We head out of Joliet, Illinois and travel some 350 miles to Paducah, Kentucky in preparation for viewing the Great American Eclipse tomorrow!

Illinois is flat. Flat as a pancake for mile, after mile, after mile. Far from being dull and uninteresting, the landscape is beautiful. Fields of corn stand six feet tall, laden with husks ready for harvesting, and like the flatness, they too stretch for miles as far as the eye can see in every direction.

Every so often there is a break in the height of the crops as the farmers alternate with soya beans allowing the soil to regenerate its richness. The earth in Illinois is among the richest in the world as a result of receding glaciers which once covered the state. As they receded, the state was left covered with rich, black earth perfect to producing abundant crops.

Peppered in-between the corn crops is a sight that makes my heart sing, wind turbines, spinning gracefully in the always present breeze and generating a cash crop for the farmers on whose land they sit.

Well-kept farm houses with their corn stores and fir trees to keep the snow away in winter dot the side of the highway, and pretty small towns with white facades pop-up along our journey to Kentucky. It was a beautiful drive!

The Illinois landscape.