Home (Ambler, PA) to Iowa City, IA
Day 1 of Two Dads One Land Yacht:
-4:30am
The day kicked off with a 4:30am alarm Sunday morning May 14th (Happy Mother's Day Lizagna!) and a scheduled departure time of 5am according to Slick Rick's detailed nerdy itinerary. In true fashion, I was only half packed up with 30 minutes until we left, but somehow managed to pack everything I owned just in time.
-5:00am
Right on time, we left the house at 5:00am with a final destination of Iowa City. Predicted GPS drive time was about 15 hours with no stops and exactly 1,000 miles.
-5:15am
Slick Rick was very fascinated by the cockpit of The Land Yacht claiming that I "have more gadgets than Maxwell Smart" Peep the GoPro, Radar Detector, Magnetic Phone Mount...
-9:38am
Made it into West Virginia in one piece, Pennsylvania Turnpike was incredibly foggy. Couldn't see more than 100 feet in front of the car at some points. Lowkey had no idea that the Turnpike had 4 huge tunnels on the way out to Pittsburgh...
-9:58am
Welcome to Ohio. Slick Rick is baffled that even though we drove through WV for a solid 20 minutes we didn't see a single WV license plate. Declares that all WV residents must be sleeping still.
-11:15am
Passing through Columbus, Ohio. We are both shocked by the amount of dead deer on the side of the road. Apparently public works out here doesn't like to clean up roadkill...
-1:10pm
Welcome to Indiana. Had lunch at a Subway truck stop in Spicetown, Indiana next to a go-kart race track.
-2:35pm
Welcome to Illinois. Crossed timezones when crossing the ID/IL state line, time went from 2:35 to 1:35. We're basically time travelers...
-4:15pm
Bathroom and Gas stop somewhere in the middle of Illinois. There is literally nothing out here. Just brown fields as far as you can physically see. We kept seeing these huge windmill farms throughout the state. They seem to be about 15 miles wide and 5 or so miles deep. Looks like some stuff out of a space movie.
-5:30pm
Passed through the "Quad Cities" and crossed over the Mississippi River. Looks more like a mega lake than a river that's how wide it is.
-6:45pm
Made to Iowa City, IA and our luxurious $70 hotel. Shockingly no bed bugs. Went to dinner at a Mexican place called Casa Azul. Tim Tom the waiter was not too great at his job and it took about an hour to get a burrito 4/10 would not recommend Tim Tom's establishment.
Overall the first day was pretty solid. Definitely the most driving done in a single day for both myself and Slick Rick. Covered a little over 1,000 miles in around 15 hours including stops. Land Yacht is running like a champ, chugging gas like a beast, averaging around 16 mpg on the highway. So far we've spent around $145 in gas or around 15 cents a mile (lord help my wallet).
Btw this entire blog was uploaded from the middle of nowhere Iowa in the car at about 80mph. They apparently have better cell service in farm land then we do in Philadelphia.
