Cleaning the pallet

As I am in the car for many hours every day, limited to the car, Alexandra, the dogs and our surroundings, I feel the process of 'cleaning the pallet' taking place.


As I am leaving NJ, where I spent 12 years of my life, I appreciate this period of living in vacuum, 'in between': not in NJ and not in the new place either'. It allows me to reflect, and give the past proper closure.


I usually try to 'process' history by extracting the important things and forgetting all little details. Easier said than done, because I frequently find myself remembering some stupid details and forgetting the 'big picture', especially when I get angry or emotional. I hope and feel that these 7 days will be very useful for me, giving me time to settle NJ before jumping into CA and allowing me to face CA without unnecessary judgements from prior NJ experiences. Kind of like closing the door before opening another one.



Obviously, the greyhounds deal with it differently and probably more intelligently: they just lounge in the back of the car, and reflect on their own state of mind, as you can see in the attached picture. A brain hard at work...

Things to do in every state

As we started out our journey, we gradually made a list of things that needed to be done in every state where we drove through; sort of a checklist of what needed to be done (you could say: stuff that needs to be done to conquer the state).

Well, that was quite easy when there were not too many states to do in one day, but today, visiting 4 states in one day, was quite an achievement.

Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin all were conquered.
We are tired, and tomorrow is another day, probably with only one state to conquer.

I wonder what checklist the Lady and Shooter have for each state: number one and number two perhaps?

Are we there yet?

The day started way too early for any human being to be civil:
The Beauty and the Beast, where Lady is obviously the beauty....

For those who have watched Shrek 2, you will see how this picture is the inspiration for the title:

Today went by without a hitch (no pun intended), thank the Lord. Apart from a little bit of rain that we got from the remnants of Gustav, the trip was quite uneventful and borderline boring. CORN CORN CORN and GIGANTIC TRUCKS is also we saw:

Have you ever seen these triple trailers??? They are huge!

We drove approximately 550 miles and crossed 4 states: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin (we changed the route, surprise!!!). Ohio was very smooth because they have nice and dog-friendly stops b(with Starbucks!!!!!!). Illinois was horrible. They drive like maniacs and the highway is under construction and it sucks. Of course, I was the one driving that section, so I ..itched the whole time :-). My husband is a Saint.

Now look at this funny guy here, it looks like it is coming towards us, doesn't it?

It got us worried for a moment... Hehehe, it was being towed by another f..ing huge truck!!! Chef, your smart car cannot survive on these roads, it will be truck food!



The dogs behaved exceptionally well again today and Lady did not even mind the rain. Shooter would do the occasional "Are we there yet?" check and go back to sleep, quite comfortably I might say. Check Jos's posting for further detail


We just enjoyed a supper of local cheese, crackers and wine and tonight we will sleep in De Forest, Wisconsin, "America's Dairyland". Tomorrow, it all starts again, at the unGodly hour of 6am and we'll see how far we can get. Tune in for more adventure and fun!