Day 1: Columbus, OH to Topeka, KS

No one should wake up at 3:30 a.m. My subconscious was improperly ejected from the dream world and nothing made sense. My mom, uncle and I boarded The Adventure Van around 5:00 a.m. en route to pick up Diane in Grove City. After Diane got on board, my uncle asked that we all say a silent prayer for a safe journey. Less than 5 minutes later, we nearly drove into a ditch.

I drifted in and out of sleep for the next few hours, picking up snippets of conversation like:
"The View has gone down the tubes."
"Johnny Bench has lost some weight."
"I once tried to steal a fire truck naked and sit on it like a hood ornament."

The Adventure Van's GPS is named "Mandy" (though "Mary Margaret" is also being thrown around) and she has a voice that is at once cheerful, reassuring and sexy. I want "Mandy" to read me books, sing me to sleep and deliver bad news knowing that it's somehow all going to be OK. "Mandy" brightly purred her instructions to I-70 where we followed for 730 miles.

Ohio is the only state I know that has a sign thanking you for visiting before crossing into another state. Indiana welcomes you by boasting it's the "Crossroads of America." Not bad, but I prefer Ohio's slightly arrogant "The Heart Of It All." Illinois should change its lame "Land of Lincoln" to "We still have Stuckey's and Godfather's Pizza!"

After making our way through Indianapolis, we stopped for breakfast at Cracker Barrel, where a member of our crew made the stunning announcement: "I can't poop to religious music." You see, this particular Cracker Barrel plays inspirational hits from the likes of Ricky Skaggs and Ernest Tubb and blares them in the bathrooms. Sure enough, when I went in, I was treated to a 120db version of "I'll Fly Away."

Casey, Illinois must be run by a maniac. We came to see the World's Largest Windchime and stayed for the World's Largest Golf Tee and the beginnings of the World's Largest Rocking Chair. And it's all free. You can walk right up to the chimes and ring them--and they sound like they should announce the death of a king. I have so many questions about this town, but I don't want to know the answers.

My uncle is a master planner. He has every detail of our journey mapped out and organized. Since we were making such good time, we decided to make an unscheduled stop at the St. Louis Arch. Technically, it's the Jefferson Westward Expansion Hidey-Ho Something Or Other Arch, but c'mon.
It was much too crowded and our timed tickets would have delayed us by three or four hours, so I just stood under the arch and took the obligatory photo that everyone does, including the National Park Service.

The trek to Kansas City was fairly uneventful though I was sad to see there is a strip mall named after Mark Twain. He probably would have loved it. Kansas City was way prettier than I imagined, while Topeka felt like nothing more than a few restaurants and an auto parts store. We had a surprisingly good dinner at a place called The Blind Tiger. Craft beer and barbecue. Done.

Our first day of the Great American Road Trip concluded at a Baymont Inn & Suites. We're staying in a staggering number of hotels, so I'll try add a review from my uncle for each one.

"Good room, but the person working the front desk was an evil queen."

3 stars (out of 5).