After a short drive, I crossed the Mississippi River and entered Iowa for the first time ever. I pulled off to get gas, then followed signs to a visitor center that appeared to be right next to the river. I never found it, but did get to park at a boat ramp on the river itself.
I don’t think I would’ve dropped a kayak in for a paddle if I had one. This river is big, and I wouldn’t want to take the chance of not being able to get back to where I started.
I continued down US 34. This road would take me straight to Des Moines, but would change names a few times along the way. That’s weird, because the road itself was a straight shot from the border all the way into the city.
About halfway there, I pulled off the highway (yes, I left highways enabled for this leg because I was on a schedule) into the small town of Fairfield, looking for a place to have lunch. I found a small park with a really cool sign telling people to throw their trash away. Someone had utterly failed to do so with a McDonald’s bag, right next to the can. I made it go away after taking this picture, but left it in the shot for the irony. Lister appears to be glaring angrily at it.
With a bit of creative zooming and cropping, I managed to get this shot of a… I don’t know what, driving along a frontage road as I approached Des Moines. It’s a flatbed truck, but the front of it is clearly a Ford van, not an F-150. It didn’t begin life as a cutaway van, because those end immediately behind the front doors, and this one has an “extended cab.” But Ford never sold van/truck things like this, because that’s what the F-150 is for. So what is this??? I have no idea.
The reason for my trip to Des Moines despite normally avoiding cities, and taking the highway despite preferring to avoid them, was to visit my Uncle Dale and Aunt Donna, more family who I haven’t seen since I was a kid. We’d reconnected on Facebook though the Florida branch of my family, and my route was taking me right through town anyway. I got in touch about visiting, and so here I am. I was on a schedule to arrive early enough to go out to dinner with them before Donna had a church meeting in the evening.
They took me to the Machine Shed, “Dedicated to the American farmer.” The combination of a gift shop and restaurant reminded me of Cracker Barrel, but this was so much better. It’s a chain, but with only six nearby locations it’s truly a local fixture. Any place with such an interest in farming is going to have basically farm-to-table food, and this was the case here. I had the Cattleman’s Sirloin Tips, “Certified Angus Beef sirloin tips and our famous stuffing, made with mushrooms, onions, and Swiss cheese, topped with an herb cream sauce.” It was unlike any steak tips I’ve ever had before, which are typically just meat and potatoes, and it was amazing. This is what happens when you trust the locals to recommend good local establishments.
I hung out with Dale while Donna went to her meeting, talking ham radio and other common interests. They have a small house and driveway, so I’d picked out a couple of local spots where I could go to spend the night. But it turned out that overnight street parking is legal, so I just spent the night parked where I was across the street from their house. I had no knocks, no parking tickets, and no trouble at all. I did wake up early to a line of severe thunderstorms rolling through, which would’ve happened whether I parked here or elsewhere in town. Lister was unhappy about the heavy rain making lots of noise on the roof, but I snuggled him and he soon relaxed. A second line of storms came through later, and then it started clearing off, with cooler temperatures and far less humidity. It’s going to be a nice day.
Smokey Da Van 