Day 2

Everywhere on the road there are Harley Davidson's with license plates from across the U.S. Last night in front of the Super 8 I asked a biker if he was headed to Sturgis. He told me that bike week is NOW!!!! Mummy was really counting on going there and sporting her new leather bikini, but I told her that it'd totally mess up our schedule. She's so upset about it, even now, like 24 hours later, that she's sleeping on the floor, refusing to share the bed with me.

So, this morning we left Knoxville, Illinois at 9:58 am Central Time. Way later than we wanted to because we were so tired. We crossed the Mississippi River near Burlington, Iowa and traveled west on 34 across the entire state. America is full of corn.



In the first 20 minutes on the road in Iowa we saw a fire on the side of the road.



And an overturned tractor trailer. Men were cleaning up the watermelons that got spilled.





And I can't figure out if you get gas here or see XXX movies!?



We passed the "American Gothic" house, you know, the painting by Grant Wood of the man & woman farmers with the pitchfork? Yeah, that's in Iowa.

We stopped in Albia, Iowa to gas up and get fed. Mummy went to a garage sale across the street from the gas station and bought 5 polished river stones for $1.00. The guy who sold them to her said they were from California.

We ate at the Highway Restaurant in Albia. The guy at the garage sale and the lady at the gas station both recommended it. There was a restaurant across the street from the Highway called the White Buffalo, but we heard it was for rich attorneys. I had the BLT and a cup of soup. The food was great and I ate it fast enough to get an instant belly-ache. But all I had to take was a Tums and I was fine. There was no cure for Mycol's belly-aching, though. He was utterly embarrassed to be seen eating with us "tourists". We had to change tables when the 2 old ladies in booth 1 got up because I needed the outlet to recharge my laptop. We had the computer, cell phones, and the camera all plopped on the table along with our notebooks and journal. I took a picture of our waitress, Sam.




She was real sweet and I had to represent and let her know I serve, too. I told Mycol that people ask to sit near outlets at the Fish Market all the time to plug in their laptops. He was like, yeah, because they are businessmen, and I don't have any business! I said, "You know what else they do at the Fish Market? They take pictures of their food!"









We crossed the state line into Nebraska at 5:02 pm. We'd only traveled 328.9 miles so far.




Plattsmouth, Nebraska:







SOY!!!!



We thought we'd sleep in Hastings, Nebraska tonight. It was listed in my "Let's Go Road-Tripping U.S.A" travel guide. Hastings didn't immediately endear us. So we moved on towards Kearney, which is where we are tonight. But we didn't leave Hastings before Mummy made two new "amigos". She asked them if she could get their picture and they asked us in their rudimentary english where we were from. We told them Pennsylvania. Then Mummy asked them where they were from. And they said "Des Moines".