The change begins as you roll across Illinois on Route 6, a highway that parallels Route 80. Six suffers from multiple personality disorder. It's a gentle country road, it's a suburban belt, it's a highway through some small, but intense cities. Also reminding you of home is your absence from it for three weeks, and your distance from family, friends, and familiar places for three weeks. This is not to argue against traveling, but when you're this close to home, you find yourself more and more eager to be there.
Commuters streak past, madly honking.
It's got a real New Jersey feel to it. Later, you reach the junction with Route 39, and traffic picks up even more. All of a sudden you're among drivers swerving every which way at alarming speeds. Given the fact that you're no longer looking at the mountains of the great west, and that traffic here in Illinois looks like home, you might as well, you figure, be home. The Road Warrior found himself wishing this expedition would end quickly, but it was another 900 miles.