Day 5 - Iowa to Illinois to Indiana

Sunday, August 10th

This morning I left Ottumwa and headed east on Hwy 34. The first hour I traveled through fog, so not much sightseeing. Fortunately the fog lifted in time for me to see the gothic, victorian buildings protruding through the treetops of Burlington, Iowa. The trees out here are like large brocolli, I'm sure you've seen pictures if you haven't actually seen "them". The sight caught my attention as I was coming up around a hill and then began my decent just in time to see the old town of Burlington on the south side of the highway. I took the next exit.

From here I drove down to the Port of Burlington and pulled out my AAA tour book to see what the story was with Burlington. I read about "Snake Alley", the street Ripley's Believe It or Not dubbed the crookedest road in the world. The street was made to zig zag for the horse-drawn carriages to easily maneuver down the steep hill.

The Mississippi River from the Port of Burlington.

And the bridge that crosses over it into Illinois.

The Mississippi River looking South

Getting ready to cross the Mississippi River

Many things have snuck up on me during this trip...Crazy Horse Mountain, the Badlands, Burlington, but nothing beats crossing over that bridge to be met by the remnants of the Mississippi flooding earlier this past spring. I wanted to take pictures but at the same time didn't want to be a tourist photo-op'ing tragedy... so, I did my best to record what I could. I've only seen flooding on t.v. so this made a tangible imprint on my mind and perspective.

I find it interesting that just on the other side of the Mississippi (Burlington) there isn't any visible evidence of what has taken place across the river.

Eventually I pass the flooding...to meet my doom.....

Thankfully the corn fields are still broken up by little towns....and with those little towns....roadside cemeteries. I was particularly fascinated by the little town of Galesburg. The first thing you see is a cemetery, the welcoming sign backs up to it. I continued to drive through and Hope Cemetery caught my eye. The way the massive head stones/monuments were scattered, no apparant rows, not neatly manicured, different heights, different sizes....I think my next expose will be on the "cemeteries of yesterday".

Came out of Galesburg on Hwy 97 and not much has changed

I drove straight through Illinois with nothing but corn to my left and corn to my right....at one point there were miles of wind turbines in the corn fields...but otherwise, corn. I know Iowa is considered the corn state, but based on what I have seen of the two, Iowa has nothing on Illinois. I decided to break up the monotany by stopping in Gibson City, a little town on Hwy 9, to have lunch and wash my car. Car washes appear to be the liquor stores of Illinois...there's one on every corner in every town. Time to get back on the road.....

It wasn't much later that I crossed into Indiana, about 5 minutes into Indiana, I lost another hour. Welcome to the Eastern Time Zone-we hope you enjoy your stay. This got me to thinking, what do people do who live in one time zone and work in another? You would always be gaining and/or losing an hour. How does that work? I was really hoping the corn fields would stay behind in Indiana, but no such luck, it was about this time I decided I had seen all the corn I can handle for one day and was ready to get on the intersate. After about 16 miles of losing my hour, the road curved away from the corn field, presented a few trees and then...."hello" I'm Layfayette....wait a minute, I'm in the middle of Purdue University.

I had to go down one more off-beat highway before transitioning to fast lanes and decided to get gas. That is when I took this picture. The tombstones of forgotten roads. And an excellent definition as to why it takes me all day to go a distance that would only take me 4 hours on the interstate. But I loved every minute of it!

I pulled off the highway just outside Idianapolis and plan on getting on the interstate in the morning. Depending on how long I stay on the interstate, I may make it all the way to Virginia tomorrow. But looking at my map...I may want to pull off in Ohio...we'll see.

Goodnight!