2 Day Road Trip From Omaha To New Jersey

We just love road trips and especially these days, they are most convenient. After our last Colorado road trip in October, we got some confidence to travel. I met my elder sister, who lives in NJ, in February this year and since then waiting for conditions to improve. In a normal year, we could have met 3 to 4 times, but this year is different. We finally planned to visit her on her birthday - Nov 8.

Omaha to New Jersey means approx. 18 hours of drive. Since I love driving, I was super excited. We planned our trip with one stopover at Joliet, Illinois which is 6 hours drive from Omaha.

States Covered in the journey:-

1. Nebraska
2. Iowa
3. Illinois
4. Indiana
5. Ohio
6. Pennsylvania
7. New Jersey

DAY 1 -

We planned to leave for Joliet at 6 AM, so set two alarm of 5 and 5.30 AM. Harmit got up on time while I was sleeping like a baby. Once she got ready, she woke me up and it took nearly 1/2 an hour for me to get ready. We left home at 6:30 sharp, it was still dark outside.

What we packed for the trip :-

• 2 carry on bags with our clothes
• Camera, lenses and tripod
• Snacks
• 4 books for reading
• Indoor bonsai plant
• 2 Laptop bags with laptops and other necessary stuff
• Water bottle pack
• Shoes and slippers
• Jackets, caps and gloves
• Mobile and Fitbit chargers along with power bank
• 6 masks and sanitizer

Soon vibrant colors in the sky were visible with the emergence of sun above horizon. Everything was just beautiful and we also noticed fog on both sides of the highway. Harmit took some great pictures and a video to capture this.

We took our first halt after 2 hours in Clive, Iowa. Harmit searched for a local coffee-shop with good eating options and selected 5 Borough Bagels as our breakfast stop, which turned out be a great decision. Service was quick and bagels were delicious and fulfilling. We always prefer local coffee shops, as most of the time they do wonders through their menus and tastes.

Even though there were sitting arrangements, we preferred to take out and eat in our car. We had breakfast in parked car and also gave water to our cute bonsai. We were back to road in nearly 45 mins. There was not much to see during the trip, just the uninhabited lands and crops on both sides with no colors.

We reached Joliet at around 1 PM and checked in to our hotel - Best Western Joliet Inn & Suites. Location of hotel was nice and there were fall colors in surroundings. They upgraded our room to 2 queen beds room which was spacious and was equipped with all basic amenities. We ordered Thai food in lunch through DoorDash. For dinner, we got late, so had to settle with Taco Bell. We also filled gas for the trip and went to bed early. Room was sun facing, experience of watching rising-sun from the window of our room was amazing. We got ready, grabbed packaged breakfast (water, banana and granola bar with coffee) and headed for NJ at 7:30 AM.