Back on the highway, Dean drives the car at 110 mph through Nebraska and delights in its power. Talking about driving to Panama, he drives extra-fast because he wants to pick up girls in Chicago.
"It was remarkable how Dean could go mad and then suddenly continue with his soul- which I think is wrapped up in a fast car, a coast to reach, and a woman at the end of the road- calmly and sanely as though nothing had happened."Part 3, Chapter 9, pg. 230
They remember other times each of them had been over the same portion of road in their crazy pasts. In 1944, Dean had owned a Buick in L.A., where he was hiding from the Arizona police. He wrecked the car in the spring, returned to Denver, and met Marylou. Dean mentions his father again and says that he plans to stay in New York when he gets there. Sal goes to sleep and wakes up in Iowa, where Dean tries to race a man driving in a Buick with an older woman. The man stops at a gas station, and Sal warns Dean not to drive so fast in the day-time.
Dean keeps passing cars and Sal climbs into the back seat because he can't take it anymore. In Des Moines, Dean hits another car going slowly and bends the bumper. After he pretends to be nice to them, the man calls the police and says that they have stolen the car. They have to go to the station to iron everything out. They start driving again, crossing the Mississippi River at Davenport. While crossing the bridge, Dean makes a spectacle, nearly killing them by passing cars in the narrow space before trucks come in the oncoming lane. Sal returns to the back seat. Before long, they arrive in Chicago.
"We had come from Denver to Chicago via Ed Wall's ranch, 1180 miles, in exactly 17 hours, not counting the two hours in the ditch and three at the ranch and two with the police in Newton, Iowa, for a mean average of seventy miles per hour across the land, with one driver. Which is a kind of crazy record."Part 3, Chapter 9, pg. 237
