By traveler 
Left Grinnell at 10:00 to make a hair appointment in Des Moines before hitting the road. My car, Red Barron (hereafter called RB), was packed and ready for the trip. I reset her trip mileage gauge so that she could keep track of how far we actually travelled.
My journey is minimally planned to allow me maximum opportunities to be flexible. This is the proposed route, which Mapquest indicated was just over 5598 miles:
This first day was primarily spent driving. After taking care of business in Des Moines and filling up RB’s gas tank, we headed north.
Once outside the Des Moines area, the traffic became surprisingly light for the Memorial Day weekend. This allowed us to make very good time.
We crossed into Minnesota and drove until tired, so there’s not much on the picture front. Yet. But I’ve got a digital camera with a 16GB SD card and plan to be free with my picture-taking on this excursion.
The full range of pictures I took during the first six days of what I’m calling “North by Northwest-2014” is available at http://singin1.com/piwigo/index.php?/category/north-by-northwest-2014-days-1-6. To see those from specific parts of the trip, click on the indicated regions on the map at the top of the album.
Music for the Trip
As part of my prep for the trip, I put together a 12GB playlist of popular music (R&B, Rock, Jazz, even Country) that reflects my pretty wide musical taste.
RB is not equipped with an SD card player (she came off the assembly line before those became standard equipment), so I have a reader/player that plugs into her cigarette lighter and uses her radio and speakers to play the files on the SD card.
When I inserted the SD card, the reader/player began playing from the J’s, rather than the A’s. I didn’t force the matter, so the trip began with great music by performers such as Jackie Wilson, James Brown, James Taylor, Janet Jackson, Janis Joplin, Jerry Butler, Jim Croce,…