Woo hoo! Six states to go…

Anyway, before we knew it, we had arrived at our first destination… the Creation Museum! I don’t think I can really articulate our experience there, so I’m just going to let the pictures speak for themselves (mostly) and you can draw your own conclusions. Okay?

First of all, there’s an outdoor garden/nature trail that leads to a petting zoo that includes a zebra-donkey hybrid. You can see here that he or she is obviously planning a grand (albeit very slow) escape…

We didn’t spend too much time outside since it was pretty cold and windy and cloudy and blah, and anyway, the main part of the museum is inside. There’s a large walk-through exhibit that depicts the early events in Genesis in 3D, often animatronic detail. Here’s our first protaganist, Adam:

Way to be strategically placed, sheep. Anyway, as with most situations, the Garden of Eden exhibit is all fun and innocent games until you add in a vegetarian raptor:

And then here are some dinosaurs boarding Noah’s Ark:

Unlike the Eden photos above, that particular ark photo is actually from a diorama-style smaller exhibit, and I reluctantly admit that those particular dinosaurs are not animatronic. In fact, I think they are action figures that are available for sale in the Creation Museum gift shop.

Aaaaaanyway, after we left the museum, we thought another Great Flood was coming because there was crazy heavy rain combined with some serious wind gusts. We made it through though and continued on our way through Louisville, Kentucky! We made a random (and very brief) stop to see this:

It’s the world’s oldest ornamental water tower; it hasn’t pumped any water in a century, but it’s now an art museum! We actually didn’t plan that stop — we just stumbled upon it, which is of course the most rewarding way to enjoy the road! But we didn’t just stumble upon this:

Yep. That’s exactly what you think it is. And if you ever visit the Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky, and wish to pay your respects to Colonel Sanders, enter the cemetery on the Grinstead side and simply follow the yellow line.

But… if this all seems morbid to you, don’t worry. Much like Elvis, the Colonel lives on:

We spied the Colonel alive and well, waiting for the bus in downtown Louisville. No, we did not accost him and demand the secret recipe for fried chicken eternal life.

We made it to our Super 8 in Okawville, Illinois, just barely in time to catch LOST. Tomorrow the plan involves conquering Oklahoma!

Now, this may come as a surprise to you (as it did to me), but Kentucky is actually kind of hard to reach from Washington, D.C. There just aren’t enough roads in the right places. We had to head north and west for a bit, and now we’re near Columbus, Ohio. The cool part about this, though, is that we got to visit FIVE states today! We headed NW from DC (1) into Maryland (2), then up slightly to Pennsylvania (3), then west through that tiny part of West Virginia (4), then continued into Ohio (5). That’s a pretty good total, even for us.

Our route through Maryland took us right through Sideling Hill. We actually passed through there before, but we didn’t have the time or inclination at that point to stop… but today was a whole different story. The visitor’s center was still open, so we decided to check it out. And guess what? IT WAS AWESOME!!!

In case you forgot:

The Sideling Hill road cut is a 340-foot deep road cut where Interstate 68 cuts through Sideling Hill, about 6 miles west of Hancock in Washington County, Maryland. It is notable as an impressive man-made mountain pass, visible from miles away and is considered one of the best rock exposures in Maryland and the entire northeastern United States. Almost 810 feet of strata in a tightly folded syncline are exposed in this road cut. Although other exposures may surpass Sideling Hill in either thickness of exposed strata or in quality of geologic structure, few can equal its combination of both.

Thanks again, Wikipedia!

If you go into the visitor’s center, you can walk across this little pedestrian bridge over the highway to look at Sideling Hill. The bridge has a tall chain link fence around it (I guess to prevent people from jumping off and landing on the highway below), but the fence has “camera ports” in it so you and your camera can both get a nice view of the mountain pass:

Then there’s a little walkway on the side so you can get a closer look:

You can see some white stripes running down the sides of the cut. We thought they were just part of the rocks at first, but they turned out to be ice! Today was one of those weird temperature days that’s very chilly in the shade but quite warm in the sun, so the shaded sides of Sideling Hill had frozen “seep.” Want a closer look? So did we!

