Davenport, Iowa

Yesterday was an Aunt Sophie day.

Leaving Mom is not one of my favorite things to do, but she said she appreciated all the good wishes and returned them twofold. She was amazed at how the great-grand-kids are growing, and sends her love to everybody.

After a series of Good-Bye's I reluctantly left Saline around 10:30 am. I had said that I did not want to go through Chicago, so I told Sophie to take me to Indianapolis. We headed south toward Toledo, and that's where the adventure began. Her plan was to route me down US 24 to Fort Wayne, IN. No problem, I like byways. Unfortunately, US 24 was closed just west of Toledo. The detour sent me through some of the prettiest Ohio farm country you could imagine. (Note: it's mid July, and I have yet to see corn with tassels. It was a very wet spring in the upper Midwest.) The road ran along the banks of the Maumee river in Ohio. After the heavy weather on Tuesday, it looked like a 1/4 mile wide mud slide. Not my idea of a Midwest river. Some of the fields I passed looked more like a salt marsh than a corn field. Stunted corn and standing water was a lot more common than you would expect. Some of the fields were obviously abandoned after the last floods. Sad.

Once I finally got to the big road, things zipped along. Indiana has surprisingly good roads for a Yankee state. Illinois, on the other hand should change their slogan from "Land of Lincoln" to "Region of Road Repairs". What is not currently undergoing construction, needs to be.

I dragged my tired butt into Iowa around 8:00 PM last night. Checked into a Best Western hotel that is terribly proud of their rooms, ate some dinner, and crashed at 11:00. (Note #2: That's 7:00 and 10:00 here.)

Plans for today, are to first get to Des Moines where I will check out the I-80 Truck stop. Jim Erlandson told me there's a truck show there today, so I may be posting some pictures.

Then it's on toward Rapid City, South Dakota. I doubt I will make it that far, (nearly 800 miles from here) but that's the goal.

Tomorrow will be a Badlands, Crazy Horse, and Rushmore day. Count on pictures.

Sunday, I'll be finishing up the trip from the next time zone, and plan to arrive in Ennis some time in the mid-afternoon. I'm sure there will be a lot of pictures with rear-view mirrors in them, shot as I zip past something interesting. I'm getting better at shooting out the window when I drive, and the image stabilization in my little camera is great.

Hope you are all well.

I'm doing just fine. :)