Today we put the “I” states behind us. The rest of Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, and we started tackling the huge state of Nebraska. We drove in rain and gray skies since just before Nebraska. Kind of strange since the last time we drove that stretch of road after over-nighting in Lincoln, we drove in driving rain and small hail. We’ve never stayed in Grand Island before and in pouring rain we were wondering just where “motel row” was since they are not clustered next to the exit.

We peered through the windshield trying to read the hotel signs and saw a flashing LED display saying “Pets Welcome” and pulled right in to the Rodeway Inn. All pets accepted with a credit card number in case of damage. For $60 a night we got free WiFi, a huge room, and a view of the lake behind. Just look at our view!

What a lucky break after 12 hard hours on the road! This hotel even has a little patio that overlooks the lake with a BBQ for hotel guest use. How cool! We won’t be using it tonight as the weather is not good, but what a lovely place. Plenty of room to walk the dogs too. A huge super WalMart just a block down the road yielded our bottle of wine and our Domino’s pizza is on they way as I type.

Here are the daily snaps:

Sunrise in my side mirror in Indiana.

Iowa barn.

We saw lots of wind turbine blades being transported headed East.

The great Mississippi.

Iowa cornfield.

Here is what all those wind turbine blades are all about.

Lots of mini wind farms in Iowa.

I don’t know if you are enjoying these views of America as we traverse this great country of ours, but I know I will look back and remember it fondly.

Here is Sam enjoying his view on the world tonight.

Tomorrow: destination CABIN.

Goal achieved today: Elkhart, Indiana. We left the house at 7:40 a.m. and pulled into the Ramada Inn at 7:20 p.m. The dogs and cats are just amazing travelers, and other than Bella slipping her collar two different times at two different rest areas and causing me heart failure, all has been good. She is the problem child.

We don’t usually admit to having cats when we check in. Our two cats are so good we just don’t feel we need to tell them. We cover the beds with sheets and our impact is minimal. At least we like to think so.

This Ramada is a great place. They take pets, have a great dog walking area, and there is a Bennigan’s Restaurant on the premises. No need to leave the dogs unattended in the room. Just walk to it and order. We always eat in with the crew in tow, and sometimes order Dominos Pizza since they deliver.

Here are a few road shot from today. I should have done more.

Del Water Gap:

And I few more miles down the road. I whipped out the camera at the last moment, so it’s a bit blurred. Hey, we were on the move!

And, what is with this pic halfway through Pennsylvania? I don’t think so folks! We just left there!

Well, it’s taken me about 45 minutes that could have been better spent just to upload all this nonsense you have just slogged through, and I know it’s not much. But it’s getting late, the dogs need to be taken outside for final pees and eBay is curled up on my pillow. She needs to move.

So, until tomorrow night. We have the rest of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and on in to as much of the big ole state of Nebraska that we can handle. Onward!

If you are reading this it means we are on our way to Colorado. It also means that we managed to stuff everything into our Suburban. But probably just barely. I feel like singing that song from Vacation, what was it Holiday Road? But I sure don’t want to have that kind of trip. No dogs left tied to bumpers ... no dead old ladies strapped to the top of the car. Now maybe Rick would like to skinny dip with Christie Brinkley but I doubt he’ll get the chance.

Unfortunately we’ve had to take some precautions this year due to unauthorized use of our yard and pool in the past when we are away. It’s sad, but necessary. A new pet sitter, security cams installed, and our little community offers “drive-by” service by the local police department. Pretty nifty. All you have to do is fill out a “Check House” card at the police department. Part of the perks of the high taxes we pay I guess. We have to get something for the exorbitant taxes that come with living in New Jersey.

There will be plenty of people stopping by too. The pet sitter every day. Our pool deck is finally being stained (after all Rick’s hard work of power washing) while we are away. We have a great guy as a painter. Our “pool guy” (the man who opens and closes our pool and whose store we take our weekly pool water samples to and buy all our pool supplies in) has graciously agreed to check on the chlorine level and make sure we are not growing any algae in our absence. Our yard is being professionally mown (don’t get used to this treatment, dear grass!) so we don’t come home to a pasture. Check and double check. Everybody and everything is set to go. Or come. Whatever. When we leave our driveway I’ll feel good about everything.

I don’t know if I will blog on the road. Depends on whether we can connect in the motel room or through Rick’s iPhone or not. If not, I’ll be checking in once we are there. My blog header while on vacation will look like this, so don’t think you’ve come to the wrong place.

This photo was taken two years ago from the top of our driveway.

I will be blogging but might not get to checking everyone’s blog, so if I am absent in your comments please forgive me. I don’t have all my links since I’ll be using Rick’s computer but if you leave a comment I’ll be able to follow your link back.

We wish ourselves a safe and uneventful journey West. Look out cabin ... here we come! Your sleepy reverie is over!

I’ve got lists upon lists. A list of things I have to do today.

