Des Moines to Cincy and finally Home

 A nice morning in Des Moines, another granola bar and water breakfast, quickly striking camp and I was on the road early. Good thing as I had a long drive ahead of me. I had the rest of Iowse, Illinois, Indiana and finally Ohio to go this day. Iowa went by quickly although I think it might have been there that I saw one of the two radar traps of the entire trip. In Indiana I stopped for gas and fuel (Subway of course) where I saw the local FD respond to a medical emergency while I was fueling up. They sounded close by and yep, the went to the Subway for a fainting person. They must have obtained a refusal because they cleared shortly after I got my Ham and Turkey. I passed around Indianapolis and ran in to a bit of rain before finally making it in to Cincy. I wasn't done with wildlife when a neighbor surprised me while I was rummaging around in my truck to point out the deer and her fawn munching on the shrubs not far away. 

Frank and I caught up and reminisced about the wedding before heading out to Newport on the Levee (Kentucky on the other side of the Ohio River) to a really good restaurant, Mitchell's Fish Market. Shockingly I know, I had the wedge salad and cedar plank salmon. It was all very, very good and the dessert, triple chocolate mousse cake, came with a side of the fireworks that the city of Cincinnati set off right in front of the restaurant. We didn't plan it that way, but it worked out well.

 

Brought back memories of my deployment to Mississippi for Hurricane Katrina.

Crawfordsville FD on a medical local.

It was awfully thoughtful of Cincy to set off the fireworks right in front of our table!

I had another wonderful night's rest in the cave. So good in fact that I overslept by several hours! I finally got my stuff together and routed my way up to Columbus and east from there to south of Pittsburg, down to Morgantown and east through Western Maryland before crossing at Point of Rocks and then home.

A cool old school building in Cincy.

Couldn't figure out that the Autofocus switch was off. Oops.

Kind of the same, but not really.

The last of many, many fill ups.

Home at last.

Someone was happy to see me.

Of course, I make it halfway across the country and back and where do I run in to the first traffic jam (not wildlife caused)? In Sterling. I could see it happening a ways in front of me and the truck was trying its level best to overheat. After some cooling techniques (high idling and shutting off the engine at stops) I routed around the jam and finally got back home. I am really glad that I was able to safely complete my trip, but I was really glad to finally be home again. I'm mostly done with the pictures, but I'm not done posting. I'm thinking of a few posts on lessons learned and any stories that I've forgotten, so stay tuned.