The Planning Begins

The kids and I are setting out on our great cross-country drive sometime during the week of May 20th (I am debating leaving a day or two earlier than I originally planned).  That gives me just over a month to get everything ready.  It is just me and the kids, who are 2 and 4 years old, so my planning needs to be excellent and so, having put several other big projects on the shelf, I am starting serious travel planning.

Here's what I know so far:

I'll be driving through 11 states:  Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming and Utah.

FreeFoto.com

My outbound trip will total just over 2100 miles.

I'll be stopping to visit friends in Columbus, Ohio; Bloomington, Indiana; and Cheyenne, Wyoming.

I'll be staying in hotels in Decatur, Illinois; Osceola, Iowa; and Sidney, Nebraska.

I'll be making stops in Nauvoo, Illinois, to visit the Nauvoo Family Living Center and Lincoln, Nebraska where we'll visit the Lincoln Children's Zoo.

I'll be driving an average of 4 hours a day for 9 days, with my longest day being 8 hours of driving and my shortest (excluding the one day of the nine with no driving at all) only 2 hours, for a total of 38 hours of driving.

I'm still working on my plans for food, but I've found a few restaurants online that look good:
        In Decatur, IL, Krekel's Custard and Hamburgers
        In Nauvoo, IL, Grandpa John's Nauvoo Cafe and Soda Fountain
        In North Platte, Nebraska, either Tempura or Whiskey Creek Wood Fire Grill a restaurant which      offers s'mores as a dessert, yum.  
And, of course, I have to make the very serious, and difficult, choice of which beloved Bloomington restaurant(s) to visit during my very short stay there . . .