Day 6 (Friday, June 9)

It was 7 a.m. and I was rudely awaken by the sound of a car alarm. The alarm on the car parked next to my truck at the rest stop on Mile 30 on Interstate-57 was going crazy. My four-hour nap came to a halt and I couldn't go back to sleep. So there I sat in my truck hoping to get back to sleep. W/o any success I decided to update the journal with what I had done so far. After all, it was only 7 a.m., but I already had a pretty eventful day.

After finishing up last night's journal entry at a gas station in Portageville, Missouri, I decided to go find a Welcome to Missouri sign because there wasn't a good one last night when I crossed from Tennessee. Luckily, I was able to find one in New Madrid. Woohoo. The place had low light and I was having trouble getting a nice photo. So I decided to get help from my truck and flashed the high beams into the sign. This gave me a chance to form a nice shadow on the background, which turned out looking pretty cool. This is one of my favorite state line photos.

I continued my journey toward Illinois and soon after crossing into the state I came across Highway 3. Being that 3 is my favorite number, I had to get a photo of that.

I also didn't get a decent shot at the Missouri-Illinois border. Something about states that get separated by a river that make it hard to actually shoot a photo on the state line. Most of the signs are actually on the bridges that cross into the state, but there's absolutely no stopping on those areas. I love my collection of state line photos, but I am not about to get ran over by a car trying beef up my collection.

I did some exploring and decided that Kentucky wasn't too far away. So, I took a slight detour (40 miles) and found the Ohio River. I crossed the river on a bridge and came across the Kentucky State line. So, I was pretty happy about that. In the course of 24 hours I saw five new states and now I have set foot on 22 states. Not bad considering that two years ago I had only stepped into three states.

The cool thing about finding Kentucky was that I was able to find a good Illinois State line sign. I hadn't been too silly this trip, but I think in the Illinois photo I am beginning to break out. Hmmmmm.

Lastly, as I drove back onto the Interstate-57, which will take me all the way to Chicago I saw the above sign. No wonder I like Illinois... They are always thinking ahead. Ha!

After doing the exploring I was able to find a place to crash for the night at a rest stop just 30 miles into Illinois. I had a four-hour nap and I was ready to go in the morning. However, I only had about 340 miles to go and I had about 11 hours to do it in. So, I had a lot of time to make the drive. This allowed me to be ahead of schedule since I planned to be in Chicago by 5 p.m. today.

With all the extra time I decided to hit the road so that I can relax midway through. Two hours later I stopped at a restaurant some 200 miles outside of Chicago to have some breakfast. This was an odd feeling to me because I usually cruise through towns and do the drive-through window in order to keep moving. I took a long break and then headed north.

It was only 3 p.m. and I was already in the Chicago vicinity. So, I took a short rest at a McDonald's on exit 335. There I was able to check my email and figure out what the game plan was in order to get to my final destination.

Less than an hour later I was spotting the stadium for the White Sox, meaning I was just a few miles away from my new home.

I couldn't believe how nice the city looked. I specifically liked all the trains and buildings. It reminded me a lot of New York.

After getting situated I met my summer roommate. Diego seems to be a pretty cool guy and after getting to know each other it seemed as we are going to have a good living situation.

The rest of the day I just relaxed and un-packed. I wasn't able to shoot any photos of my room, but I must say I got real lucky. I am just minutes from the city. I will be renting the whole upstairs section to the house. The room is so big. So much that I kid about break dancing in it when I met Diego's brother, who showed up for a visit.

It looks like I will be having a good living situation. I think I am going to like this place a lot!

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