on the inside

8 hours of driving today... and my butt is sore! we drove through the rest of iowa, all of illinois, and then some of indiana. crazy!!! not much went on today, but there are some pics that i am excited to show...

so, a few of these pics are kind of inside stuff... so if you don't get it, i'm sorry... but there is purpose to these pics.... this first one that says "kickapoo"... i absolutely loved this one... for those of you who are wilderness challengers and went on the jtree trips... i am sure you remember the street named kickapoo that's is there right in jtree. well, i only got a pic of this sign (for the street, and it's seperate from edwards, it's not all one street), but there is also kickapoo creek, and kickapoo state park!!! (by the way this is in illinois). so, i am guessing that the street in jtree is named after this state park... pretty hilarious!

okay... Peoria!!! this is from one of my lines in the senior play ("so does the park in Peoria, IL...")... turns out we'd be driving by peoria, so we actually made a pit stop and had lunch there!!! we could find an actual park, but i found this sign that said peoria park... hilarious! so that's it for toady... we are now three hours ahead of california. tomorrow, we will have completed this long journey and made it to grand rapids, MI. i am SO excited... quite honestly, while going through all these states and cities, and even some of the towns, it has just made me more excited to show my family and jenny the cool towns in michigan (i am especially excited for holland). however, i have been missing the national parks... those were incredible. i am glad to be done driving after tomorrow... the exploring has been great, the open road has been awesome, but i can't wait to start doing stuff outside of a car... like walking, running, biking, unicycling... something getting my heart going and not causing my rear end to fall asleep since it has been sitting in the car and driving for so long.

nonetheless, road trips are awesome!!!

talk to yall tomorrow once i am in michigan!

nebraska to iowa

we finally saw some tall corn!!! yay!

this bruise is actually from one of the first days of unicycling when i first learned, but for some reason it is just now showing it's true colors

and this ant is HUGE... for an ant, that is.

y'all ready for some jokes? they're going to be a bit corny (haha, there's the first one :)

nebraska and iowa are up to their ears in corn...

what did the corn say when i complimented it? "aw, shucks."

haha, that's what spending two days driving through corn does to you.

however, i must say that i actually really like Iowa... it's a lot more bumpy than nebraska. it has some more trees, and in general it's a bit less daunting than nebraska. and there was a huge outdoor world/bass pro shop (which was mentioned at bible study a couple weeks ago) but we didn't stop in.

so after 7 hours of driving, we made it from north platte, NE to Altoona, IA. this place we are staying in is like a castle... it's hilarious with all this medieval themed stuff around.

this is actually called the blue river... however the river doesn't really run... it's just still water covered in green.

and this is our hotel... no joke... in't that hilarious... we are greeted by a knight... oh, and their motto here.. "a good knight's sleep." hardy har har.

tootles

wow, it's...ummm... flat

i am really excited for this post... today we ventured into the land of nebraska... actually, we went from colorado, then in to wyoming for a little bit, and then east in to nebraska. not many stories from today because all we did was wake up, eat, and then drive and arrive. so i will just put the pics from today with a few little captions.
this is what wyoming looks like...
then we enter nebraska... and..

this is what nebraska looks like...
unicycling with the nebraska flatland behind me...

and well, the only thing that is keeping us from seeing any further is the curvature of the earth... other wise, it's so flat we could see forever.

the tallest thing we saw all day...

corn fields... unfortunately most of the corn was really short..

john deere tractor

i love these rolls of stuff... they look so cool.
sideways traffic lights... way cool.

rocky mountains

this exit was called "no name"... i barely caught it...

moose!

if you click on it, you can see the moose...

i have a feeling this won't be the last time i find myself in sandals in the snow...

road to the summit...

so cool...

snow fun!!!

freezing cold!!!

thanks for the good idea rebekah...

moab, UT

Rest stop on the way to rocky mountain np
at rock mountain np... what does the sign say???

nothing about unicycles!
on the summit... unicycles don't work so well in snow.. i am actually falling forward if you can't tell.. and there was this guy watching me try, and as i walked out of the snow, this guy pulled a unicylce out of his car!!!
how awesome is that... he mountain unicycles (these types of unicycles are called munis)

so yes, trying the unicycle out in fun places!