iowaska

That's how I think of this part of the trip. Get through the "drive by" states of Iowa and Nebraska, then the fun begins. Which is not fair to Iowaska. Iowa is all green, rolling, soft hills, the roads lined by corn fields. And more corn fields. The highway takes you away from towns and cities, although at times you see a shimmer of a distant city, a tall building reflecting light over the endless corn. Then it vanishes like an apparition. Mostly what you see as you go is this



There are many windmills in this open, flat land and Quincy sees them as creatures threatening him with waving arms. He barks and jumps from front seat to back, from side to side. They are so close to the road that you can see just how massive they are. I tell Russell we should have called him Quixote instead of Quincy. Barking at Windmills. He smiles indulgently.

It is a thriving business here, we see truck after truck transporting a piece of the thing. A blade, a stand, a housing for the mechanism, each piece so large it has its own rig. We met some guys in a rest stop that were delivering a blade. The truck escorting them had a logo that said 'Escort Service which cracked us up, so Russell posed there, hamming it up.



The truckers spoke with pride about driving these behemoths, proudly saying this was a small one, the next trip would be with a blade 15 feet longer. I asked how one drives such a rig and the driver smiled, pointed to our SUV and said "just like you drive that" and he winked.



We are indulging ourselves at a lovely little LaQuinta with pretty rooms, nice beds, a loving pet policy and a breakfast buffet. We should be gong but we are cozy here, enjoying the break. I have brought the dogs some breakfast sausage which prompted a lot of tail wagging and now I''ll go bring up some things for us so we can get started with the day.

The road will soon start to rise and fall, the scenery will change from corn to hills and rock and we will be in Wyoming before noon, Iowaska just a long, lazy strip of green in the rearview mirror.