What Cheer!

Those of you familiar with Rhode Island might think that the title of today's blog refers to the greeting given Roger Williams by friendly Indians, but no, there is a town in Iowa named What Cheer.

We travelled the entire breadth of beautiful Iowa today, from the Missouri River and Council Bluffs/Omaha in the west to the Mississippi River and Davenport/Bettendorf/Rock Island/Moline (the Quad Cities) in the east - 296 miles. 

We began this morning crossing this bridge in Council Bluffs to get to I-80. The sculpture, dubbed  "Spiky Towers", but really called "Odessey", by Albert Paley, (August 2010) at the 4 corners of the bridge was brutal. Meant to represent the transformation of the land through machinery and agriculture, the sculpture has generated a great deal of criticism.

The entire way I-80 would go up a hill, down the hill, cross a small valley and then go up a hill again. I guess you would call the interstate "rolling". Frederick was intrigued by the terraced fields, especially in western Iowa. 

Here is the long view of the terraces in the field. The picture above shows a close-up.

Lunch stop at a rest area just east of Des Moines.  The temperature was 80 degrees, there was beautiful fall color and a most pleasant companion.

Trucks dominate I-80 and...

we noticed one of Peter's favorites. How many have you counted since you were 6 years old?

This is also corn harvesting time in Iowa and...

these signs were presented every twenty miles, or so.

Not clear wether this refers to deer deaths or people; probably deer.

One of the best parts of the day was stopping at the eastbound rest area in Tiffin, just outside Iowa City. It is devoted to Iowa writers and the Writer's Workshop sponsored by the University of Iowa.

Wooden block letters identify...

the appropriate restroom.

Outside, picnic shelters have steel "pages" to act as screens, each has a quotation from an Iowa writer, either born here or connected with the Writers' Workshop, laser-cut into the "page." I couldn't decide which one to show, so here are most of them.

  

"I loved the house the way you would any new house, because it is populated by your future, the family of children who will fill it with noise or chaos and satisfying busy pleasures." Jane Smiley

"Well, either you're closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated by the presence of a pool table in your community. Ya got trouble, my friend, right here, I say, trouble right here in River City." Meredith Wilson

"To each other, we were as normal and nice as the smell of bread. We were just a family. In family even exaggerations make perfect sense." John Irving

"But maybe it's up in the hills under the leaves or in a ditch somewhere. Maybe it's never found. But what you find, whatever you find, is always only part of the missing, and writing is the way the poet finds out what it is he found." Paul Engle

"Death is one moment, and life is so many of them." Tennessee Williams

"I am eternally grateful... for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on." Kurt Vonnegut

"There is a lost soldier in every ceramic bowl. The face on the dinner plate breaks when the dish does and lies for centuries unassembled in the soil. These things that have the right substance to begin with, put into the fire at temperatures that melt glass, keep their fingerprints forever, it is said, like inky sponges that walk away in the deep water." Marvin Bell

"There's no money in poetry because most of my neighbors, and most of your, don't have any use for it. If, at a neighborhood yard sale, you happened to find the original handwritten manuscript of T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," you could take it to every quick shop in your city and you wouldn't find a single person who would trade you ten gallons of gas for it." Ted Kooser

It also turns out that in 1856, some 1300 Mormon converts from Europe, reached the railroad "end-of-the-track" in this location near Iowa City. From here 5 groups of Mormons used carts to carry their belongings to Salt Lake City. The first three Handcart expeditions reached Salt Lake City safely before cold weather set in. The fourth and fifth Handcart groups suffered untold hardships and death.

And, very near here, in West Branch, is the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site which honors the birthplace of Herbert Hoover; orphaned at 9; president of the United States at 54.

Sergeant Charles Floyd

First the oddities - 

A BIG pheasant in front of a Cabela's - it's pheasant hunting season -"Welcome Hunters" is a familiar sign.

Sorry this isn't clearer, but someone has really gone overboard with the giant sculptures along the side of I-90. The two figures are human size to provide scale;  that steer's head has to be 40 - 50 feet high and the hammer is probably 20 feet high.

Nice rest stop in South Dakota and our lunch spot.

This car has two recumbent bikes on the back - first time we have seen this style of bike on the back of a car.

Late this afternoon we arrived in Iowa. We drove almost to Sioux Falls, SD, which is on the eastern border of the state before we turned south on I-29. When we were planning our trip east we could not find any RV parks that were open in Minnesota or Wisconsin along I-90. So we have dropped south to I-80 and tonight we are in Council Bluffs, IA; right across the Missouri River from Omaha.

We stopped at the Welcome Center in Sioux City which happens to be in a retired river boat named in honor of Sergeant Floyd.

We went into the river boat to view some of the museum exhibits, particularly the ones that honor Sergeant Floyd, a member of the Lewis & Clark Expedition.

The Lewis & Clark Expedition departed the St. Louis area on May 14, 1804, to begin their journey up the Missouri.

