FINALLY!! I MADE IT!! (also; Going to California) – 0156hrs
Whoo Hooo for me! Rolling through Walcott, Iowa this evening, I started to get that all-to-familiar bladder twinge right around Exit 280. Much to my surprise, I saw a billboard for a TA coming up at Exit 284…hmmm that number sounds familiar… OH YEAH!! WALCOTT, IA!! IOWA 80!!! Home of the world’s largest truck stop, some truckers would even call it Mecca has parking for over 800 trucks, boasts the largest retail facility dedicated to trucking (it would rival any Super-walmart!), and has been a “dream” of mine to stop there ever since I decided to go on this crazy grand adventure! (Please don’t remind me of the LAST time I was in Walcott, IA..m’kay?)
Anyways… didn’t do the tourista / a.k.a. Mr. Wong thing this time (yes I DID snap a couple…I’ll post them later), but just hit the fuel island long enough to drain the bladder and grab a fresh cup o’ Joe. Let me tell you, hands down, THE best cup of trucker coffee I’ve had yet. I don’t know if I hit the pot just right, mixed it just right, or somehow the austere surroundings made it TASTE better… but it was a mighty fine cup indeed!
So…once that was done (definitely make plans to return there for a more “tourista” type visit someday)… I rolled on down (over?) the highway of I80 towards Chicago, arriving here in Mantena, Illinois about a half hour ago to find that the receiver is closed for the night. <sigh>
The GOOD news is we are pre-planned for a pick-up tomorrow morning… HERE in Manena… going (ya ready for this?)… National City, California! Yup…left coast bound…again! ROFLMAO It’s nice piling on the miles…AND I’ll get to make the same trip through Vegas, Death Valley, and the Mojave Desert all over again! Just snapping photos from the opposite angle! ROFLMAO
By the way people… when you’re out there in your “four-wheelers” (what we call your cars)… Please, please, PLEASE don’t try to race us coming onto a highway on-ramp in a desperate attempt to get in front of our slow-asses! IF we can get over, we will usually… if we don’t, it’s because someone is on our left that you can’t see and trying desperately to get your tired-ass old car to move faster to get ahead of us is only going to end badly…FOR YOU!!
I damn near put some middle-aged woman and her kids in the guard rail today because she tried to race up from behind me on the right merging onto the highway. I had already had a rig with several cars behind on my left and couldn’t go anywhere… needless to say the only thing I could is try to slow down, but the stupid… (witch..yeah that’s it) only tried to insist on merging honking her damn horn the whole time. A quick blast on the air horns and the impending impact with the closing guard-rail ultimately convinced her she should apply HER brakes and get behind me where there was plenty of room.
She came around my arse-end, and barreling up to my drivers door, and with her two small kids in the back, gave me the one-finger salute.
In the end, there was some poetic justice about it all though… in her fevered mind to make sure I knew her feelings about being in HER way on HER highway when SHE wanted to come on…she damn near rear-ended the car in front of her, had to jam on the brakes HARD… then realized… oh yeah, this exit coming up was hers and she slid back in behind me and got off the highway.
<sigh> Dumbass four-wheelers