A list of things I have to do tomorrow.

A list of all the dog and cat needs for the road. (Water, food, crates, crate pads, sun screens for the crates, water buckets, toys and chewies, leashes, poop scoop bags, dog food bowls, cat litter box, cat box liners (for easy clean up in motel rooms), cat litter, litter scoop, cat food bowls, water bowl, old sheets for protecting motel bedspreads, old towels in case of accidents or muddy feet, flashlight for walking dogs after dark. I’m sure I am leaving out something but, well, you get the idea. We are old dog show people so we are used to the drill.

A list of what to remember to take with us.

A list of things we need to turn off or on before leaving the house.

Little piles stacked here and there of things I want to go to the cabin. Books, magazines, and puzzles. Embroidery project. Big road map atlas. Game Cube games. A few movies. Some things we found while cleaning out the upstairs hall closet that really belong at the cabin and not here. All my camera gear. Rick’s fancy camera gear borrowed from work. The video camera and all its components.

The kitchen sink ... (just kidding!)

Maybe we need something bigger than our Suburban with the pod on top??

... we’ll be here:

and possibly doing this:

The Cabin. The last time we were here was June 2008. That’s a long time considering we were up there every available weekend when we lived there (weather conditions permitting). It’s partly why we chose the house here in New Jersey that we did because it’s a combination of the best of both worlds. Sure we have woods and bear, turkeys, deer and lots of other wildlife visiting our yard but it doesn’t compare to the cabin.

At the cabin we are “off the grid.” For those that don’t know what that term means, it means we have no services such as electric, natural gas or phone. No one plows the roads past a certain point in the winter and all the roads drift over. Our electricity comes from solar panels whose energy is stored in batteries. So, in a sense we have a battery powered house! Normally we would have the energy provided by our wind generator too (which where we are located is a huge amount of wind) but we have dismantled the wind generator as we come so infrequently. So we really have to watch our electric usage. Or should I say Rick watches it and I just keep on using it! I drive the man crazy. But I digress ...

We have a septic system and a well. (The well pump is powered by the electricity that we generate.) We have a furnace, range, and very small refrigerator that run off of propane (and a 1,000 gallon propane tank). We prefer to heat with other means than the furnace when we can. We have a wood burning fireplace and—my pride and joy of which I am the Queen of—our wood burning range.

Once fired up this beauty can heat the whole cabin and keep it toasty warm. In fact there are times we had it so warm we had to open windows! We don’t use the top for cooking but we do use the oven in the winter months. It’s not old, just a modern day replica that we bought new when we had the cabin built. Rick plans to take a few hardwood logs with us and see how long they will burn in it. (All our wood there is soft: pine and aspen.)

Our refrigerator is very small so we have to plan meals accordingly. In the winter we have use of Mother Nature’s fridge for cooling the wine and such in the form of the snow that slides off the roof and onto our front porch.

It used to be that we did not even have a radio up there; only a phone. No TV either. We were cut off from the rest of the world. We were enjoying a week-long cabin visit during 9/11 and we had no idea what was happening until I called my friend Piper just to chat. When she told us what was going on Rick rushed out to the truck to listen to the radio reports. In a way, we feel like we missed the whole thing. We felt like we should cut our visit short and go home, but what good would that have done? We did end up going home a few days earlier than we normally would have.

Now we have all the modern comforts thanks to these two discs:

We have satellite television and (we hope!) internet. Not like last year when our internet was such a problem. I think we resolved that problem—finally. We also have our Sirius satellite radio that we’ll take with us. The only thing we don’t have reliably is a phone. My old analog phone through AT&T worked liked a charm up there with a booster on the cabin roof. Now that analog technology is not supported anymore that phone does not work. Neither does Rick’s fancy iPhone. The phone I have now sort of works. It hardly ever rings through to the cabin but we can hear it taking a message. Or you might get a signal if you take it and stand outside in a certain spot. Maybe. It’s annoying! It’s really just for emergencies anyway since neither Rick or I are big phone people. Not like some people who are constantly texting away.

Soon we will start our trek westward with three dogs, two cats and all the necessary paraphernalia. Two of the cats (Vincent and Pookie) will stay here and be tended by their new pet sitter. Do you think we’re crazy? Really, they are all good travelers (except for Bella they’ve all done it before) and it’s easier than you might think. We don’t stay in fancy hotels along the way, mostly Motel 6’s and Red Roof Inns because they are pet friendly. There is a really nice Ramada Inn that takes pets just over the Indiana border that we are aiming for for the first night that is just a perfect place to stay. Although the cats preferred a motel we stayed in last year where we had a below ground level room. They could sit in the window that was ground level and watch the world go by.

I’m not really looking forward to spending three days on the road but we have books on the iPod and plenty of music and podcasts to listen to. The miles will go by quickly, and every mile puts us closer to our goal.

The Cabin.

Can’t wait.