Road Trip March - Day 10

March 22nd 2026 (Sunday) 

Early start for me as my insomnia kicked in this morning and been awake since 3am, read my earlier blog about this and the fun and games it causes whilst living on the road.

Fred finally awake and breakfast consumed, during which we planned our journey for today, it was time to hit the road. Today, we've got approximately 7hrs driving ahead of us and some 300+ miles to cover which will hopefully take us to the outskirts of Chicago, Illinois.

Weather is on our side with mostly sunny skies and just the odd shower.  Managed to buy gas for a bargain price of $3.46 at a Loves gas station - massive difference from the $3.89 price we paid yesterday!  This fuel costs are still up and down with the ongoing war in Iran.

Lunch stop was at Middle Ridge Service Plaza RV Lot in Amhersy OH, an unexpectedly perfect place as it turned out. This rest stop gave us the opportunity to have a shower in the van, our first one for a few days due to water issues. One of the downsides of living on the road and not staying at designated RV parks where services/facilities are provided at a charge you have to be more economic with your water supply.

When 'Boondocking' (where you stay at places that you are self sufficient for), you have to plan electric, waste & water consumption, because once your fresh drinking water tank is empty you are in trouble until you can locate somewhere that you can fill your tank up. Same goes with if your grey & black waste water tanks fill up. Grey water is where your shower and sink waste goes, black is waste from the toilert, so you quickly learn to be more economic on usage as emptying these tanks requires specific places! So, having a shower can quickly empty one tank and fill the other tank, in comparison to a sink wash for example. It's something you get used to after a while, and it's amazing how you can adapt. At home, Fred loves luxuriating in the shower but it's something he certainly can't do in Wanda2!

So at this rest stop we were able to hook up to fresh water, heat the water in the RV and have a shower - bliss!! The stop also had facilities to enable us to empty our grey & black water tanks all for free! These kinds of places are a godsend when living on the open road and budgets are tight. This particular stop also offered overnight stays for just a $20 fee with all the facilities, but we didn''t need that option on this occasion but worth remembering for when we are this way again.

Refreshed, clean and fed it was time to hit the road again, we still had 200+ miles to go to our planned rest stop for the night on the edge of Chicago. Destination reached we decided to carry on and get past Chicago so we don't get caught up in any Monday morning traffic, so it was onward a little further to another Loves rest stop located in Morris, IL. We do love a Love's travel stop, (no pun intended!) if only for the ease of access and facilities available 24/7, should we need them whilst travelling. 

Today we started in Pennslyvania, and have driven through Ohio, Indiana & into Illinois. Phew, what a day! But it has to be said the roads, especially the Interstates, do make it very easy to cover a lot of ground, should you need to.

An interesting piece of history; The 'Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways' as it's offically known, is a 48,000-mile network of freeways initiated on June 29th, 1956 to boost national defense, safety, and commerce. It connects major U.S. cities with limited-access, multi-lane routes, creating a "gigantic assembly line" for transportation that carries over a quarter of all U.S. vehicle traffic.

Road Trip Day 10 - We have driven over 520 Miles today!