After the sleep of the dead we got ourselves going, ate a quick breakfast in the hotel and got on our way. The only trouble we have navigating is getting in and out of big cities like Indianapolis. We follow Google Maps instructions both verbally and also use the printed version, but lane changes and quick turns make the driving difficult. Siri also chooses when she wants to answer our questions and when she doesn’t. All three cell phones refuse to do regular functions for whatever reason.
ILLINOIS: Farming as Big Business, silos and windmills.
Once we hit the open road things got better. We usually eat lunch in the car, as Sarah brought a big bag of snacks. Soon we were in Iowa, the day was lovely, and we admired the quintessential Iowa landscape of flat, agricultural land to the horizon, broken up by enclaves of trees that give shade in the summer to the house, barns and silos. The farms look tidy and well taken care of. We passed only one farm with cows. All the rest were growing crops, presumably corn and soy beans.
We stopped for the night in Waterloo, Iowa, a not very pretty industrial town next to Cedar Falls, where we started to go for supper. Halfway there we turned around and came back to our Marriott Fairfield hotel, wanting to walk to our restaurant. We ended up in a small, local diner / bar with a very nice and very harried waitress who was working hard to serve the twenty-odd people the restaurant held.
IOWA: beautiful in the springtime. The distinctive shape of Barns. Windmills everywhere. The industrial side of agriculture.
Rosalie got the worst chardonnay she’d ever had in her life, and we all ate some of the best fried onion rings we’d ever had in our lives.
Sleep comes quickly when we go to bed, Rosalie and I in one bed and Sarah in the other.