On August 20, 1804, the Lewis & Clark Expedition suffered the first and only casualty of their trans-continental journey. Charles Floyd, a 27-year-old Kentuckian and friend of William Clark, was stricken by sudden illness (maybe appendicitis) and died as the expedition approached what is now Sioux City, Iowa. 

Floyd was buried with full military honors on top of a tall river bluff on the east bank of the Missouri River.

Here he is, the first American soldier to die in his country's service west of the Mississippi River.

The museum/visitor center also has this rare dug-out that was uncovered in 1941 by army engineers dredging in the Missouri River south of Sioux City. The length is 12 feet, 11 inches, the sides are a little more than on inch thick and the bottom is 2 1/2 inches thick and it weighs 225 pounds.

A bit of geology about the formation of the Missouri River from the last glaciation period 10,000 years ago.

The Missouri River in Sioux City.

Driving along, we were tempted to visit LeMars, home of my sister-in-law Cheryl, Jack's wife. I think that I read some place that they have great ice cream there.

Tonight we are in the RV park at the Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs. The sunset came early with the change from daylight savings time.

Don't Thump Your Melon

Happy Halloween!

We are taking a pause in our cross-country journey and staying two nights in Chamberlain, South Dakota, on the banks of the Missouri River. It is also a location that celebrates the Lewis & Clark expedition and we wanted to hike a bit of the Lewis & Clark Trail - which we did today.

The trail, which begins in our campground, then passes through the town of Chamberlain, population 2,387, allowed us to enjoy some of the Halloween decorations.

This black cat moves it's head from side to side. I like that the jack-o-lanterns all have happy faces, as do the "ghosts".

We shared the trail with bicycles and were reminded that, if we were on bicycles, we should wear a helmet. 

On the outskirts of town is St. Joseph's Indian School, a privately funded school and mission for Lakota children. 

At this point on the Missouri the river makes a huge "bend". On September 20, 1804, the Lewis & Clark expedition began its journey around the Big Bend. Although only 1 1/4 mile across the neck of land, the party had to travel 30 miles by water. 

The trail climbed a bluff and we had an expansive view of the river from the top. This is looking south, toward the bend and...

this is looking north. It was here that the expedition killed their first female antelope. Clark notes that "She Differs from the Mail as to Size being Smaller, with Small Horns, Straight with a Small Prong without any black about the Neck. None of these Goats has any Beard, they are all Keenly made and is beautiful."

On the way back to town we walked through the St. Joseph's Indian School Campus which...

is also the location of the Akta Lakota Museum and Cultural Center. Unfortunately we didn't have a lot of time so we just glanced at some of the exhibits.

Visit Wall Drug

It was a long day of towing (335 miles) - and a confession; on those long, empty stretches of road across Wyoming and South Dakota, we did bump up the speed to 65 mph. Not the posted 80 mph, but faster than we have gone before. We could almost feel the extra fuel being sucked up, but maybe we saved about a 1/2 hour of travel time. Towing that fast is not something I want to do very often, but those wide open stretches...

Pictures from today's drive, courtesy of Frederick.

When we passed through Rozet on our way to I-90, we passed this establishment that offered Bud Light through a drive-up window and the door to the place was through the back of the chuck-wagon painted on the side of the building. How western!

Frederick was able to photograph some prong-horned antelope. (We enlarged the picture to bring them into view.)

Interesting roadside features as we drove east in Wyoming.

This "plane" served as the wind-sock at a local airport.

Welcome to our "home" state of South Dakota! As most of you know, we are legal residents of South Dakota, so it was a homecoming, of sorts.

Here's our "home" building, in Box Elder, South Dakota, on the outskirts of Rapid City. We stopped to pick up our mail and say, Hi! There's a nice Flying J fuel stop just next door.

As soon as we left Box Elder we were deluged with Wall Drug signs. Here are just 5 of the 20, or so, pictures that Frederick took. And that was just a sampling of the hundreds (seemingly) of signs that appear along I-90.

Frederick's daily cloud picture.

Our lunch stop at a rest stop in South Dakota. All the rest stops have a teepee frame.

The Badlands to the south. Those are probably Wall Drug signs along the side of the road.

Some more prong-horn antelope, enlarged. We saw quite a few today, but not nearly the number we saw yesterday in Wyoming.

We also began to see signs of agriculture. Hay rolls in the field and some fields of harvested corn.

Driving through central So. Dakota, this popped-up on our gps. The community of Vivian.

The community is just a small gathering of buildings on the open plains.

Right about this time we entered the Central Time Zone and "lost" an hour.

This is a harvested field of sunflowers. There were quite a few of these fields.

All of a sudden, the flat plains begin to have some texture as we approach the Missouri River.

Crossing the Missouri River about 6 o'clock.

The campground where we are staying tonight is in Chamberlain, right along the banks of the Missouri River.