Advertisement
Published: September 6th 2011
In Carmel
Washing who?After spending 3 days with my family in Indiana being wined and dinned to celebrate all our Sept birthdays it is off to Iowa today.
The weather has turned cooler and is a profound relief from the heat of the last few days. It is 40 degrees cooler! I decided to take a secondary road to hook up with Rt 74 and was pleasantly surprised at the short time it took and the scenery I was able to enjoy. It was like going back in time in rural Americana with small farms and blink and you miss em towns. The wind was very strong but was coming from my back quarter so it was not blowing me sideways all the time. It sure was tricky passing trucks but I got the hang of it and the drive was enjoyable. Indiana was flat and full of corn and soybeans, so was Illinois. Then Iowa started a rolling terrain still full of crops.
I crossed the Mississippi today so now I am officially in the west and more than half way there. Oscar continues to be a great travel companion. Oh I forgot,,, Ten minutes after we started this morning he started
Photo 5
Part of the family crying and looking at me with a worried look. I thought lets be safe so I pulled over, after finding a safe spot, and took him out. I had to shut the windows anyway, forgot that. What a GOOD thing I did. So off we went again.
We settled for the night at a campground outside Iowa City called Coralville Lake. We have a campsite overlooking the lake and I enjoyed a few hours of sun before it was time to head inside. It is supposed to be 46 degrees tonight, I’ll have to break out the down blanket. To bed by 10 local time.
Thought I’d share my route for all you map people. Left Carmel going north on rt 31 then took rt 32 WEST.( Scenic route) Picked up 74 west (which actually goes nw) to Moline and RT 80 west.
The van has been terrific and a joy to drive. Thanks to Gary my mileage has improved and I am getting 14mpg using the air a few days ago and the wind today. So maybe tomorrow the conditions will be right and I can see what we get ideally. I love Pennelope!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.402s; Tpl: 0.042s; cc: 21; qc: 98; dbt: 0.146s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
