Corn and Beans, Corn and Beans.........

Driving through downtown Peoria, endless roadworks, pouring with rain and serious bolts of lightening all around us - NOT my idea of a good start to the day! We already had to start the day with a talk to ourselves. We decided that we would have no expectations of what this trip will bring. We will do what we can - and what will be will be. So. With a different attitude we headed into the rain. Frank has no problem at all with driving in this weather - but I slam on brakes on the passenger side and suck in my stomach as we pass by the concrete barriers a mere inch from my side - or so it seems! I should go and bury my head but dont want to miss anything, so I sit there trying really hard to stop the squeaks as the trucks scream by and erase the rest of the world by dumping the road water on our windshield! It seems as if the noise is ten times worse when the road is wet too. But, as usual, Frank got us out of there quite smoothly. He just looks across at me and smiles. There are cornfields everywhere here - right up to the roads and really close to the houses too. We see many boards advertising that it is being grown for biodiesel which I find very interesting.... They really do make use of every inch of ground to grow this stuff. The plants looks really healthy and many places are selling corn on the cob right out of the fields. Maybe we will stop tomorrow. We were driving along a small country road this morning and saw a railway bridge up ahead. Nothing said to slow down, yield or beware of anything unusual - except a normal looking roadsign that we could only read when it was too late to do anything about it. The sign read: "Bridge only designed to hold ONE truck! Yield to oncoming trucks." Oh. There is no way you can see what vehicles are approaching - its a bridge! And by the time we read this sign and it actually sunk in, we were already on the bridge.........with the train going underneath us, knowing that there would have been no way to stop if there was an oncoming truck....... very strange and breathtaking in its own way. We stopped laughing about a mile down the road. We drove most of the morning with the windows and vents wide open, barefoot and music playing. Yes, the radio actually worked until just after 1.30pm when it switched off and simply wont wake up again. We have an external hard drive with tons of music on it, but have not yet found where we packed it. We drove through Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and both almost gagged! I dont know what they are doing there, but hoo boy, there is no way we could have stopped there at all. It was unbelievable! And we found that Iowa's rest stops have high speed internet! We found two reasons to stop at them before leaving the state and I managed to get some emails fired off and had a short IM with Katie. Very nice. :-) And then right as we were leaving Iowa this evening, I bought a newspaper. The front page was all about Lance Armstrong and that he was going to be riding in Iowa today, giving a speech about cancer, this evening and riding a little more tomorrow. This morning we had been15 miles, at most, from where all this happened and had no clue! How good would that have been to have got in the middle of all of that?? It was WAY too late to turn around and go back...... We had a good few people waving at us today giving the thumbs up sign and even a train tooted at us while the driver waved out of the window. We have added 4 more names to the sides today as well. It was a quiet kind of day, but Skilpad is feeling more like home every minute. Slowly we are sorting out the different containers that have anything from face cream to a camera in them. The cupboards in the kitchen have already been repacked and I am sure that will happen again. We did bring a goodly amount of food with us as we dont often eat out - Frank cooks too well for that! :-) We found a little campground off the I90 interstate headed directly west down the bottom part of Minnesota. The manager came and chatted to us for a good while, but eventually the mosquitoes drove us inside again. We went for a shower and I blessed the fact that I had "shower shoes". Even in the shower, the bugs were horrendous! I got to eat three of them before learning to keep my mouth firmly shut, ever tried shampooing your hair with your mouth closed? And then I saw a big brown bug crawling up the wall right next to me. I could not identify what type he was as I did not have my glasses on, but lets just say that my legs did not get shaved and all the soap came off in record time! Tomorrow we will head west into Sioux Falls, South Dakota and then up directly north on the I29 into North Dakota. Last time we came up this way we went across South Dakota, so want to do it a little differently this time. We will then head directly west again towards Montana and to Glacier National Park. We alternate between the interstates and the smaller state roads. Both are good in their own way and we really enjoy the little towns along the way. Thats it for today. It was a good one. Love to all Especially U3 Annie and Frank XXXXXXxxx