Running to Stand Still: Indiana to Utah

We arrived in Indiana around 8pm on Sunday. Megan was waiting to greet us and let us crash on her floor. I haven't seen Megan since Oakland four years ago! We had so much to catch up on but it was as if we had just seen eachother yesterday. We took her out to dinner to thank her for letting us stay at her place. After dinner we walked around town and through the Purdue campus which is gorgeous. We then went back to her place and talked and talked until we were all too tired to stay up. Megan leaves for work at 5:45am so we said a quick goodbye and then let ourselves out after showering. Thanks Megs for letting us stay!

Woo Wee America!

At around 7am we left Indiana and drove through Illinois, Iowa, and most of Nebraska. We ended up driving a total of 13 hours that day! In Iowa, I (Patti) was driving and I saw a very interesting cloud in the distance. It slowly began forming into a large spiral/circle looking shape. I drove towards it for what seemed like forever and then I began seeing lightning in this cloud. It was then that I turned on the radio to hear "severe tornado warning"- Jay woke up real fast. We both braced ourselves as we got pounded by wind and rain and I kept watching this cloud hoping I wouldn't see a funnel come out. We kept listening to the weather and the tornado warning became a thunderstorm warning and then after what seemed like forever, it was over.

The Ominous cloud from afar

We stopped for dinner on the road and at dinner decided we weren't going to make it into WY like we had wanted to. We were both done for the day. We realized that we had stopped at the right exit for a compground called "Bufallo Bills Ranch." We found it in the dark, set up our tent and slept soundly. In the morning we woke to the sounds of frogs, tons of birds and cows? I definately hear cows. Turns out, our campsite was on a creek and there was cattle all around. Not what you expect to see when you wake up but it was different for sure.
We left the campsite and headed towards Utah. Jay got to see a part of Wyoming that he had never seen before and we both decided that continuing on 80 past Rawlins isn't very fun. It was very flat and pretty boring. We made a detour to see the Flaming Gorge which was really fun. We then arrived in Utah to a beatiful campsite on a resevoir. We arrived early and enjoyed relaxing by the water. We went for a walk and then went to bed early. Right now I am sitting in the City Library in Salt Lake City. We are on our way to Nevada for the night before finding our way to CA. We will try to write soon!