Day # 1

We hit the road this morning about 8am. Our destination for today was Le Claire, Iowa. Little over 5 hours away. We took 30 up to Merriville, Indiana. My favorite candy store is up there and I've been lucky enough to take Jeremiah there but not my mom. So Jeremiah and I couldn't wait. It's called Albanese. If you like gummy anything you will LOVE Albanese. Of course they have chocolate too. The neatest part is the back part of the store you can look into the factory and watch stuff being made and packed up into boxes. It's really an amazing thing to witness.

After loading up on goodies we hit the road again. This time going over to 65 and up to 80. Our trip through Chicago went uneventful. There was a lot of traffic but Mom did fantastic and made it right through. We made it to our hotel just fine. We are right on the Mississippi river. It's a Holiday Inn and it's very nice. We even was lucky enough already to see two boats including an old river boat...

It's crazy hot outside. There is a heat advisory even for the area until tomorrow night. One reason we wanted to come to this little town was to visit a store here. If you watch American Pickers you would know what store. Their main store is here and Mom LOVES their show. We drove by today but it was really busy. So we grabbed a quick lunch and headed to our room to relax for the night. We are just going to get pizza delivered for tonite. Then tomorrow morning we will head out and do the American Pickers store and several other antique stores in town. We are staying here again tomorrow. Love this laid back no rush traveling. We have to be at Monterey California on Sept 6th to get Betty off a plane. Other than that it's a do what we want trip. There is our first day. Thanks for traveling along with us.