Iowa & Illinois

Finally! I have always wanted to catch a lightning bolt in a photo! We left Paul & Shelley's house around 9pm. We weren't far from the Iowa border. Matt & I kept seeing the sky light up from lightning. It was so cloudy that we knew we were probably going to hit a storm. I drove the first 200 miles, then Matt took over. The lightning was so frequent, you honestly couldn't count all the flashes per second. Every once in awhile, you would catch a bolt come down, but for the most part, it was just the sky lighting up. Matt took over driving some time after midnight. I fell asleep, but then woke up when Matt said that he had to pull off due to such heavy rain. We litterally hid under an underpass for nearly two hours, waiting for the storm to lighten up. The thunder was incredible! Gus managed to stay pretty dry. Mya slept through all of it. I was so determined to catch a picture... even without the proper conditions, that while Matt & Mya slept, I was trying to keep my camera as still as possible, hoping and praying that a bolt would shoot down where my lens was pointing. I think it took me almost an hour of trying. I only got two shots that were worth saving. I'm looking forward to the next time I can try that. It was 3am before the storm lightened, so we headed on our journey again. I drove again at 4:30, but the rain got heavy again, so we had to look for some more cover. We would have stayed in a hotel if it weren't for Gus. Thankfully, we were blessed with finding a shut down hotel that we were able to park under the front entrance. Had it not been for that, who knows what we would have done. It was pouring! We all rested there... in the truck (not comfortable with three of us), until 9am. The weather had cleared a lot. We were less than three hours away from Chicago. As I type this, we are in a hotel about half an hour west of Chicago, and Mya & Matt are sleeping. In a bit, we will be heading to the city to have what Matt has been dreaming of: an authentic "Chicago Style Pizza". We were recommended a specific pizza place right on the lake. I think it will be beautiful. If we have enough wind, we would like to help Mya fly her kite. I will try and post again tonight when we get back from Chicago. We pretty much are having to rely on the internet from the hotels we stay at to place a note. That's why it's not as frequent as we had planned. We don't stop much. We are thinking that we will be in Buffalo tomorrow, but we'll see.