Day 6 - Tinley Park, IL to Buffalo, NY

We left Tinley Park, Illinois at 9:15am on Monday, August 31st. This was going to be our longest day of driving, and boy was it ever! We had roughly 560 miles to cover, five states to get through and a time change into ET.

The first part of the day went off without a hitch. We were doing what we know how to do best these days; drive, drive and keep driving. In the afternoon, we stopped in Bowling Green, Ohio, the birthplace of Brant's Grandpa Doug. It was neat to be able to see some family history on this trip. We found the farm and original red barn from his childhood. Pretty cool!

Here's where the story starts to get interesting. Around 7:15, we were entering Cleveland, OH, when we noticed that I-90 hit a detour, and the signs declared that "No Trucks" were allowed on certain strips. We went through the detour once, unsuccessfully, and suddenly were heading West. Although I would love to be driving west, that was not a good thing. We tried again. This time, we almost made it through the road construction, but somehow at the last minute we did not. To make matters worse, Brant and I were in the truck, while Dale and Martha were in the car with Maddie, who had decided she was WAY too sick of the car and really, really ready for food. At this point, the truck and the car got separated. No joke. This was the most frustrating and scary thing ever! My baby was in the car needing me, and I had no idea were this car was.
We touched base via phone and decided we all just needed to figure out where the heck we were, find I-90 East, and meet up outside of the city. Finally, success had arrived. We met up about 10 miles outside of the city, I fed the baby and we all ate dinner (around 9pm). Whew!

We still had 3 hours to drive. We remained in the same vehicles and continued driving the Tollways. When we were about 1 hour out of Buffalo (12:00am), the truck fuel light beeped and flashed on the "Empty". No good! We pulled off the Tollway, paid $1 to unsuccessfully find a gas station that had diesel, or that was open for business. My goodness! We pulled back onto the Tollway, got ourselves a new ticket for the road and prayed long and hard that we would find a gas station this late at night that would have diesel. The thing about the Tollways out here is the service stations are far apart and you have to be prepared for that. But have no fear, we made it! We finally found a station and took care of the essential fueling of the big truck.

What time did we crawl into bed? Well, after we settled in and the baby was fed, I went to bed at 2:30am. It is now 9:30 am, we are getting ready once again, and are excited about a new day, a new start and new adventures! We will be going to Niagara Falls this morning! That should be fun. Bummer for me: I don't have a passport, nor does Maddie, so she and I will have to stick to the US side while the rest of them travel over to the Canadian side (apparently the better viewpoint, too). Oh well, it's my fault for not taking care of the passport deal - but it still is a bummer.

Tonight, we land in Princeton! We will be in a hotel for the night, and tomorrow is moving day. All of our belongings that were packed up in June and stored away in my dad's garage all summer will finally be revealed. That'll be nice.

I'll post later! Off to the Falls!