A very long travel day for me today. Started out from the Lexington area around 9:30 this morning. Took nearly an hour to do the initial 50 or so miles up to the interstate. But they were pleasant miles rolling through the countryside. A lot of pastoral scenes of horses and cows out on the green fields, as well as fields of newly planted tobacco plants and corn. Actually, some of the corn fields must of been planted some time ago, as there were several where the plants were already nearly waist high. Where as the further north I got today the shorter the plants were, until finally it looked like some were only recently sprouted and other fields were still to wet to plant at all.

    Headed pretty much west by northwest for most of the day, planning to go far enough north on this segment of my trip to end up on I-80 before turning west into Nebraska. There is one section of I-64 just west of Louisville that I always find interesting. Along a whole 100+ mile section it seems that there is only one exit along the way, if you don't count exits off to rest areas. What is fascinating about that, is not seeing a single sign for a McDonald's for more than an hour of driving. Something that may be totally unique to the whole rest of the country.

    Started hitting a good 15-20 mph head wind nearly as soon as I hit the interstate this morning. Evidently there is a cold front moving in from the gulf area heading northeast toward Chicago and the upper Midwest. The temperature still remained high all day, even though I did hit a couple of rain showers along the way, so the humidity just skyrocketed. The end result was having to keep the air conditioner on for the whole day rather than melt into my own truck seat. That, plus the headwind, meant that my gas mileage plummeted down to about 7-8 mpg. The worst part was that this area has to have the highest gas prices around. My last fill-up was for 24 gallons at $3.99.9/gal., so once again I barely escaped that inevitable $100 dollar fill up.

    Finally got tired of dodging around rain and hail storms, and was worried that there was a tornado lurking out there with my name on it, so I pulled into a rest area about 70 miles east of Peoria. About 7-8 hrs of driving today, so I feel good about that. I am hoping that this front will push through tonight and things will cool down and calm down tomorrow. In the meantime I'm sandwich in between a bunch of 18 wheelers hoping they will buffer me from some of the worst wind gusts. I'm just hoping one of them doesn't just blow over on top of me during the middle of the night. Meanwhile; since it is now nearly 9:00 p.m. and the temp is still reading a steady 92, there is no real reason to go to bed yet. I think I'll read a little bit and try not to sweat all over everything. I think it is going to be a long. restless night.