Home Again

Somewhere after the proverbial (yet very real) left turn at Albuquerque, my trusty Ranger went "Clock's Up!" so I had to pull over and snap a pic.

A shout out goes to Alan & Theta and Dave & Diane for putting up with me during my short jaunt to MD. It was too short.

The inaugural Northern trip didn't turn out to be any shorter than the Southern and most of the money I saved from lower gas prices got shelled out at the toll booths. This trip I added several states to my visited list, including PA-west-of-Penn-State (a.k.a. Ohio):

I've only seen Ohio from the Columbus airport before and seeing it from the Interstate didn't add much to the experience. I bypassed Columbus, since it was rush hour.

Indianapolis was cool-looking... must be why all the neat bloggers are moving there. Was treated to an awesome summer storm sunset at Terre Haute.

I spent my time through Southern Illinois worrying about the legality of certain firearms I may or may not have been transporting.

Missouri was a dark, rainy mess. It's the home of the "western branch" of my family, but I resisted the urge to drop in on them unexpectedly in the middle of the night... just like I've resisted the urge to mail them a letter or something in the past few decades. I spent the night in the last two Rest Areas on I-44.

In Oklahoma, I returned to Explored Territory, feeling like Lewis & Clark would have if they'd driven an air-conditioned Ford equipped with a 6-disk MP3 player through a paved wilderness.

When I stopped for lunch, I checked out the name of the town on my Subway receipt: Clinton OK. Is that so, so wrong, or what?