The Adventure North in Dora the Explorer

Day 2

After a beautiful Easter Sunday we are up early on Monday leaving Krodel Park around 8:30 AM crossing the bridge into Ohio for our first gas stop - $90 dollars to fill the tank that will move us 400 miles closer to our 5,000 mile total. It was about $75 on the Adventure South just five short months ago! I can only imagine the prices in Canada, but we won’t go there yet.

Bunny stands guard

The sun is out as we travel to Cincinnati, passing into Indiana farmland and on to Indianapolis where there is a large Jeff Gordon Boulevard exit sign. NASCAR is huge in the Midwest. We resist the urge to get off the freeway to check it out, and continue our trek west.  I can’t help but think of my good friend Amy Z, from Gary, Indiana now living and working in London - a far cry from this flatland. More farm country across southern Illinois where exit #197 reads Homer. However, if there is any doubt about where I am the next billboard reads: “Guns Save Lives.” There is no follow up sign that reads: “Guns Kill People,” because well I am in NRA land. On the side of my brother-in-law’s barn he has painted: “If you want to buy hay, call this number. Thieves will be prosecuted and SHOT.” Yikes! Signage is big in the Midwest and they are serious about their right to bear arms. I can’t help but think of all the children recently murdered with assault weapons at Sandy Point Elementary, and wonder why anyone would need such a gun unless of course it was to kill someone. Maybe this liberal mind is what really doesn’t fit in the east.

While I’m preoccupied driving apparently Annie Banane gets bored in the back and decides to rummage around eventually finding the banana bag stashed behind several heavy boxes. The girl’s nose is amazing, she can search out a crumb among chaos. The scent of food teases her and she doesn’t stop until it is located and consumed – and she does it quietly. Finding the sweet fruit she helps herself to three ripe Chiquitas, leaving only three for the other five dogs. I notice right away because well, she peeled them. The peelings are in various creative places in the back of Dora including under the bed covers, in an open dog crate, and who knows where else? Oh Anne, if you weren’t so hilarious I would be furious. But instead I can only laugh at that guilty mug because of course you know you are busted, but your belly is sated anyhow. And the payoff is definitely worth the risk because you continue to be a chowhound finding food in the most precarious places!

Sharing the front seat

Dora is running strong, the dogs are sleeping in the sun and only wake up for our 200 mile marker that allows them to run like the wind in the rest areas and then right back to sleep for the next leg of a many-legged trip. 7 PM is the magic hour that Dora stops for the night. Today we find ourselves near Des Moines, Iowa for a marathon ride of 744 miles and counting. We park at a truck stop, the dogs are fed and we are settled in for the night looking forward to more of the same tomorrow. The air is cold and the wind blows all the time because the country is flat. I have my book, a glass of red wine in the toasty warm, small bed minus the banana peels, and six dogs surrounding me. Life is good in a van called Dora. Around 2 PM we wake up shivering as the temperature continues to drop into the 20's. We start up Dora and warm our space. The goal is Seattle by Friday so I can drink wine with my friends and the dogs can sleep in a real bed and have long hikes in Marymoor Park for a few days. Seattle is the halfway point and after resting up we will continue on our Adventure North. Stay tuned. . .