Welcome to our 50th Anniversary road trip....

We ate our boring; Quality Inn furnished breakfast at 6:30 then left Lewisburg WV.   One of the things I do whenever we are on the road traveling is to watch the weather channel at night to see what may be in store for us the next day.  Last night the weatherguessers said there would be severe storms on our route the next day for most of our trip to Mt. Vernon, Ill, about 540 miles away.   The day began with fog that lasted till mid day while we dodged the severe storms.  But we did have an overcast, dreary day with just a little rain spritzing about the last 20 miles of the day….but nothing bad.  We traveled I-64 all day as we ate up the ashpalt to Illinois.

One of the things we wanted to do this trip was to take a picture of every state, “welcome to” sign as we entered them.  Linda had done a good job so far but when we crossed the Kentucky line the battery went dead in her camera!  Sometimes doing a U turn is real problematic as it was on that part of I-64.  So we just stopped at the welcome center and Linda took a pic of the building that said “Kentucky”!  Since we packed the car the day before we left, we didn’t have the opportunity to “test” some of the stuff in the car, like the “munchies bag”.  We packed what we thought we might “need” to munch on during our trip but the big blue tote bag was just not liking where we had to locate it.  It kept falling over and covering the trash can which frustrated us as we tried to use the trash can.  Linda gave up and started just throwing stuff in back, to be disposed of correctly when we stopped.  It doesn’t sound like a big deal but for two OCD people it was just a little stressful.

The landscape in WV was typical rolling hills like Virginia….it started to flatten out a little as we went through Kentucky and by the time we got to the West side of Indiana it was pretty flat.  You can see/feel the gradual transitioning of the topography as you drive if you really think about it AND if you take pictures!  By the time we arrived in Illinois there were a few minor hills but the flat farmland was becoming the norm.  We arrived at our destination a Comfort Inn right off I-64 in Mt. Vernon, Illinois….and there was a inviting looking Mexican restaurant next door….this was going to be a fun evening!

It had been a very long day when we arrived so I parked the car under the motel entrance car port to check in.  After checking in I found a luggage cart and loaded our stuff and wheeled it to our room.  The room was at the other end of the building so after we settled in we went out the side door, walked to the Agave Mexican restaurant and had dinner.  After we ate too much sumptuous Mexican food, we walked back to our room….watched the weather channel for a while then turned in for the day.  The next morning when we went to breakfast, we took our stuff in the luggage cart….to our car that I left in the carport….unlocked all night….senior moment for sure!