What can I say. Not the most exciting drive. Madison to Des Moines. Western Wisconsin is just plain beautiful, I think we take it for granted. Iowa is OK, nothing great, sorry, actually like the Madison area, slightly hilly, farms and so forth.One thing that we noticed is that if the road is not an interstate or major highway, it’s dirt. There is always dust in the air from dirt roads.
One thing that happened is the Corn Nut incident. I ate a number of handful's of Corn Nuts that decided that when they hit my stomach they would instantly turn into gas. I had to keep commenting on the “fresh” smell of the country to keep DJ from catching on.
I also noticed that while our car had Rain-X on the Windshield it did not have Bug-X. We were actually thinking of driving 2 more hours but do to the bugs the car was losing it’s aerodynamics and we were starting to lose site of the road at times through the windshield.
Which brings me to another story.
Thursday night DJ took the Subaru to the car wash for the ultra wash. There must have been 30 guys buffing, wiping and squirting toxic fragrances, it look great.
So Friday morning we’re taking Blake, our Cardigan Corgi to his little summer camp and have to drive through a ½ mile stretch of dirt road from construction, great, now the car is all dusty.
We leave Blake off and on the way BACK, said dirt road has turned into a mud road as they have poured water on it to keep the dust down. DAMN THEM. Dusty AND muddy now.
ANYWAY - here we are in Des Moines in what MUST be the children's wing of the Country Inn Suites (we got the more expensive suite . . . . .well . . .$4 more but it's the thought that we are better then the rest and that counts). We are less then ½ block from where we picked up Blake 7 years ago. Seeing his little skinny, Heart Worm infested body as they opened up the trunk of their car and him blinking at the bright sunlight for the first time in 5 hours brings a smile to my face.
Bastards, I ripped them a new ass hole with a website when that happened, but, I digress.
The temperature kept rising as we drove today. Left Madison at 75 and 5 hours later hit Des Moines at 86.
Dubuque - on the mighty Mississippi. WOW - that place needs a face lift. Nothing but brick buildings. Of course this is logical as brick is what they loaded empty ships with to weight them down as ballast. Then they would offload the bricks for goods and material leaving the bricks on shore. This made for perfect building materials. BUT, an entire brown city? Yew!
Tomorrow - on to Denver. We’re thinking of going the Pony Express Museum and all points in between. Might even get the camera out.
SO - that’s it for now.
Signing off from Des Moines
Grinder and DJ
2 comments:
You only made it to Des Moines for the first day? Whatever happened to making good time and motoring for 12 hours at least?
Hey Grinder...
What does it say that I am just getting around to reading about your road trip now?
Colin makes fun of me when we drive over any of the four state borders into Iowa because I always say "See honey! Look how much better it is here!" Obviously driving from WIS to IA had the reverse affect on you... Too bad, you obviously never lived in Iowa. Your loss.
It's true that Wisconsin is more scenic that Iowa, but at least Iowa is more scenic than Nebraska. Oh and althought no one will tell you it out loud, there was a recent negotiation: Americans accepted Celine Dion (from Canada) In returned, their experts neogtiated a tricky longterm lease that states that Council Bluffs officially belongs to Nebraska. Celine has to stay in Las Vegas or LA or Miami, however.
We tried to include Ottumwa in the deal, but no one wanted Ottumwa, not even Celine. So we are stuck with it.
E
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