Okay, so I’m going to make this quick. We have been on the road for 5 days now and we are all getting to that point where waking up at 6 is really like waking up at 3 and its just not funny. Do you know what else is not funny? The fact that we actually drove over the North Carolina state line today, only to drive straight out of NC and into South Carolina – which is where we are spending the night tonight.

But not all is lost. We drove through the Great Smoky Mountains today, which were spectacular.

I did a lot of driving today, and unlike my husband, I don’t actually take photos while I’m driving, so here is what I managed to shoot… from the car window, at 75 mph.

On Missouri: Steve is convinced that they are running a state sponsored Scrabble game that is run from the roadside signs. See how well you can do.

On Illinois: I think it is quite possible that there wasn’t a single interesting thing that occurred in this state.

On Kentucky: While stopping at a roadside truck stop Brian overheard the following statement: “This right here is sonar. It will totally blow up radar.” Also from this truck stop: I purchased a cup of coffee that I swear was laced with amphetamines.

On Tennessee: The continental breakfast at our hotel is served in the Minnie Pearl room.

Greetings from Missouri. We rolled in to St. Joseph, Missouri after another 12-hour travel day, and all I can say is Nebraska? Are you kidding me? Maybe it was because we had just gotten done enduring two days of barren moonscape scenery, but driving from the Western to Eastern edge of Nebraska was what one refers to when talking about straws and the backs of camels. About the time I was ready to fall into a driving coma, we made a sharp right hand turn in Lincoln City. Then, in the most amazing miracle of nature, we started to see green. Lots and lots of green. Oh Northeastern Iowa, you lush little manx, where have you been all my life?

As you can see from the photos, I my attention span only lasted so long before I resorted to taking shots of the sky and my feet.

I think this picture about sums it up:

We looked at various iterations of this sign for 740 miles today. We moved into Mountain Time, and crossed the Continental Divide and spent 12 hours in the car. Oh, and we saw pronghorn antelope. Which, according to our two nerdy scientist travel companions, are actually specific to this region and this region only. Exciting to see, one might say. Who’da thunk it? I thought they were elk.