An alpine meadow at the Continental Divide.

We filled up with gas and got on I-74 west at 7:00 pm. The trip rush is back.
A warning that I got about Dave, he drives like a madman. We had not quite pulled out of the gas station and I said, “this vehicle does not exceed the posted speed limit by more than five miles per hour.” Dave said OK. “I’m not real good at monitoring the needs of others, so if you need to pee or get hungry or need me to drive just tell me, otherwise I’m running on my schedule.” Dave said OK. “I don’t sleep in moving vehicles, so I will probably do most of the driving.” Dave said OK. I was comfortable that we had an understanding. One thing about being a teacher is that you learn to read the level of comprehension of your audience pretty quickly.
We didn’t discuss music before hand. My truck, my choice. It worked out, I listened to whatever I wanted, which ranges from classical to jazz to alternative rock, and I recruited another National Public Radio junkie when we could get a station. Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion was on when we were leaving and that is a great intro to NPR.
Driving west in Indiana is the same as driving any direction in Indiana. But I hadn’t driven this particular span of I-74 in many years. Sit up in the field instead of lie face down. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, or something like that. This was the true beginning. I had my travel companion, a full tank of gas, and the Blues Brothers soundtrack in the CD player. Odysseus was no better set to start, and you know we have to have better luck than he did.
After the road rules conversation, Dave and I fell into small talk. Stuff about our jobs and lives and the coming adventure and how grateful I was that he undertook the quest with me.
Around 9:00 pm we hit Peoria, right on schedule. I have always found it best to base my time estimations on an average speed of 50 mph for the big picture of a trip. This allows for the gas stops and restroom breaks and the I-must-stretch-or-die breaks. To optimize the time on the road I suggest that most cars go about four hours on a tank of gas. Never drop below a quarter of a tank. Stopping every four hours will insure that there is always enough gas should an emergency arise, and since Dave and I are alternating tanks of gas, a stable time frame means that one of us isn’t filling from empty on his turn and the other stopping at half a tank. At the two hour mark, a rest area is a welcome sight. Go pee, walk around a bit, maybe make a sandwich out of the cooler. Enjoy this five or ten (read as three to five) minute respite. Then you just have two more hours until the thrill of another gas station. Repeat as necessary. Which in this case is ten more times just to get there.
While I know within ten minutes where I expect to be in 24 hours, I can’t pass a road sign with out the calculator in my head going off. If we are traveling at 65 mph and it is 285 miles to Madison then we should get there in about four hours twenty-two minutes and time for gas and a rest area and I should be able to compensate by increasing speed to 68 mph and we will be in Madison at 1:25 am. I figure every thing to the exact minute and then I round up. That way I’m early. But not really, because if I’m on time then actually I’m late. It’s a very complicated game I play in my own head. And although I never had the chance, and am not sure I could’ve explained given the chance, I know that Dad understands. What do I do between road signs? Two things really, one is that there are always the mile markers, and two is that the ten minute adjustment and the new speed must be calculated out through the remaining 2300 miles. Arrival times at Fargo, Bismarck, Minot, every major city for the rest of the trip must be updated. Never on paper, the numbers change too fast for that, once the calculator goes off it runs until I’ve been home and sleeping in my own bed for a week.
Don’t just gloss over that sentence above. If you want to maximize your road time you must live from the cooler. It’s cheaper and it’s faster than the so called fast food. At a fast food joint you will spend ten minutes in line for nothing more than something to fill your stomach. From your cooler you can make a sandwich in one minute and walk around the rest area while you eat it and in that same ten minutes you have stretched your legs, filled your stomach and relaxed to the sound of birds, squirrels and trucks. As your surroundings improve, you can sit on a picnic table and eat that ham sandwich looking over the Bow Valley or Logan Pass. It beats the hell out of some spoiled brat and his version of see food. We tried to eat one real meal a day, a couple of fast food meals (sometimes a diet coke from McD’s is worth the price) but mostly a sit down meal at a diner. This was a new experience for me. I had always avoided those little hole in the wall restaurants, but the food is cheap, hot, and better than most chains. When you are looking next time, try one, if they will serve us they must be pretty open minded.
Dave went to sleep shortly after Peoria. We were making good time, the radio didn’t bother him and his snoring didn’t bother me. This was the way I was meant to travel. If you’ve never been on a length of interstate in that early morning time after midnight, you are missing out. The roads are virtually empty. It’s like Disney World with a week day hurricane. Just you and Mickey. And anyone else you see is cashing in like you are or they are crazy, dangerous people too afraid to travel by day, or a trucker who is sound asleep behind his 50 tons of rolling death that is coming up behind you in the rearview mirror.  But the roads are virtually empty.