CA to MA- Day 9. St Louis MO to Columbus OH

Today was also started with a dog walk in another St Louis County park much to Dottie's delight.

We drove out past the airport and across the mighty Mississippi.  We have crossed it before but never so far north.

This time the 'Welcome to Illinois' sign was prominent but also included an 'Alcohol driving limit of 0.08' sign too! Maybe it was put up prior to St Patricks Day :) There were also lots of anti-drink driving signs with St Patrick's themes today on the message boards. 

Just FYI, Gas prices have been pretty consistent since we drove into Arizona- largely ranging between $2.25 and $2.49 a gallon.

We crossed into Indiana and are finally on eastern time- 2585 miles driven to that point.
It might be quicker on the interstate  oads but it isn't much fun when the rest areas are closed!

This is now officially the longest road trip either of us have done- beating my Atlanta to Morgan Hill road trip back in February 2007 which was about 2500 miles if I recall (must read the old blog post!).

I also bought a paper road Atlas of the US for this trip, and have been marking it as we cross the US too- both on the local Maps and the full US one. 

One of the fun things we did whilst driving was to try and count how many US states we have visited since we moved to the USA. We both came in at 31 each which is pretty good for two Brits! We know we'll be able to add about another six once we get to the northeast too :-)

The one thing we will remember about this day is the terrible condition of the interstate - Dick said he was his least favorite driving of the whole trip so far. There was also a lot of traffic for a Sunday!  The weather has also started to change again - we've had three days in a row of clear sunny skies and we are moving back to the snow again in Ohio. It didn't stop us taking Dottie for another walk when we arrived.

Just three states today- Missouri, Indiana and Ohio.

Our mileage now stands at 2848. It is easier to drive 426 miles on the interstate!