We're in Eastern time now! That means we're almost all the way across the country. It seems sort of hard to believe that we've come this far. Starting a couple of days ago we were really far enough away from home that our license plate is noticable.
This morning we started off in Columbia, Missouri, and left shortly before 7am. Katrina thinks this is cruel and unusual, but I couldn't be persuaded otherwise. I even did all the hard work -- I packed up their stuff, I loaded the car. All they had to do is get up and get in the car. Abby slept for the first couple of hours, but Katrina never went back to sleep all day long.
I was getting so sleepy when I was driving today. I went to sleep after midnight and got up around six, so it wasn't exactly a sleep-filled night. I was planning on getting some coffee at the first Starbucks or Starbucks-like place that I saw, but I didn't see any for a very long time. We stopped slightly east of St. Louis for breakfast at a McDonald's, and I asked pathetically if there was a Starbucks nearby. The nice McDonald's guy actually went and got the phone book and looked it up for me to see if there was one anywhere, but the only one was 25 miles away in a direction I wasn't going.
So we continued on. I called my mom to see if she would look up any nearby Starbucks for me, and she and my father laughed at me, but didn't find any nearby. Although she did discover there were 350+ Starbucks in Illinois, there were none in my part of Illinois. The Land of Lincoln is not the Land of Coffee, much to my dismay.
Abby was very awake at that point, and promised to whack me with her stuffed bear if I fell asleep, but I didn't think that was really a sufficient way to be sure I would stay awake, so I got really desperate and sleepy, and went through a McDonald's drive-through to get some coffee there. I can't even remember the last time I tried to drink a cup of regular coffee, and I asked for tons of cream and sugar, but didn't get nearly enough to mask the nasty, watery taste of the coffee. Eventually I did drink it all, and then I felt a ton better. I am really happy that I know there's a Starbucks between here and the freeway. I will be all set tomorrow!
We arrived in Louisville at Emilie's house by 3, and then hit the town to see a few things in Louisville. We started off at the Kentucky Derby museum, which was really interesting. The best part was the movie that they showed about the race, which was shown on a whole circle of screens around the room, and was very nicely done. After that, we went out to the racetrack where a race was about to start.
I placed a bet, just to say I did it. Abby told me to bet on 5, but I bet on 3, rather frantically, as the race was about to start and while they had rules posted telling you how to place your bet, I was so clueless that I didn't understand what exactly the rules meant. Of course, 5 was the one that won, and I got a big I told you so from Abby. Especially as 5 was the long shot and the payoff would have been pretty good.
After that, we found dinner and then went on a cruise down the Ohio River on a paddleboat. It was pretty hot and muggy today, but the top deck of the boat was breezy and nice. They had a DJ, who was a friend of Emilie's, on the lower deck, with a dance floor and the girls hung out with them for much of the cruise and had a great time.
Now everyone is slowly getting showers and thinking about going to bed, but I don't actually see anyone doing anything like going to sleep yet. Tomorrow we'll make another early start, and will be in Washington DC by bedtime. Then, a week and a half of very little driving! I don't mind the driving so much, as long as I'm properly caffeinated, but it will be nice to be able to devote whole days to sightseeing, and to not have to jam everything in the trunk in my own real-life version of Tetris every day.
Posted by Rachel at July 1, 2004 10:22 PM