Friday, May 21, 2010

Glimpses from our Midwest Tour...

Of course, I took a picture of the sunrise. (Don't I always?)
This was somewhere on I-680, close to the western border of Iowa on our trip home on Wednesday.

It's what we saw shortly after crossing the Missouri River on the Old Mormon Bridge.
This was the first time we had entered and exited Nebraska using I-680 which cuts across the corner of the Omaha metro area as opposed to I-80 which trucks right through the center of town. We can't believe we missed this easy route for so long ! This is about the volume of traffic we saw both ways. The I-80 route is quite congested crossing right through the downtown business district. Traffic is fairly heavy on that highway 24/7.

Okay, continuing this backwards travelogue, Western Iowa has embraced the concept of wind energy in a big way. There are stretches of road where you can see windmills lined up for acres and acres. I think they look impressive and rather majestic.
It was really quite breezy on Wednesday and those big old blades were spinning quickly. Looking down a long line of them, I imagined a group of synchronized swimmers moving in perfect choreography. (Okay, it was very early and I really did get that image in my head. The Big Guy suggested I should nap a bit when I said that.)
Backtracking to the beginning of the trip, we made it to Davenport, Iowa the first day. Davenport, one of the Quad-Cities is on the far eastern border of the state and sits right along the Mississippi. We arrived on May 5, Cinco de Mayo. The riverboat casino, Rythym City, (part of the Isle of Capri casino corporation) was celebrating in a big way with a Mexican buffet, party beads and a Mexican dance band so we spent a few hours there after our long 13 hour drive, dining, listening and (yep) gambling a bit.
Well, I'm still recovering from the long drive, so I'll stop there for the night. I can't wait to show you the unusual squirrels we found in Bayliss Park in Council Bluffs!!

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