We love shade!

Did I mention how hot it is? Well, never in my forty years, had I learned that you can sweat buckets...I always thought that was an expression, as it turns out, I do believe I had become Niagara. (speaking of water, a note about yesterday in the truck. Riding from Bernie's to Annawan, both boys were with me in the back, and I swore Riley was spitting on me in the wind...just as I was getting ready to let him have it, I noticed Bernie's black lab had his head out of the window, which provided me with a light mist during the trip. On any other day, that would've been fairly gross, but this dog provided a nice cool shower that felt great!)

Today's leg was set to be about 4 hours, half way to our camping destination of Starved Rock. A bit on the Canal, that was very slow going, and then we made our way to some lightly travelled farm roads. The pic above is the nicest spot on planet earth, Road #1745. Not a flashy name for the greatest place in the world, but this is a shady grassy front yard of some folks that let us chill-out a bit...again, did I mention the heat? Wow!

You can see D-man and I covered our eyes with a T-Shirt, stretched out after chowing down a most-delicious Ham & Cheese Sandwich from a Shell Gas Station, a true delicacy, all with a half-life of 10,000 years I'm sure.

Sliding up and down, across and back, working our way to the next town...is that the water tower up ahead? I bet it is...no, next town will be Princeton. Special help today, a serious tailwind. This brought our average speed up to 8.1mph from 7.3mph, look out, we're breaking all speed records now!

A few hills, brutal heat, and we were getting close, I mean close....psssssss, what's that. "Um Dad, We have a problem back here..." Yup, our first flat EVER on BlackJack. Trailer tire, how conveeeenient as Dana Carvey said back in the 80's. Hot, on Backbone Road, and I changed a flat in a half-delirious state of exhaustion in seconds flat. If the boys could've only appreciated how fast that flat was fixed, a personal record for certain.

"Hey Riley, look, there's Corn." For a few hours, that seemed to be a pretty funny joke...now I don't even get a chuckle. No sunscreen can save us out here, I think SPF 1,000 is no match for Illinois in August, we look like we've been in Tahiti for a year.

Now, you may be wondering, why are they self-supporting and packing all that camping gear, and end up in a motel. The pool! There is nothing more pleasant than a highway motel sign that says "Indoor Pool." It's kind of like the scene where Richard Dryfus keeps making the 'shape' of the mountian in Close Encounters...we felt the same way...we simply end up in the pool and have no way of explaining how we got there. Now, before I retire to the sub-zero A/C room of the AmericInn, the liquid tally for 2 days is unbelievable. Just on the road, we have gone through 4 Camelbacks of water, 1/2 gallon of Gatorade, 6 bottles of water, 2 Sprites, 2 Dr Peppers, a Starbucks biggee coffee (yes, my 8 year stint without caffeine is now officially over) and enough gas station food to feed an army. Rain expected tomorrow...Why do they call it Starved Rock? Not exactly inviting...?