November 23
Peggy let me sleep in a little bit late, and she was all ready to go when she finally woke me up. She said that we could eat at the dining hall if we wanted to, or else we could just get some food on the road.
I asked her if she thought that anybody would be there, and she said that she didn't think that there would be. So I decided that it would be best to just leave, because it would be really depressing to be eating breakfast in an empty dining hall. So I went to the bathroom and then when I came back Peggy helped me fold up my sheets and put them in another box, and we put all my things on the bed so that Mister Salvatore could find them. I thought about folding up the papasan chair and putting it there, too, but then I thought that if they didn't notice it, maybe Peggy could use it, so I left it where it was.
And it didn't take all that long to put everything in its place, and my side of the room looked really empty all of a sudden.
Mister Salvatore had told me to leave my room key on my desk, so I did, and I wasn't sure how he would get in with my key on the desk, but he was clever and would find a way.
I put on my saddlebags, even though I'd be taking them back off again when I got to Cobalt, and on my way out of the room I took one last look at it, and I had a sudden urge to write my name on something so that people would know that I'd been there.
Peggy said I wasn't supposed to, but she opened her backpack and got out a Sharpie pen, and said that if I wanted to get away with it I had to put it somewhere that was not too obvious, but not too hidden either. So I looked around the room and I couldn’t think of anywhere to put it, until Peggy suggested that I pull my desk drawer all the way out, and write on the bottom of that.
She had to help me, because it had little latches that stopped it, and when we turned it over, some other students already had. There was a signature for Gillian Curtis ‘00 and also George Shipley ‘09, so I added Silver Glow ‘16. Then Peggy told me that I should have put the year in that I was actually graduating, but it was too late.
I felt a lot better after I’d done that, even though it was something that I really shouldn't have done. Sometimes it's nice to leave your mark on something that's going to stay around, and I was kind of thinking about who Gillian Curtis and George Shipley were.
The parking lot was really crowded, ‘cause people were all packing up and leaving and their parents had come to take them home.
I still had to go to the library to return my poetry book and the Kama Sutra, and I took them out of my bag so I wouldn’t forget. And I had to say goodbye to Meghan, too, so Peggy said that she’d take the books back to the library for me and then I could just meet her in front of it.
So I went back into the dorm so that I could say goodbye to Meghan before we left. At least I'd get to see her again, after I got back from Colorado, but it was still nice to let her know that I was leaving.
She was in the middle of packing, 'cause I guess she'd put it off a little bit longer than she should have. But she was mostly done, and she said that Aric was going to come over to help her finish up, and I asked if he'd left yet, and she said that she didn't think he had. So I hugged her and kissed her and promised that I'd come over as soon as I got back, and told her to have a happy Thanksgiving.
I went out the upstairs back door and flew off the balcony, and up and over Trowbridge and the front of the quad, and then I dropped down on the sidewalk in front of the library. Peggy was sitting a little ways back from the stop sign, and she had made the lights on Cobalt blink so that people would know to go around her. She had to do that because she wasn’t in a proper parking spot.
On our way out of Kalamazoo, we stopped by Aric's house, too, and I went upstairs and woke him up, and then I told him that Meghan was waiting for him, and he looked at his portable telephone and said that he'd forgotten to set his alarm. Then he told me to have fun on my trip, and I said that I would. And we kissed, and then I flew out his window and got a mouthful of sunflower seeds before he could stop me.
I felt kind of guilty that Peggy couldn't eat them, or else I’d have gotten her some, but when I got back to Cobalt, she was snacking on a granola bar, and then I didn't feel so bad.
She said that we ought to put some miles behind us before we stopped for a real breakfast, and so we drove along Main Street until we got to the 131 Highway, and then we took that to the 94 Highway, because it was just like we were going to Chicago at first, except that we weren't going to stop there.
We drove for almost an hour and then stopped for breakfast in a town called New Buffalo, and I asked Peggy if she knew where old Buffalo was. She said that there was one in New York, but she didn't know if that was the one it was named after or if there was another Buffalo somewhere, but she thought that that was probably the one, because it was a big city, and it was also near the end of one of the Great Lakes, and it snowed a lot there because of that.
There was a pancake restaurant there called Flip's, and they had waffles, so I got one with pecans. Peggy had pancakes, and she shared one of them with me in exchange for a quarter of my waffle, which I thought was fair. And it was kind of close to the railroad tracks, and I heard an Amtrak go by while we were eating. It sounded like it was heading to Kalamazoo.
She also got gas for Cobalt at a Speedway, and some drinks and snacks for us, in case we wanted something to snack on while we were driving.
Peggy told me that in the wintertime, she liked to make sure that she never went below a half-tank of gas, because you never knew when you might get caught in a snowstorm or be stuck in traffic because people had crashed their cars. She said that once we got into the plains, there could be a blizzard and so far the weather looked like it would cooperate, but that it could change pretty quickly, and it was good to be prepared.
