DAY 14
DAY 16
FINISH:
miles
Painesville, OH
9956.7
Rock Island and Moline all lie within close proximity of each other. (Davenport and
Bettendorf are in Iowa; Rock Island and Moline are in Illinois.) Just before crossing the
Mississippi River in the Quad Cities area, I stopped by the Iowa Welcome Center. I
Most states' welcome centers are in
plain-looking buildings, but Iowa's
looked like the type of building one
would find in New England. The
welcome center was not open yet,
since I arrived there in the early
morning, but I peeked inside to find an
interactive quiz board with questions
about the Quad Cities. I read the
questions, but was unable to find out if
I was right because I wasn't inside to
press the buttons on the quiz board. I
did find out on interesting fact, though,
Bottom: Sunrise over the Mississippi.
Both of these pictures were taken at approximately 7:20 AM CDT, and it was lighter out than these pictures appear.
south) flows from east to west as it winds its way through the Quad Cities. The Iowa
Welcome Center also provided me with a nice view of the Mississippi River.
I had one main goal in mind for Day 15 - to make it to my sister's house in Painesville,
Ohio by 8 PM. Whenever I've stopped by her house in the past (whether her current
home in Ohio or her previous home in North Carolina), I've used it as an opportunity to
save money on lodging as I was passing through on a road trip. A typical visit would
consist of me arriving late one night and leaving before sunrise the next morning. I
made it a point to get to her house between 7-8 PM so that I could spend a few hours
with her. I even got up an hour early so that I would probably get there by 6:00.
(Getting up an hour early was not an easy task, since I was coming off of a 1000+ mile
day.) But I did get out of bed on time and was confident that I would be at my
destination by 6:00, and I was absolutely positive that I would be there by 8:00. Maybe
the fact that it was Friday the 13th was the reason I drove through what seemed to be
every single construction zone in the country that day. I took Interstate 74 across
Illinois into Indiana, then I-465 to bypass Indianapolis (which didn't matter, since there
was construction going on there as well). I got onto I-70 as I left Indy, which brought
me to Columbus, Ohio (another traffic-nightmare - combining the construction on I-270
and the normal Friday traffic at 4:00). It took me close to an hour and a half to get
from one side of Columbus to the other. It was around this time that I was thinking to
myself, "Maybe I should have just taken Interstate 80 from Iowa to Ohio." This would
have been a more direct route, but I had driven most of that stretch of highway before,
and I wanted to save a few bucks on the tolls in Indiana and Ohio. Once I was outside
of Columbus on I-71, the traffic was not bad at all, even as I passed by Cleveland on I-
271. I did eventually make it to my sister's that night, but due to dozens (yes, literally
dozens) of construction zones and heavy Friday traffic, I didn't make it there until 8:06.