Lessons Learned on day two!

1.  However much time you have allowed for a day's driving, double it.  I tried to make each day on the road about four hours, but with Janey, we find ourselves stopping constantly.  I really don't mind that, overall.  It's kind of interesting to see what's off all the exits, but if you are travelling with a companion like Janey, don't count on making good time.

2.  Route 80 through Pennsylvania is pretty but just a touch boring.  It's very rural, and there is not a lot to see from the highway, at least not much that interested Janey.  So she thought of reasons we needed to get off the highway---"I want potty", "want fries", "want to take a walk?"  It was all worth it to have a mostly happy traveller along.

3.  Don't count on listening to anything but the song that keeps your little traveller happy.  For Janey today, it was "Breaking Up is Hard to Do", sung by David Cassidy.  A song I like, but not so much 20 times in a row.

4.  Six am is a good time to use the hotel pool and hottub.  Nobody else is there, and you can have as much splashing and flapping and general loud happiness as you want. 

5.  You can only eat so much fast food.  After a while, you need to find a real grocery store, and they are a lot harder to find in towns you don't know than fast food is.  We finally found an Aldi's, which I'd never been to before.  The food was good and very cheap, but I almost caused a scene by not knowing I couldn't actually use the cart that was by the cashier to take things to the car---that was just a place to set down our groceries after she scanned them.

6.  I love how Janey gets excited about things, in contrast to a lot of the girls her age I saw at breakfast this morning who looked like they would rather die than crack a smile. 

7.  It's not completely easy taking a child with autism on the road, but I'm glad we are doing it.  Tomorrow, on to Toledo and the exciting moment of meeting my friend Michelle in person!