Monday 27 August 2001

Stayed at the Onawa Blue Lake KOA. Western Iowa is flat: completely, mind-numbingly flat, and covered in cornfields. This view from the campsite is typical of the exciting vistas that await you ...

Iowa is also the home state of Radar O'Reilly in M.A.S.H., although he comes from Ottumwa in the south-east corner which we won't be visiting. Presumably it was chosen as his home town as it epitomises mid-western rural agricultural dullness, but I may be doing it a disservice; we've seen someone in an Ottumwa sweatshirt so he was obviously proud of it. Or maybe the Chamber of Commerce gives them away as a promotional gimmick ...

Tuesday 28 August 2001

Travelled all morning, during which the scenic qualities of the landscape improved greatly, and stopped at West Des Moines KOA around lunchtime. After food we drove to and around Winterset. This is the birthplace of Marion Robert Morrison, aka John Wayne ...

... and is in the middle of Madison County where the covered bridges from the Clint Eastwood / Meryl Streep film are located. We discovered three of them ...

... and they're much better kept and more attractive than those we saw in Vermont last year.

In the evening we went into Des Moines for a stroll around and an excellent meal in Splash! restaurant. It's a neat, pleasant city, quite prosperous as lots of insurance companies have their headquarters there for some reason. One 'attraction' is the Skyway, a series of passageways at around third story level which connects many of the main office buildings in the downtown area. The promotional literature which we saw showed shops, entertainers, cafes and lots of people having a good time, but when we were there at around 6.30pm all the shops were closed and it was totally deserted except for a couple of cleaners silently pushing refuse carts around. Slightly surreal.

In the morning we set off eastwards again towards Illinois, stopping for lunch in Walcott at what claims to be the biggest truck stop in the world. It was very big and there were indeed lots of trucks.