Day 11: Back on the road

After spending 3 great days in Minneapolis resting, refueling, and recharging I'm back on the road. Tonight, I'm in Waterloo, IA. The drive today was pretty uneventful - I only spent about 4 hours on the road (didn't leave Minneapolis until after noon) and never did find my one planned picture spot (a tin man family). Actually this now makes 2 (well, maybe two-and-a-half) times that I couldn't find this picture. When I went in to MN I looked for it, but was stymied by a closed road and removed bridge (along with hunger and the grumpiness that goes with it). But after a google maps search I was sure I'd found it. So today on the way out of town I went hunting... but then missed the exit (darned construction and closed exits) and had to drive an extra 15 miles to get back to it, only to find that when I got to where I swore it would be, there was no tin man to be found :(

Anyway, the rest of the drive was just about getting from point A to B. The Iowa I saw was just corn, corn, and more corn split up by some small chicken sheds (I see a lot of two-shed chicken feeding operations amid the corn; I'm a bit surprised to see so many small ones, or at least what I think are small; I would have expected bigger. I wonder if they are just egg laying chickens rather than for meat. Anyone know?)

But I did have two odd-ball moments in the car - what I'm calling Seattle moments... The first is that I'm so used to overcast skies that I can barely handle the brightness of the sun. Even with sunglasses I'm squinting like crazy. And everytime I get to a spot where the sun is blocked by a cloud, it feels so good. You'd think I've been living in a closet for a few years the way I feel blinded by the sun! The second one was when I was just mindlessly driving and I found myself looking off into the distance wondering why I couldn't see Mt Rainier! Rainier is a sight that always made me feel at home in Seattle so I couldn't help but laugh at myself for somehow thinking it should be out in the middle of Iowa :)

Oh, and yesterday I visited the Wedge Co-op in Minneapolis to restock on food (thanks Theresa for the suggestion!) It was so much fun - I felt totally at home there. Very PCC-like. I could definitely live there and be happy :)

But tomorrow I have an awesome new adventure planned... I'm going to head over to Wisconsin in search of cheese curds. I was introduced to cheese curds last night and now I'm giddy to find more. I learned I needed to find really fresh ones so clearly, a trip to Wisconsin is in order. Plus they have a large beer statue, so I figured that would make for a good representation of the state :) After that, I'll head down south, probably as far as Davenport, IA or a bit further depending on how quickly I'm moving and then should get into St Louis on Tuesday to visit my family.

Oh, and my favorite car snack of the day has been rainier cherries - thought I can't help but laugh that I drove 2000 miles to buy Washington state cherries. Does that still count as a local food?