We said goodbye to Wyoming and commenced our trip across the plains states to the northeast.  Being tornado season, we needed to time our trek carefully, watching the weather the whole way.  I found a great tornado tracker on the Discovery Channel’s website, you can check it out here. 

Then we crossed Nebraska…

and Iowa.  We stayed near De Soto, which is the birthplace of John Wayne and where the bridges of Madison County are located.  We had a warning light go on in our truck and stopped in to have it checked.  Where we usually find one diesel mechanic, there were several.  They were top-notch and we felt lucky to be in Iowa when the problem occurred.

As we passed through Illinois and the south end of Chicago, we noticed heavy industry as well as beautiful farmland.

We entered the Land of Lincoln, the home of the Indy 500 and the birthplace of our 5th wheel… the state of Indiana.

Then we scooted up into Michigan…

…then down into Ohio.

 … and finally back to our home state of Pennsylvania.  So interesting to see our state with fresh eyes.  Abundant greenery and water, hills and glacial rounded mountains… mmmmm, and soft pretzels.

Angie was so dizzy from watching the world go by, she was glad to be on solid ground. Travel Notes:  We were surprised to see E85 Biodiesel pumps pop up in Iowa and it seems to be getting more popular.  Info here.  Also saw the appearance of automated toll booths in Illinois around Chicago.  “There go more jobs”, we thought to ourselves.  However, we’ve seen a huge increase in the number of states with wind farms.  Every one of these states along I-80 had them and we saw evidence of building many more.  I’ve mentioned before our use of our Garmin.  We have been using a Garmin Nuvi 350 that has a travel kit and plays audio books, an FM transmitter coordinating the announcement of directions and the story through our car stereo speakers.  Although we had to purchase lifetime map upgrades, it’s worked great for us.  We are now listening to the Andy Carpenter series written by David Rosenfelt.  Not classic literature by any means, but we’ve grown to love this quip-cracking, golden retriever loving, New Jersey defense attorney and his world.  It’s one of Audible’s 20 most addicting series-es… check them out here. Our “States We’ve Visited” map now looks like this: We’re going to hang in western Pennsylvania for a while and explore Gettysburg and the surrounding areas.