When we got to the sign that welcomed us to Indiana, she said that one of the highlights of the trip was going to be those signs, and unfortunately after the one for Iowa, we were going to not see another one for a real long time.
I was familiar enough with the route to Chicago that it felt like we'd missed our turn when she went straight instead of heading into Chicago, and I looked out my window at the skyscratchers that I could sort of see off in the distance, and I wondered what Cayenne was doing right now. And then the view of Chicago was gone, and after a little bit we got onto the 80 Highway, and Peggy told me that we'd be staying on it for about forever. I wanted to know if we were going all the way to the end, and she said we wouldn't be, but it would feel like it by tomorrow.
We got slowed down by traffic—there were cars and trucks as far as I could see, all pressing in around us and just slowly crawling along the road. I really didn't like when we were right next to big semi-trucks, 'cause you'd just look out the side and see their underbellies that were as high as the roof of Cobalt, and it felt like if they wanted to, they could just trample us under their tires. They didn't bother me as much when we were moving quickly, because we'd just zip right past them.
Peggy told me that this was the part of the trip that she hated the most, because there was never any time that you could go around Chicago quickly. She said that there was always lots of traffic.
And it took us more than an hour before we finally got free of it, and could pick up speed again. The road was still pretty crowded, but there was enough room to move around and get by the slower cars and trucks, and once we got past the 55 Highway, it got a little bit clearer.
There was a rest area just past Minooka, and we stopped there so that we could pee and stretch our legs out some, because it got uncomfortable to sit in the car for too long. Peggy said we'd have a longer break when we got lunch but it was important for her to stretch out because it kept her alert.
That was when we got back into farmland, too. There had been little patches of farms before, but mostly since we'd gotten to Indiana it had been all the towns that clustered around Chicago, one right after the other, and I guess Minooka was the last of them.
We passed by an airport that was on our left, and that was really fun because there were big airplanes going over the highway as they took off and landed, and then we got to a long bridge that had an arched section in the middle, and that took us over the Mississippi River, which was the border between Illinois and Iowa, and we had to go through a big interchange and not too long after that there was a farm that had a round barn, and then a bunch of signs for gas, and Peggy said that this was where we were stopping for lunch and more fuel for Cobalt.
She said that this was the biggest truck stop in the world, and I could believe it. There were trucks everywhere, coming and going, and giant parking lots full of them. I think that a pony could learn a lot about trucks just by watching them here, because there were so many different kinds of them. And a lot of them were really colorful and had silver plating all over them, and lots and lots of lights, too, although the lights were kinda hard to see in the day.
They had lots of restaurants inside, even a Taco Bell, but Peggy said that I couldn't eat there. She said that we were going to have a proper, sit-down meal, so we went to the Iowa Kitchen instead. And I had catfish, which was pretty good, and Peggy had a meatloaf which the menu said was just like Mama made. I asked her if her Mom made meatloaf like that because mine had never tried. And she said that this was better than her Mom's, because she burned it every time and put too much catsup on it. But she told me not to tell her that, if it happened to come up in conversation.
After we'd eaten, we walked around a little bit. They had a big store that sold food and stuffed animals and movies and all sorts of things that you could put in or on your truck, and they also had a museum that had old trucks in it, and that was really neat, too. Some of them didn't look like much more than a farm wagon with a motor, and then as they got more modern, they were bigger and bigger.
We probably could have spent a couple of hours looking at all the displays, and I kind of wanted to, but I knew that Peggy wanted to get home, so after I'd seen all the trucks and some of the more interesting displays, I told her that I was ready to go if she was, so we went back outside and she said that she had to put gas in Cobalt, and if I stayed close I could fly just a little bit and stretch out my wings but I had to watch and be careful of all the cars and trucks.
So I just circled around the gas pavilion, high enough up that I wasn't in any danger of being hit by a passing truck, and watched the traffic rush by on the 80 Highway.
When she drove away from the pump, I looked for cars and then landed next to Cobalt, and she opened the door so I could get it, and we got back on the highway.
And after we were past it, Iowa got kind of boring, because it was mostly lots and lots of fields, and since it was the winter, there wasn't much to see. Plus it was kind of a gloomy day, but Peggy said it was a lot nicer than doing this drive when it was snowing. She said one year it had taken her three days to get to Colorado Springs, because the weather had been bad.
We had to wait to pass a truck that was carrying a big metal drum, and it had another little truck behind us to warn people who were coming up behind it, and then when we got in front of it, there was another truck with a big pole on its front. Peggy said that was so they would know if the pole hit something that the load wouldn't fit, which is why the pole-truck was so far in front. It had flashing lights to warn people, too.
