Starved rock RV-Utica,IL (7/10-7/11)

Today is leg three of our cannonball across the Midwest. Today’s trip is 440 miles and 7 1/2 hour drive day.

Today was a little bit of a boring drive as far as scenery in Iowa. Iowa has a ton of wind turbines. There are also are several big manufacturers of the wind turbines here in Iowa itself. In particular there is one that is located right off I 80 which we are taking across Iowa.

Since the manufacturer is right there on the interstate, we saw several trucks, pulling the wind blades along the interstate. Man, those things are huge. The state of Iowa actually generate 60% of its electricity from Winter turbines. Interesting fact.

We needed to get fuel on the east end of Iowa and lucky for us, our fuel stop coincided with the I80 world‘s largest truckstop. If you have ever been to Buc-ee’s this place is just like a Buc-ee‘s except gear toward tractor trailer drivers. Coincidentally they also were having truck jamboree at the same time so a large portion of the parking lot was marked off with all kinds of vendors. They had show trucks, like kinda a car show, but with 18 wheeler trucks, and they had contests and vendors. They even had trucker Olympics. We caught the very end of that, they had to pull a truck with a weight in the back as part of the truck as their Olympics event.

This place is massive. I can’t even explain how big it is. We filled up the rig with fuel and then found a parking space so we could go inside the truckstop. I’ve been in a few truck stops before, but never anything this large. They had every accessory you could think of for a rig. They had a dentist they had a barbershop. They had the usual truckstop stuff. They had an entire food court. Clothing of all types. It was Buc-ee’s on steroids. It was crazy.

We did a walk-through the entire place and then went back to the rig and continued our drive. The rest of the drive was uneventful and we made it to our spot in Utica, Illinois. Coincidentally, I grew up outside of Utica, New York. So I have to stop and think every time I think of Utica that I’m not in New York. This is our last overnight stop. Tomorrow we get to a campground where we can stay for a just over a week. Excited to be off the road for a little bit and to get back to life as normal. Although Mike has a race to work so he won’t be joining me.Read more