Driving Along in my Automobile

Saturday, August 15, 2015
Sioux City, Iowa, United States
I drove about 885km today.

Had a Starbucks breakfast in the Hyatt, and got out of St . Louis easily enough. I drove non-stop to the Kansas border, to a small place called Atchison, where the house Amelia Earhart was born in is located. Two grannies (or possibly great-great-grannies; they were quite rickety) let me in and told me what to look at, then I wandered around myself.

The house is now owned by the 99s, the international organisation of female pilots. I think it's mostly redone, and a lot of the stuff is "from the time period", rather than "hers", but there were a lot of things signed by Amelia, and Charles Lindbergh too, and artefacts like a swimsuit she had as a child. She lived there til she was about 11, and then moved to Des Moines and then Chicago and then all over the place, and my goodness I'm tired. How did she do it.

Somewhere along the way I stopped at a Wendy's, which was mostly empty, as usually here. What the hell. Myself and a couple of oversized trucks followed each other a good bit along the highway/freeway/motorway/parkway, what are they called.

ANYWAY. I'm in Sioux City, Iowa, because A) Des Moines is booked out for tonight and B) I was under the impression that I hadn't been to Iowa before. But as it turns out, I've been EXACTLY here before. Thanks, Father... Also, it just has one of those names that I love, whether the city reflects that or not.

I passed Omaha, Nebraska on the way (I was driving through Nebraska for about ten minutes today too) which is where that Air Force guy from South Bend was stationed once upon a time . I can see why he wouldn't be that interested out here...

Flat roads, flat land, corn fields, sky, sky, sky. That's all there is out here. As far as The state line, Missouri's roadkill was raccoons (and at least one skunk) and from Kansas on it was burst tyres and gophers. Again, that's all that there was to catch the eye. There aren't even hills.

There's less in Sioux City than there was in Omaha I think, and I'm wrecked, so I just checked into my hotel. After I'd checked in and parked, I went to my room, but the door wouldn't work. The girl had been really curious about what I was doing in Iowa, when she saw my Irish passport, so she was doubly surprised to see me back at the desk. The manager with her was SUPER unimpressed. She practically accused me of having disarmed the key with my phone, and I swore it had been in my hand all the time.

Then I got into the room and it was full of someone else's stuff. Back to the desk again. Then she was ready to accuse me of not actually making a reservation, or filling out her form (I DID BOTH) and when she found it, she started telling me about her bad day. She had to break into a room with a credit card because they "closed the door too hard". But then she gave me a free breakfast, so yay.

I finished one audiobook on the road, and am two thirds of the way through a second one. So that's an accomplishment, I suppose!

Zzz.


PS
Just learned the Iowa State Fair is on, so it's no surprise everywhere was booked out. Also, Hilary Clinton, Donald Trump and myself all chose to visit Iowa on the same day.
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Comments

Margie McNamara
2015-08-16

Nice to have those audio books for the long drives.

2025-02-17

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