We stopped at a rest area before we got to Iowa City, and had a short break, and then she drove on. There was a little bit more traffic there, but the city wasn't all that big, and before too long we were back out in farmland again, and we stayed in farmland until we got to Des Moines, which was the biggest city in all of Iowa, and the traffic got thick again, but it wasn't as slow as it had been in Chicago.
She stopped outside Des Moines so that she could get more gas for Cobalt and so we could get food. There was a gas station called Kum and Go, and she said that she didn't know if they'd named it that on purpose, or if they had never thought of the alternate meaning. But she said that she liked to stop at them when she was driving through Iowa, 'cause it made her laugh.
They had pre-made sandwiches in plastic bags, and I looked at them when we went inside, 'cause I thought that was what we were going to get to eat, but she said that gas station sandwiches gave you worms, and I didn't want worms.
There were a bunch of other restaurants, though, and so we went to one called Quiznos, which had toasted subs. And we ate them there, then walked around the parking lot a little bit to stretch out our legs before getting back in Cobalt.
She asked me how much further I wanted to go today—she said that she liked to get into Nebraska before stopping for the night, but she'd stop now if I wanted to. And I told her that we should get to Nebraska before stopping, so we got back in Cobalt and got back on the 80 Highway.
We'd only driven a little while before I started to see wind turbines poking up south of the highway, and there were lots and lots of them. Peggy said that Iowa was one of the biggest wind producers in the United States, and at first I thought she meant that they made the wind, and I didn't think humans could do that, and then she said that she meant that they made electricity from the wind. Which was what I had thought wind turbines were for.
It was getting towards dusk, and all of them had a blinking red light so airplanes and pegasuses would know not to fly into them and get chopped up by the blades. Lots of towers did, but what made these strange was that all the red lights blinked at exactly the same time.
There was also a rest area on the other side which had an extra blade from one of the turbines, and it was really big. I hadn't ever gotten close enough to one to realize how big they were, but the blade towered over the building.
Peggy said that when they were building it, she saw trucks carrying those blades and pieces of the tower on the highway all the time, but now that it was finished she didn't see them as much any more.
We crossed over another bridge to get into Nebraska, because the Missouri River was between it and Iowa. And we were in a pretty big city that was called Omaha, which was the biggest city in Nebraska.
The road got a bit crowded again, but Peggy said that it wasn't as bad as it could be, because we'd missed the evening rush hour. And I thought that we were going to stop there, but she wanted to go a little bit farther, because she said that in the morning there would be lots of people rushing to get to work and we didn't want to be there for that, so she kept on driving until she got to Lincoln, which is the capital of Nebraska.
We got off the highway there, and drove down a city road, and we passed a restaurant called Sonic, where you ate in your car, and I thought that looked kind of funny because all the cars were nosed up under an awning like they were feeding from a trough.
Peggy stopped at a hotel called the Red Roof Inn, although it looked like it had a flat roof, so I couldn't see if it was actually red or not. Humans like to name things for what they aren't, so you can't always be sure that something is what it says it is.
We got a room on the second floor, and it wasn't as nice as some of the hotels I'd been at, but I liked it because it had windows that actually opened so I could go in and out that way if I wanted to. Although it would have been kind of crowded to get in, and there was also a screen on it.
I wanted to fly, but Peggy said that I probably shouldn't in town, and she promised me that tomorrow we'd stop at a nice, open rest area and I could fly around there. And she said that she should have thought of that today, but I knew she'd been focused on getting as far as we could in one day, so I hadn't asked her.
Peggy said that she was going to take a long shower to relax, and so she got her bag and went into the bathroom, and I didn't have anything to do so I got on the bed next to the window and stretched out and it felt good to be on my belly instead of my rump. And the bed was plenty big enough, so I rolled over on my back and stretched out and then I got into my saddlebags and got my brush so I could get the tangles out of my tail.
There was a big flat television on the wall, and a controller for it by the beds, so I turned it on and looked through the channels and I found one that called itself the weather channel, but instead of showing the weather they had a movie about women and men who were looking for gems, and I guess that humans had a really hard time finding them, and when they did they didn't look like proper gems at all.
There were a lot of commercials, too, and I was kind of proud of myself that I knew what most of the things were that they wanted me to buy.
When Peggy came back out of the bathroom, she looked a lot more relaxed. She had her sleeping clothes on already, and she said that she felt a lot better now, then she asked if this was the best thing I'd found to watch, and I said that I hadn't really looked. So I gave her the control and she found a movie about fishermen in Alaska, and that was pretty exciting, and made me think of home.
We watched that until it ended and a movie about Moonshiners came on. Neither of us were very interested in it, and it was pretty late anyway, so we decided that we'd just go to bed, and we could get up early tomorrow and drive the rest of the way to Colorado.