Typing while traveling was fun.  The final straw has occurred.  We have explored campus.  It looked huge on the map but in reality is not bad.  I think the 15 minutes between events is more than enough time, even for the slowest of the students.  We found all the locations and, as the boys say, green space as more important – somewhere to play Frisbee and football.
 
The kids were given an hour plus to explore around the town last night.  We are at a Hilton Gardens Inn – probably the best hotel many here have stayed in.  Bloomington, itself, is a typical college town.  Nice things around – sandwich shops, chain stores, music stores (which Ben and I have visited)…a great location.

Yesterday it was movies.  Today it is “Stadium Arcadium” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers – brand new album and atop the Billboard album chart. A good listen and dulls the boredom of the road.
 
Yesterday it was NY, PA – a little as we went around Lake Erie, and the OH as we made it to just outside Cleveland.  Today it is OH.  I forgot how flat the states get in the Midwest.  OH is not true Midwest but it, nonetheless, reminds me of the trip across country in 89.  The middle of the US is flat.  As you are driving, you can see forever.  OH is sort of like that.  We  hae hd good and bad weather and construction.  My guess is Binghamton is not the only area that has a construction season.
 
And speaking of Binghamton, I am in agreement that gas in that area is really high prcied.  Gas in the Erie, PA area – a much larger metropolitan area – was under $2.90 a gallon for regular unleaded.  Gas in the Cleveland area was the same.  Gas along I-70 outside Columbus is under $2.80 per gallon.  So why is Binghamton at $3.00 a gallon?

Wasn’t that the lyrics of a song in the late 70s ?  Well, whether it was or not, Indiana’s calling as we finished our first day of travel to National Science Olympiad competition in Bloomington, Indiana. 
 
Coming from upstate NY, there is probably no easy way to get to Indiana.  I am sure there are parts of it that there are no easy ways to and Bloomington may be one of those parts.  So at 3:30 PM on May 17th, the charter bus with 21 high school students between the ages of 14 and 18 and seven coaches/chaperones set out from Endwell, New York.  Final destination:  Bloomington, Indiana and the campus of Indiana University.
 
The first stop on the trip was about two hours out.  Traveling west on NY Route 17/ Interstate 86 (where 17 meets interstate codes) we stopped in Hornell, NY for dinner.  Thankfully, I was use to the area because my son goes to a small private university about 17 miles west of Hornell.  Hornell is big city to Andy and the rest of the students at Alfred University.  By 6:30, all had eaten and we were on our way again. 
 
Do you ever wonder what people on a bus trip do?  While, these days on a charter, movies are the big thing. We had the “pleasure” of subjection to “Starsky and Hutch,” “Batman Begins,” and “SpaceBalls.”  As you can tell, the intellectual quotient of the movies was not in question.  There was none!
 
The rain was hit and miss then hard and steady.  At 10 pm, after watching three movies on the bus, we were outside Cleveland and at the Fairfield Inn for the night.  Unfortunately, there was a bit of stored up energy but the kids used it up quietly for the most part.