"Central America" - Mid-West and Great Lakes States
	Day 12:  Wednesday, October 16, 2002

Today marked a shift in directive and policy that I was neither privy to, nor keen on as it was happening without discussion.  This whole "free-thinking" version of the chauffeur isn't working out well for me... doesn't he realize his role is to drive (most of the time), but let me do the thinking?  Good grief, Charlie dork.

I knew it was going to be an odd day when, not 40 minutes into our travels, Tubby takes out the camera and begins photographing the car's dashboard.  Apparently, having a thing for numbers, he thought the mileage of 71017.0 was cool... that's right, in 40 minutes, we only got 37 miles... but worry not, we gained speed as the day progresses.  Of course, he shot the picture too soon, and the pictures taken afterwards were too blurry.  Of course.

An old-style McDonald's sign.  Where... I don't have my map in front of me.  Missouri, about 10 minutes north of Jefferson City (the state capital, don't'cha know).  Speaking of state capitals of Missouri, how about it?  The front, and the back.  And then we were back on our way toward the western edge of Missouri which borders on the place where nothing shall be spoken.  Why, just passing along the edge of that unspeakable state -- it was visible out the driver's side window -- I had to turn my head for fear of seeing its unruly soil.

About 11am, we passed into St. Joseph, the town that has the home of Jesse James.  Neat.  But being cheap as we are, admission stood at $2, and that was just an outrage.  Unless we could hold up a stagecoach for the $4 for us to both get in, but the next coach was hours away.

At 12:31pm, we crossed from Missouri into Iowa, however briefly.  It lasted all of perhaps 15 minutes until we crossed then into Nebraska.  Could we have done it another way?  Well, yes, but not on the interstate, and not without getting the soil of that place on my feet.  Cant' have that.

I finally managed to get a photo of the state capital building for Nebraska, but given it was raining, we were illegally parked in the #1 lane of traffic (that'd be the "fast" lane to the rest of you) on a one-way street, and cars were approaching, the focus wasn't on quality, but living to tell about it.  So, obviously, I'm living to tell you the photo's quality was about as great as Soviet workmanship.

We did a bunch of driving without event.  Sorry, but there's not that much to see between mile 358 outside of Lincoln, and the state line (mile 0).  But I tried, and as you'll agree, this is very trying...

While the fall colors are evident, those darn rain clouds that threatened rain on this side of the state never followed through on it.  Which is fine, as we had non-stop rain from 11:30am until 2pm starting in St. Joseph and continuing through when we left Lincoln, Nebraska (nearly 200 miles worth of rain).

We returned to Cozad (previously visited the night of Sunday, 6 October).  Which, like most towns, has converted their train depot into a visitor's center.  Cozad is the home of the 100th Meridian; if you haven't noticed it yet, it also seems to be their primary claim-to-fame.  If you're trying to figure out what the big flippin' deal is, read for yourself (yes, read)... they posted a marker to describe it (the top two-thirds and then the rest of it).  Unrelated to the meridian - what does an elephant have to do with authentic Mexican food?

Then, about 80 miles (or 50-some-odd minutes), we switch to Mountain Time, and gain an hour back that we'd lost on Sunday, 6 October.

Around 5pm, the boy began to wonder why the gauges in the dash have "normal" on them.  Making the argument that by being normal, a person is technically abnormal, in that there is no true, established standard for what makes a person "normal," what then, is the standard for determining when oil pressure is normal?  The gauge here is hardly set to a scientific measure, and even if it were, does this mean that we're inching toward a cautionary memo?  It's below "normal," but does that, by virtue of being abnormal, make it normal?  Yes, he scares me, too.

At 6pm Mountain (7pm Central), the sun was disappearing behind the distant horizon, which can be both blinding and revealing.  Blinding to the driver, and revealing if you're looking at how dirty the hood has become over the life of this trip.  (Yes, we actually had the car washed the night before we set off on Saturday, 5 October.)

We hit the Motel 6 in Cheyenne about a quarter before 7pm, and after checking in, foraged for food as near as we could (trying to make today a sleep-focused evening in preparation for the long haul tomorrow).  This, for better or worse, led us to McDonald's for the second time in one day.  Bold indeed, but it seems to be holding up well enough, and we were headed back to the motel in no time.  The trains roll through, horns a-blazing, about ever 11 minutes.  Oh, the magic of it all...

Rumor has it tonight will be colder, by far; when we got in for the night (around 8pm), it's down to 36°F and falling fast.  Alas, with a second (and final, with any luck) fast travel day, we'll be back at the compound before midnight tomorrow, marking the conclusion of the Central America tour in 13 days.  Will we return to see stuff Tubby didn't let me stop to see?  Yup.  Will it be before the spring?  Nope.