Thanks, Sideling Hill!

We also saw some interesting/weird little rainbow patches in an otherwise very clear sky in Pennsylvania this afternoon:

So, that’s it for today. We’re tucked in for the night at the Days Inn in Grove City, Ohio (which is clean but, I have to admit, pretty busted. The last person who stayed here apparently had a fight with the bathroom wall!). Check back tomorrow for another update!

… where we were rewarded with a great view of Chicago, looking Atlantis-like in the distance across Lake Michigan:

A strange aspect of this national park is that the parkland isn’t contiguous — that’s not unheard of; for example, Acadia’s parkland isn’t contiguous either, but what’s weird about Indiana Dunes is that the non-parkland in between parcels of parkland houses giant factories and industrial centers.

This kind of disrupts communing with nature and the like, even when you happen to come to the park during sunset:

Still, though, both the dunes themselves and Lake Michigan are so beautiful:

Oh, Indiana. I had no idea.

So anyway, after that, we finally drove into Chicago!

We’re staying at a very nice hotel for a change because Brian’s conference is being held here. After months of cheap motels, I had completely forgotten how refreshing and rejuvenating it can be to stay in a place with, like, real furniture, a nice bathroom, a comfy bed, etc. Brian is going to be in class for most of the trip, and I’m planning on spending a lot of time sitting on the chaise lounge next to the big window in our room with a lovely view of the Chicago River and working on my laptop away from construction noise. Don’t worry, we’ll do some fun Chicago things, too — hopefully including attending Obama’s victory speech on Tuesday night. Please don’t forget to VOTE VOTE VOTE!!!

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That’s right; it’s the other Hagerstown. Thanks, Indiana!

Before we knew it, we were back in Ohio:

Look what happened while we were gone!

Then, Pennsylvania!

Then, West Virginia!

Then, Maryland!

Ahem. I lived in Maryland for 18 years, and I had to go to California to see a bear. I feel totally ripped off!

We drove through Sideling Hill:

What’s Sideling Hill, you ask? Wikipedia answers!

The Sideling Hill road cut is a 340-foot deep road cut where Interstate 68 cuts through Sideling Hill, about 6 miles west of Hancock in Washington County, Maryland. It is notable as an impressive man-made mountain pass, visible from miles away and is considered one of the best rock exposures in Maryland and the entire northeastern United States. Almost 810 feet of strata in a tightly folded syncline are exposed in this road cut. Although other exposures may surpass Sideling Hill in either thickness of exposed strata or in quality of geologic structure, few can equal its combination of both.

We enjoyed more foliage:

And then, this glorious moment:

Welcome home, us.

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And Pennsylvania thanked us when we left:

Then we were in Ohio!

Like PA, Ohio boasts lots of pretty farmland:

But I think what I will remember the most about Ohio is seeing the service plazas off the Ohio Turnpike shaped like Ralph Wiggum’s head (Brian’s words):

Right? Incredible likeness:

The other thing I noticed in Ohio was that many farms had a private pond, often with a little dock and/or diving board. They were all pretty awesome, but they only seemed to come up when I put the camera down. Sorry!

We also drove near Toledo! This is the first city we’ve actually really been able to see well from the highway since we left Virginia:

Anyway, then we got to Michigan!

We made a quick stop in Ann Arbor so we could go to Zingerman’s:

For the uninitiated: Zingerman’s is kind of the Zabar’s of the midwest (sans housewares). It’s an awesome deli with a ton of local products, gourmet food, things made with care, etc. It’s also a really interesting company with (apparently) good core values. So I’m a big fan, and so is Brian (in fact, going there today was his idea). Hooray!

We did run into some rain tonight, plus we had a silly little detour due to… construction, I guess (it wasn’t clear), so we had to backtrack a bit. We’re staying at the Knights Inn in Saginaw, Michigan, which is about 3 hours from Traverse City (though the detour may be an issue). We got in quite a bit earlier than we did last night, so we’re hoping for an earlier start tomorrow…