What a beautiful country we have, with a lifetime of sights. Driving through it is much nicer than flying over it. We entered Iowa shortly after 8 A.M., and ended in Indiana around 9 P.M. We were having a lot of fun and didn't really want to stop. It was still light, believe it or not. We're not too far from Notre Dame, but we're didn't stop.
Going through Iowa I kept thinking of that old song from the Music Man about "The Iowa Way to Treat You." (Yes, everything reminds me of a song.) If you don't happen to know the one I keep singing, my favorite lines telling of them being so stubborn....
"...We can stand touching noses
for a week at a time and never see eye to eye!
But what the heck, you're welcome! Join us at the picnic.
You can have your fill of all the food you bring yourself."
Probably tired of hearing me sing that song, John got out his GPS at the next rest stop and locked on to a satellite signal. Now he can tell where we are without me and my road maps. So much for my time at AAA, except for making a friend in there, which was worth all the time involved, as far as I'm concerned. But now John has another toy in the car. Ah, technology at work. It not only told him where we were (which the road signs were actually doing at the time) but also told him how fast we were going. Now I guess we no longer need a speedometer. There's a rocket scientist inside most every man.
Some interesting insights into my license plate game... You will rarely get any good ones before 9:30 A.M. or after 5:00 p.m. Also, you can almost always find good plates in a WalMart parking lot, but we've decided that running up and down the parking lot aisles just looking for license plates should be considered cheating. Today we found 32 states, 4 Canadian provinces, 1 Federal Government vehicle, 4 military vehicles, plus the strangest license plate we've ever seen. It said "Oneida Nation" on the top and "Turtle Clan" on the bottom. I checked the internet, and apparently this is a Wisconsin Indian tribe. Do they get their own plates now? I'm not sure how I feel about that. Conflicted, I guess.
Today we saw giant windmill blades being transported across Iowa on the longest flatbeds I've ever seen, riding in convoy. If I didn't have John along, I'd still be wondering what those gigantic wings were!
We crossed the Mississippi at 3:30, and talked again about John's wish to ride the length of the Mississippi River on the Delta Queen, an old refurbished steam paddle boat some day, like Mark Twain. John will take me along as trip coordinator or something. We do have fun together. At any rate, when we crossed the Mississippi, John and I looked at each other, and I said, it's bigger than the Platt. John raised one of those bushy eyebrows and said, "Yeah?" What else could I say, but, "What was wrong with those pioneers, anyway?"
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2 comments:
I love your trip -- you are very fun travelers. And I love your little side-notes. Thanks for taking me along.
That's great that you have GPS! I wish we had one. It makes life so much easier, and you always know where you are. You will probably really appreciate the GPS when you get here since many of the few street signs you can see are turned the wrong direction. No more showing someone a map, asking them where you are on the map, and having them unable to tell you because they can't read a map.
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