IOWA!

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We Made It to Iowa!
After 14 ½ hours on the road, we arrived in Des Moines, IA at 9:00 p.m. We left town at 6:30 a.m. after Payton and “Bubba” (her Dad) had an emotional goodbye. Payton told me that it was the hardest thing she’d ever done. She cried for the 1st 40 miles, but insisted that she was “OK to drive”. I had my doubts, but she seemed rather emotionally unstable at the time, so I didn’t push it!

The trip went pretty smoothly, with the exception of us getting temporarily “misplaced” in a bad section of downtown Indianapolis. I woke Payton up as we were approaching the city to get her help in reading maps, watching the GPS screen, etc. Somehow, the maps didn’t match the directions that the GPS was giving us. I thought it might be a good idea to pull off the road and try to “analyze” things, but the always adventurous Payton said, “That’s what happens when you have too much information! We’ll put the maps away and just use the GPS.” To make a long story short, we took a wrong exit and ended up where we shouldn’t have been. The voice on the GPS kept saying, “RECALCULATING….GO LEFT!....GO LEFT!”....so Payton insisted that we GO LEFT. I started to say, “that looks like a one-way street”, but I went ahead and made the turn anyway. We were immediately faced with 4 lanes of oncoming traffic! After coming to a stop, bumper-to-bumper, with a BIG guy in a BIG car (and he didn’t look happy), we made an illegal U-turn and got back on track!

The rest of the trip paled in comparison to that adventure. We saw lots of plowed farmland, and road kill. Our posteriors were pretty numb by the time we made it to the hotel, so we used the exercise room for awhile and then went swimming. Neither of us had packed a swimsuit, so we ended up swimming in our clothes! I was afraid we might get kicked out, but I think they knew we were from WV so they were merciful to us!

I’ll try to update again tomorrow night. Should be in Wyoming by then…..I think.