Corgi Doghouse...out of mothballs!

Yep, we're officially back on the road, following Jim's four and a half month stint as volunteer at his beloved White Pines Forest State Park in NW Illinois. Westward Ho is our battle cry, as we head to Colorado. Yesterday we passed through Iowa's golden fields of grain being combined. On a mission, we passed by the exits for the Herbert Hoover museum, the Amana Colonies, the Buffalo Bill Museum, and all the outlet malls that line I-80. The autumn hues were full of red topped maple trees, and the purple/gold/red of the ash.
We stopped outside of Grinnell, Iowa, where at AJ's steakhouse, you grill your own steak over a six foot long charcoal fire pit. They offer two shelves of seasonings to put on the steak, and while standing there, at the ol' campfire, throw on some garlic bread, made by you, as well. They had a large cast iron dutch oven on the grill full of fried potatoes, and a salad bar. Crazy, but "we" cooked our own supper, and paid to do so! It was good, we're good cooks y'know, and we had nobody to send our steaks back to (if we had wanted to!).
We drove on just west of Des Moines, where we parked in a Cracker Barrel lot to sleep. We didn't see the Field of Dreams, but we did see a field of deer!

Today, we drove right by the turn off for John Wayne's birthplace and the Bridges of Madison County...which was hard to do, and headed to Nebraska. The rolling prairie of Iowa looked like quilt squares, all different colors, and very pretty. East of Omaha, we saw wind farms, under construction with more than two dozen in each section, new-age mills replacing the historic danish windmills of the area. We also saw an Oscar Meyer Wienie mobile built on top of a mini cooper! What a sight that was!!
The Omaha welcome sign is just under a "big boy" the largest steam locomotive ever made, on a bluff, just across the Missouri river. The Union Pacific railroad has a huge history in this area of the country.
The wind is big in Nebraska. The vast vistas of flat, open land, makes it so. Jake, our male corgi, looked like the flying nun as we walked them at a Flying J. He just about became airborne...I'm not kidding!
Diesel prices are pretty good...3.59 a gallon, and gas is a dollar cheaper than that. Jim's staying close to 55 on the interstate, trying to maintain his good mileage of 9.6 miles to a gallon!

We ended up in Kearney, Nebraska tonight. We're sleeping in the Wal-Mart parking lot. We plan on being at the Fort Museum at opening in the morning, so we can be on our way afterwards. The Archway spans I-80, and is a tribute to the half million people who trekked across America, through Nebraska, between 1843-1869, pioneering their way West. Later, the railroads connected east to west following the Civil War, then Eisenhower built the interstates, 70 & 80, in the mid-fifties. The architecture alone makes it interesting enough to go. This place was featured in the book, 1 of the 1,000 places to see before you die.