On the Road Again

We left Bossier on Saturday morning, headed up Benton Road towards Hope, Arkansas, birthplace of Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee (who's a Republican running for president). As a sidebar, I took the test to find out which presidential candidate is closest to me on the issues and it turned out to be Dennis Kucinich. Marsha, too. Mike Huckabee was the furthest away from me.
At Hope we turned east onto I-30 and went to Benton where we sampled the luncheon buffet at Brown's. They told us there were no ribs on the menu because they had become too expensive and they didn't want to raise their prices, so they simply edited them off the buffet. Since they were the main reason we stopped for the buffet, apart from the fact that they're called Brown's, that may be the last time we stop there.
Back on the road and heading towards Memphis and just before we get there, veer north onto I-55 towards St. Louis. We stop at every Flying J within reasonable range because they usually have the cheapest diesel and we get an additional one cent per gallon off when we proffer the FJ card. Plus you can sleep there overnight in your camping van.
It's getting dark and we pass through St. Louis quite late, which is good, because traffic is minimal. About 40 miles north of the city we find a Rest Area on I-55 and pull in for the night.
Sunday and we hit the highway through Illinois. Our first destination is Madison Wisconsin, which turns out to be one thousand miles (give or take) from home. We do a little hunting around and finally settle on the old familiar Motel 6, where we stay three nights. It's within walking distance of a Big Lots, an Aldi, and a Dollar Tree. There's an Indian restaurant - the Maharaji - across the street where we do the Tuesday lunch buffet for $7.99.
Ralph Russo is the show co-ordinator, nice guy, liberal, easy to talk to. Heather runs the technical side of the show — "La Belle France" — and first night the voice is a bit fuzzy and I felt like I was pushing my voice, but it went okay. The second night we clear up the voice and it sounds much better and we get one "that was the best show ever!" from a little old lady.
Wednesday morning we check out at noon and head down through Platteville, Dubuque and Davenport and end up at Burlington, Iowa, at a real nice local motel called the Arrowhead. Tomorrow's show is "It's Great! Britain."