From the Land of Lincoln to Lincoln...Nebraska That Is!

Hello all! Leg #2 of our exodus west is now in the books. I say leg #2 because Janessa and I actually left Madison last Friday after she got off work. It seemed as though Madison was sad to see us go, as the skies opened up and it started raining just as we were getting all the stuff loaded into the car. Other than thinking we could fit a lot more in than we could, the trip down to Algonquin wasn't all that bad. We had a few nice, relaxing days with Momma and Poppa George, hanging out, going miniature golfing (which Ryan won), and watching Ryan play baseball.

It was tough for me to leave Algonquin this morning, just because I've always been so close that I've been able to visit pretty much whenever I wanted. Janessa and I were both able to keep it together though, and we pulled out around 7:30 this morning. We would have gotten up earlier, but the trip to Lincoln was the shortest leg of the journey so we really didn't mind getting out when we did. It would have been nice to be able to drive a bit further, but we wanted to use Janessa's Marriott points and there are only a couple in the whole state of Nebraska. Hence the reason we only drove eight hours today and will drive almost 11 tomorrow...

Other than your normal annoying truckers, slow people in the left lane, and a bit of rain, things went well today. We're looking forward to visiting relatives in Evanston (message me on Facebook if you're going to be in Evanston and would like to get together) and to taking our time getting down to Mesa. As I'm writing this it's still above 100 there...sort of sick, but something I guess Janessa and I will both have to get used to.

Here's a few pictures from today:

Right after we left IL and crossed into IA, we stopped at the visitor's center to take a picture.



Me in the hotel room. Boy was I happy to be out of the car!!!