Day 23: Back on the road

Back on the road and finally in the Eastern Time Zone (though who knew it arrived in Indiana? Not me.) I'm really happy to be on my way again. It's kind of scary to think it's now been over 3 weeks since I last had a real home (I feel like a housing Pinocchio: "I just want to have a real home!" Where's my fairy :) Anyway, as much fun as it is to randomly wander the country, and as nice as it was to have a kitchen to cook in at my Dad's house, I just really want my knives! Yes, believe it or not, the other day when I was chopping I found myself really feeling homesick for my chef's knife :)

So now I'm on the final push to Boston. I still don't have a permanent place to live, so I'm going to stay with my older brother in New Hampshire (where I'll get to play with my nephews and niece, too!) It looks like I should get there on Monday (unless I see a side trip that just needs to happen on the way.)

But anyway, back to today. I got my car packed up again this morning. I think it's better this time, even with a few more things I picked up. Yes, it's a little dorky, but I'm proud of my packing, so here's a picture (the empty spot is where the cooler fits perfectly).

(If you look close on the left, you can see my old middle school and high school year books that I found at my Dad's; they'll be fun to go through when I get some time)

The first stop today was at a liquor store that has a fire breathing steel dragon outside. You put in tokens ($1 each) to get it to breathe fire. Of course, I had to do it. Sadly, it doesn't put out too much fire (the guy said only about 4 feet or so) and it was really windy, so you couldn't see much. The second picture is with the fire coming out. Can you even see it?

The guy at the store was funny - he asked me how I'd heard of this. I guess it's not a common tourist stop, especially for people from Seattle! When I told him were I found it, he must've thought he had a live one, because he pointed out the souvenier t-shirts (I passed :)

Can you see the fire? It's just under the jaw being blown to the left; the eyes light up, too.

Today, the phrase "world's largest" comes with a religious theme. In Effingham, IL I found the world's largest cross. It's big! But supposedly only 198 ft (because apparently 200 ft requires a flashing light for airplanes and that would be aethetically undesirable). Hailey and I stopped and wandered around it where you can read the 10 commandments and, if you press a button, get a lesson for each one. The funniest one: for "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy" the recording told me that it was better to tie a rock around my neck and toss it into the ocean than to dress provacatively. Seriously. I guess they must have a big problem with people coming to church showing too much skin. (It said something about how we can make America great by dressing modestly).

Shamed, I went back to my car and put my pants back on.

(I'm only kidding! In reality I had pants - shorts, actually - on the whole time)

If it had been 2 feet taller, maybe I would have converted

Then, it was on to my favorite stop of the day, and possibly contesting the ball of twine for best of the entire trip - the mug tree!

Whoever made this is brilliant!

The mug tree is out near Yale, IL (basically, 2 miles past the middle of nowhere). On the tree, there are tons of mugs hanging. Each person who stops by is supposed to swap one of the mugs for one they're carrying. I had taken a mug from my Dad and found a mug from Boston on the tree. I thought that was appropriate. The next picture shows the swap.

My new Boston mug. I left the one that says Newport in the back.

There is also a guest book to sign and leave funny stories. This was just the coolest and most random stop I can think of (and when I was planning my route, it was between the mug tree and an Abe Lincoln statue today; sorry Abe, but you lost!)

After the mug tree, I entered Indiana. I'm actually not impressed with IN. There isn't much to see. I did go to an art park in Indianapolis that I liked a lot (below), but the state seems pretty boring. Maybe I'm just on the wrong roads.

The art park was very cool. My GPS led me all over the place (I had just enabled traffic-based routing on it, and it seemed all to happy to avoid freeways). But while driving around, I went through some really nice neighborhoods with lots of people walking dogs and running. Maybe, Indiana isn't so bad after all?

The purpose of the art park was to get a picture of this house:

It's called "Twisted House" and is in the Artspark which has fun walking trails that Hailey and I went through.

But I was also really hungry and so we kind of rushed through. I wanted to get a snack and get out of Indianapolis before traffic hit. But silly me thought it was earlier than it was (I hadn't picked up on the fact that it was east coast time yet), so I should've just stopped and eaten for real. Anyway, the outcome is that I didn't go all the way to Dayton, OH as I'd hoped (actually, I kind of knew from the start of the day that it was about 50 miles further than I'd want to go given my other driving days and the fact that I left after 9 am). So tonight I'm in Richmond, IN (which I noticed is home to Earlham College - yay for Nick and Adair). But the real point is that I want to go to a place called Footprint Rock just across the border in Ohio and I wanted to do it while I wasn't tired and hungry. Why? Because it is supposedly easy to miss, and because the story goes that if you stand in it barefoot and close your eyes, when you open them you'll be able to see into the past (or, at least back down the road where you came from :) So that'll be the first thing tomorrow.

I was also hoping to call people while I was in the car today and catch up with everyone I haven't talked to in a while, but that didn't work out so much (I was having a hard time getting back into the driving flow; my attention seemed distant so I thought it better to focus on the road.) Hopefully, I can call a few people tomorrow (and yes, I am using a handsfree headset!)