We were up at 6:15 to do a little housekeeping, feed the cats and pack the car. All that done we headed for a nearby Ihop for breakfast. Acting on Mike's advice we hit Interstate 35 about 9:00 and avoided the morning rush. About an hour later we found a Starbucks and our morning was complete.
Interstate 35 is basically a straight road with a gentle curve thrown in occasionally. Along the way we passed by the Jesse James (Kearney, KS) and John Wayne (Winterset, IA) birthplaces and then made a few purchases at the Amish store in Lamoni, IA.
At Des Moines the lady in the dash (GPS) took us off the well traveled roads and into the country we were really looking for. Iowa is corn and soybeans and by golly if we are going to drive in Iowa we want to see a lot of both. And the small towns. And farm houses. And barns. And silos. Melbourne is one of those small towns (population 830) and it was an "ok, let's go see it" turn off the highway. The big event every year in Melbourne is Mouse Hole Day. Yup. Really. Marshalltown is a big town. So big that it has a real drive through car wash, which quickly removed six states worth of bugs.
The last couple of hours driving Iowa back roads through small towns and farms was easily the best drive of the trip so far. Great thing is we have two more days of this.
Tomorrow we are off to a special baseball place. 372 miles today.
No comments:
Post a Comment