We have had a few technical difficulties with the web site, but we seem to be updating again correctly. A lot will depend on local phone numbers for Internet access in the next few days of decreasing population density.

After Tabitha broke her head out of the kitty bag last night like something out of Aliens, we decided to dope her up this morning. She blundered around the hotel room stoned for a while, then was in the bag again before she knew what hit her. We always feel weird drugging her, but it seems to have relaxed her enough to make up for her freak-out last night.

Today began with a quick exit from Illinois, regaining Route 74 West and hoping to make up for lost time. We debated stopping in Peoria, IL for coffee, but we had designs on a particular stop for lunch.

For all your dental trucking needs

After a brief stop near Davenport, Iowa to gaze at the Mississippi River, we continued on to the Iowa 80 for lunch. Billed as "The World's Largest Truck Stop," Iowa 80 includes a huge gift shop, gas station, restaurant, showers, a laundromat, a barber, a chapel, and a dentist. There was also a wash station large enough for 18-wheel trailer trucks. It has been in operation since 1964 continuously, 24 hours a day. Jen opted for soup and salad, but I seem to be all about Heartland meat at the moment. The Iowa 80 roast pork is award winning, and tasted great, too.

Jen takes the reins

The combination of a big lunch and scenery consisting of one word ("Farm") led me to be pretty tired around 1:30 or so, so Jen took a driving shift today. She had a nice long, straight stretch of Route 80 where the posted speed limit is 65 miles per hour for us passenger cars, but 55 miles per hour for the big trucks, and did well. She joked that I was comfortable enough to nap, which is true. She drove for about 2 and a half hours, and I don't remember much of it. I think I stopped to change CDs once.

The weather was great (sorry, Boston -- still stuck in the 50s (Fahrenheit) there, and rainy). It was in the mid-70s for us all day, and almost entirely blue sky. Tomorrow should be more of the same or better, so much so that we are considering wearing shorts tomorrow. Rain is forecast for western Nebraska, though.

Attempting fun in Des Moines

We have a short list of local brewpubs to visit if it makes sense and thought a stop in Des Moines, Iowa would be a good break. Downtown buildings are connected between the buildings by over three miles of elevated skywalks, so you can effectively walk almost everywhere and remain inside. We couldn't experience this, though, as the downtown shopping district was like a scene out of the Stand...eerily deserted. I wanted to check a newspaper for SARS outbreaks or World War Three. Nope, just nothing going on. The Raccoon River Brewing Co. in Des Moines was closed on Sunday along with the rest of the downtown shopping area, but we were able to take a pit stop at the Court Street Brewing in the more populated restaurant district. Very strange to find super upscale Boston meal prices out here, but the Irish Red lager was a good excuse to get off the road for an hour.

We had a recommendation for Chili King in town, too, but it wasn't nearly long enough since Iowa 80 chow, and we wanted to press on to Nebraska. Sadly, we will be missing the Des Moines Pork Festival, too.

A sleep on the outskirts of Omaha

Except for the five signs or so making sure that we definitely knew there was a real Dutch Windmill off the highway in western Iowa, the rest of the trip into Omaha was more uneventful scenery. We are staying at the Suburban Inn. The local sign-on-pole proclaims "Pool - HBO - Beer." Unfortunately the "Parrothead Lounge and Beer Garden" in the lobby could only offer Tombstone brand store-bought pizzas for food.

We asked the friendly desk clerk for dinner recommendations, as this is a part of the country known for its beef. He drew a small map with a few cross streets, and 8 miles later, we were in the local sprawl's "feeding and shopping" area. We settled on Famous Dave's Barbeque, which turns out to be a Midwest chain. A life-size grizzly beer statue held up a welcome sign for us. Jen finally had her pork, and I enjoyed the steak tips. More award winning food here, this time for the barbeque sauces, and they were indeed fine.

The collapsed bridge that shut down "America's busiest highway" farther out west on route 80 in Nebraska has been cleaned up according to the Omaha newspaper, so we won't have to worry about the large detours from this past weekend that we were dreading.

The exceptionally chatty and somewhat bizarre desk clerk (and his glass eye) are still manning the front desk this morning, just like he was when we got in last night. Does he sleep?

Tomorrow: Nebraska, Nebraska, Nebraska, Nebraska, Nebraska. The plan is to get west enough to enter the smaller roads leading to Carhenge, a scale-replica of Stonehenge made from cars, but we're not sure how close we'll get with the weather changing out there.