Day 2- Surviving Iowa

Morning brought a fine mist in the air and fog covered the grassland prairies of western Iowa. We spent the night in a roadside rest area just east of the Missouri river and the Nebraska state line. We survived the night despite the warnings.

Yesterday, we made quick work of the rest of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. We crossed the mighty Mississippi at about 4:00 in the afternoon and decided to get off the highway and stop for a quick dip in Archeology, the office of the television show American Pickers.

The Girls at the Mighty, Muddy, Mississippi

Coralville, Iowa is about a third of the way across the state on I-80. I hope I never have to go to Coralville again… at least not with my current GPS. There is nothing wrong with Coralville mind you; apparently TomTom hasn’t invested sufficient research into this region of the state to accurately place the Panera Bread. We drove around in circles for thirty minutes looking for the bloody eatery (Daughter (the scribe) notes: as you can see dad is a little bitter, and poor TomTom is lucky to be alive). Wandering around, searching, is bad enough in a normal sized vehicle. Having to maneuver the unnatural platypus through intricate ballet moves as we negotiated through multiple parking lots pushed me to my breaking point. The Panera Bread was INSIDE the mall.

With our ballet performance behind us, we set out on I-80 to conquer the rest of Iowa before bed. As we drove for the next several hours we could see periodic lightning flashes across the entire western sky. The frequency and intensity of the lightning was increasing the further west we drove. When we merged onto I-680 near Council Bluff, Iowa, we realized we were the only vehicle on the road… a very eerie feeling. Of course, our imagination quickly connected the dots between Iowa, the flat plains, thunderstorms, and tornados. At that moment we were “hanging our hat” on the fact that this was not tornado season. The weather band on the radio revealed the truth; severe thunderstorms, damaging winds in excess of 60 mph, deadly lightning, golf ball sized hail, and seek shelter. I don’t know about you, but I saw the movie Twister, and these ingredients preceded every tornado in that movie. Based on the description of its path, we were driving head on into it. Without a lot of options, we ducked into the next roadside rest area to hunker down for the night. No sooner had we parked when it started to downpour, then the hail started. All the while, the lightning flashed and the wind blew. Fortunately this was, in fact, the extent of the storm. As I lay in bed listening to the hail bounce off the roof, I wondered: Given our size and shape, would we look like just another trailer in a trailer park in the eyes of a tornado?

The RV After the Storm

Psalm 29: 2 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.