She Cag Oh!

After the Timber Rattler victory, we hit the road for Chicago. Three short hours later, we were met with luxury. Here's the thing: Mike went on Priceline.com and bought a 4-star hotel for $90...well, not the whole hotel, just one room for one night. It was awesome. We woke up early and explored the little village of Chicago. It was really humid and windy and so we had sweaty faces and sweaty legs.

We left Chicago at noon to make the trek to Memphis, the great destination of this road trip.

This is when the insanity began.

While driving to Memphis we noticed some forboding clouds on the horizon. It looked far enough off, but we were driving right into it. Wee were in the middle of flat, Illinois plains. As we got closer, the air was eerily still and we could begin to notice an apparent wall of streaky clouds ahead. We hit that wall. Immediately, we had zero visibility. 60 mph wind blew the rain directly at us. Debris was all over the road and cars were hitting their brakes. Mike tried to pull off the road, but we couldn't even see the lines on the road. This was the scariest thing we have ever been through. Miraculously we found other cars and fell in line with them, creeping along in these hurricane-like winds. At each overpass, cars and semi-trucks were huddled underneath. We kept moving. We pulled off and went to a gas station for some cover. Then we realized the absurdity of hanging out on top of gallons and gallons of gasoline in a lightning storm. We moved to a nearby freeway overpass. We turned on the radio and heard the National Weather Service issue a tornado warning for the area we were sitting in. They also said to not seek shelter under overpasses. Silly Californians. The rain was letting up slightly (which was still a downpour, but we could see) so we got onto the freeway to try and make it to the next town. We made it to Effingham. We hung out at a Hilton hotel with a bunch of Harley Davidson bikers. Lucky for us, the Harley convention of Illinois was about to begin. The tornado warning didn't lift until 6 p.m. and we had been there for a couple hours. The skies looked clear in the direction we were heading, so back on the road we went. Only to be met by CRAZY lightning. It is unnerving to see lightning hitting the ground within a mile of where you are driving. This combined with more rain caused us to head back to Effingham. At this point we were exhausted, so we settled in with the Harley-loving community of Illinois and bought a room at the local Holiday Inn.

We will press on in the morning to Memphis. We shall overcome.

That short kid in the background is looking at us funny.

Fools. If you only knew the storm that awaits you.