Thursday, June 12th

Hunting Blue

Clouds were blocking the sky, not quite as angry here as in the west. It was still rather warm, though, a bit over seventy degrees. Conveniently, the hotel was right by a petrol station, so by twenty to ten all the day’s chores were done and I was ready to rock and roll. The map suggested a conveniently off-piste route north about twelve miles east of Macon. Its turn-off from the main dual carriageway was marked with a large cemetery, American-style: just tombstones on a impeccably mowed field. Yet with two busy roads, eternal peace must have been hard to come by.

The new road was a lovely narrow highway through the countryside. Running mostly imperturbably straight through the hilly fields, it provided for the occasional free roller coaster ride. A sign announced that is was impassable at high water, followed by water gauges indicating flooding of up to three feet. At the heart of the sink was a one lane bridge with a speed restriction of fifteen mph for trucks that looked the part.

Having thus dealt with the swamps of the North Fork Salt River, the landscape became more and more flat and the ride faster and faster. As a precaution, the road did a surprise right turn at a random intersection. As the sign indicating this was only at the intersection itself my emergency breaking manoeuvre was too little too late and I had to back up.

The turn brought me to Leonard that even with a population of 61 proudly proclaimed its city limits. The term clearly seemed to have a different meaning here.

North of Edina, raindrops started to appear on the wind shield. Ahead was the front of the clouds with hazily overcast sky beyond. The front looked quite a bit darker. Wasn’t that part the dangerous one where tornadoes would develop? Whenever I had accidentally zapped into the weather channel, they were on and on about developing tornadoes. There had been a surprise hailstorm somewhere in Nebraska destroying all glass in an entire village last week. As this was when Nebraska was still one of my targets, I decided to avoid the weather channel at all cost from thereon.

To the west the front indeed looked somewhat menacing and may have indeed been trying to touch down. But ahead north, despite the dark clouds everything looked calm. Famous last words.

I kept crossing the various incarnations of the Fabius River, more then once reading the sign as Fabulous River and then being disappointed. At least the North Fabius River which I crossed in the village of Memphis indeed looked rather swanky, though.

A few miles on and I was in Iowa. This state line didn’t feature a bar and casino, but just south of it on the Missouri side was a small barn where, according to the sign at least, fireworks were being traded. On the Iowa side, a road side proclaimed that littering came at a more reasonable twenty-five dollar fine plus removal cost. A little onwards was the Iowa version of EADS, which here doesn’t build fancy aeroplanes but raises cattle.

I kept turning in order to maintain a northerly course on roads that were on my map. The village of Leando would have looked abandoned if it hadn’t been for the cars parked outside its houses. The main attraction was the construction side for a new bridge over the Des Moines River whose shores the village rested on. On the other side was Douds, looking a little more prosperous but not by much.

People seemed to be really fond of sheet metal here, though. Most barns were made from it while the old wooden ones were falling apart. Even some of the houses were covered with the stuff.

The map suggested that in Eldon there was an attraction called American Gothic house. Road signs reassured that claim. Not having the faintest idea what that could possibly be, I followed the sign. There was a turn, then another, then a third. I started to fear that, given the name, the whole point was to lead unassuming travellers into an early demise. Luckily, a parking lot and a visitor centre appeared eventually on a lazy field near the end of town.

It turned out that American Gothic was a rather famous painting by Iowa painter Grant Wood. It shows a stern father with a pitchfork and his begrudgingly obedient daughter in front of their house. This house was what was on display here. The house was a five hundred square foot simple white wooden home. Its most remarkable feature, and reason for the name of the picture, was a Gothic window in the gable more appropriate for a church. The believe is that Mr. Dibbles, builder and first owner of the house, ordered the windows from the Sears catalogue, presumably on a whim.

Visitors are encouraged to produce their own photographic version of the picture. The visitor centre has the attire and accessories, most importantly the pitchfork, available. Markings in the little square in front of the house suggest the correct standing positions and instructions are provided for adjusting your camera correctly. Unfortunately, the only other people in attendance at the moment was a group of middle-aged bikers. Although, come to think of it now, they would probably have made for quite a remarkable version. Dang.

The town itself looked quite well off. There were quite a few stone buildings at the centre, some even multi-storied. One of them was the library in a cute little single-storey building.

Cute, however, wasn’t a term appropriate for Ottumwa, the next bigger town. Instead of circumnavigating it by way of the motorway, I decided to use its business loop. It seemed to be doing a full sweep of town with a focus on backyards. First, though, it travelled along main street beset with plenty of rather dodgy looking buildings, sheds, and factories. It then turned left across the Des Moines River. A bit upstream was first a broken railway bridge and then a dam. The regular railway line ran parallel through main street through town. At the station, an Amtrak passenger train was waiting.

I finished the loop and turned onto the northbound highway which entailed crossing the river yet again, this time on a little more modern bridge. From up here, downtown looked not in the least dodgy but rather romantic. Perspective is everything.

North of Ottumwa I found yet another numbered side road that would take me further north off the beaten track. For the first miles, its state was rather abominable. That was explained by a road repair crew employing East German road repair tactics: Just dump a bunch of asphalt onto a pothole, steamrolle over, done.

The villages along the road, first Delta and then the rather charmingly named What Cheer, were still of the In Need of Paint variety. Delta had a big white building brick building by the road with a shop that looked long since closed but was indeed open for business. What Cheer, featuring a little park by the creek, however, had a rather fancy house by the road intersection featuring a stack of oriel windows.

What Cheer also was the last village to cross for a while. The road now sneaked through in between villages. It crossed over the Interstate motorway and Historic Route 6 a little after and just before crossing modern day US 6. However, neither my map nor Wikipedia know much about it.

Soon, there was a town again: Belle Plaine, which for once wasn’t a overly courageous misnomer. The town, in the valley of the Iowa River, had a formidable downtown, perhaps three blocks long and filled with shops of all kinds.

Outside, I noticed a strong wind. Sneakily, the hills had mostly gone and so had the trees. The landscape was now flat with larger fields. The hazy overcast was gone too: I had found blue skies at last.

The road ended rather unceremoniously on the outskirts of Waterloo. I swirled around town, trying to find a way north without using the motorway. I found Prospect Boulevard, a wide street running down a hill. It consisted of two lanes separated by a lawn and trees. A string of wealthy homes ran along both sides, each house trying to be more pompous then the last. There was plenty of turrets and columns. Only at the bottom of the hill did the houses calm down.

Further picking roads at random I arrived at the downtown area of bricks and concrete overshadowed by the bridges of the motorway. I decided to use it to get out of town and to neighbouring Cedar Falls. Its centre was by the Cedar River, a park right next to it and Main Street of perpendicular to the left. Being a university city, Main Street featured quite a few pubs and clubs and restaurant before leading out towards the University campus.

Somewhere out there even was a hotel, a somewhat odd structure of a motel placed inside a building with a pool in the middle. Surely a good place to end the day.