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| Loving Our Stay in Effingham |
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| Our Posh, Ex Hampton Inn, Current Delta Inn, Soon To Be Best Western |
Well, I am sitting in the empty dining room of our five star hotel, called the Delta Inn. As I said above, nothing is too good for my wife.
It'a 6:30, the sun's out, and I can hear the 12 wheelers drive by on Interstate 70. The sun makes everything look clean and new, the hotel signs, the gas stations, the parked trucks. Everything is right in Effingham, Illinois this morning. By early afternoon, we should be in Lee's Summit, just outside of Kansas, to celebrate my grandson Nick's graduation.
We left as scheduled yesterday, at 7:00 and it was a perfect morning on the lake, of course. We had a fairly easy but long drive through four states. The first two and a half hours, seemed like old times, as we had driven it hundreds of times during the years when we lived in Hudson, Ohio, and drove out to the lake most weekends. Thank goodness those days are over. We hit a brief thunderstorm in Akron, but it cleared up quickly. By the time we got to Columbus and headed West on Interstate 70, the geography had changed, so that almost everything was in bloom, the trees green with leaves, so different from Chautauqua which still waits for the greening of late spring. We have driven this route many times over the past twenty years, so it's predictable. We get through the two big cities, Columbus and Indianapolis at off times, so traffic is not so bad. And we were lucky this time with no road work that held us up. It was not true on the traffic going East; they must have been backed up, slow going for 10 to 15 miles. Interstate 70, the major route East and West, is overrun with trucks, as there must be more trucks on the road than cars. So we took our time, getting to Effingham around 3:30. a nine and a half hour drive, just what the GPS said.
We were the first and one of the only travelers to check in to our Delta Inn. It's going through renovation, becoming a Best Western. We settled in, ready to relax but the cable was out, supposedly the result of thunderstorms the previous night. Evie put some pressure on the clerk, who finally called the cable company. They reset the system a couple of times and finally, we were able to watch some TV.
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| Evie and Rick, The Truck Driver from Toledo |
At 6:00, we walked over to our favorite restaurant in Effingham, the Lone Star Steakhouse, and sat down at the practically empty bar. It felt like we had come home because we have eaten there numerous times. They have a 'new menu' which we perused carefully, finally deciding on two appetizers, Texas Red Neck egg rolls (stuffed with pulled pork) and Buffalo wings, to go with a barbecued chicken salad. They were quite good, especially the Texas egg rolls and even the Buffalo wings measured up to the Casinso's in Bemus Point. We struck up a conversation with Rick, a couple of chairs away and we had a nice conversation with him. He's a truck driver from the Toledo area, has three kids, four grandchildren and has been on the road for years, visiting all 48 states. He swears he recognized us from another time when we visited (he thought we were regulars), and he stops in Effingham at least once a month so on one of road trips, we may have talked with him briefly. In Toledo, he also has a flower shop/bar combo, which I assume his wife runs. We stayed until 8:00. It was a quiet night at the Lone Star but we enjoyed ourselves and walked out to a lovely night, as the sun set among the truck stops and their signs.
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| The Trucks Of Effingham At Night |
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| Au Revoir Lone Star |
Evie was exhausted from getting up early, so she was asleep by 9:00 and I followed soon after. Road trips are exhausting!
Well, I better finish up my healthy breakfast, biscuits and sausage gravy, so we can get started packing up and on our way to KC.
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