 7 and had a bite to eat from the Bfst buffet, and we heard more about the movie she is filming. If you use Firefox to go to http://thecrowdfundingcentre.com/project/FCB70C you can watch a video that Katie filmed about "The Bike Thief" - the film she is working on. You can even make a donation to help fund it. (For some reason that link doesn't work when I try to use it on Safari. I have no idea what will happen using Internet Explorer. Good luck!)
When we came to the Mississippi, we found that the bridge was up - it's a drawbridge. A barge was coming through. We were the lead car on the bridge, so I got some pix:
Bridge is up!
Here comes the barge!
Going through
T'other side
At Springfield, we stopped at a Culver's we had stopped at before. I had half a Reuben sandwich left over from Sunday night supper at the brew pub, so I brought that in - discreetly - and ordered a bowl of soup and - discreetly - ate my sandwich with the soup, topped by a scoop of the "flavor of the day," cherry cheese cake, which was surprisingly good.
I usually read aloud in the car and today was no exception. I read a couple of chapters from Robert Athearn's The Mythic West, a book I had come across while working on the Tolles MS project, and also a few chapters from Arthur Ransome's Great Northern, which is the last in the wonderful Swallows and Amazons series. But I was fighting drowsiness all the way. I think both Ellen and I were feeling a letdown from our time in Boulder. Ellen felt exhausted too, but fortunately she has no tendency to get drowsy at the wheel. We were glad to get to Bartlett safe and sound. Becky was there too, with her friend, Mark, and we all had supper together. We managed to stay awake through supper and after, but were happy to fall into bed.
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