Summer Trip 2023 Day 4

19 June 2023

I had planned today as a relaxing day on back roads before I’m back on I-80 for three days in a row. The route was just 346 miles across Iowa and into Nebraska, ending in Lincoln. But first, here is sunset last night, colored by the clouds and (I’m sure also by smoke from the Canadian wildfires):

Before leaving this morning, I took a short walk around the area where my hotel was, an area with several very new hotels. After so many years away from the midwest, I’m always caught off guard by the spaces between everything – there’s so much “empty” here:

Of course, this part of the country is also where you can drive for six hours to get to the next state (unlike the Northeast where you’d cross several states in that time!):

I only wish I’d been quicker on the draw today because I could have taken a splendid photo of a wind turbine. I drove through a part of western Iowa with a lot of turbines in an area of rolling hills and curves; I came around one curve and suddenly there was one looming directly ahead looking very much like the turning blades might hit the car.

The route did what I’d intended it to do – it was relaxing and reasonably scenic and somehow I managed to avoid a lot of traffic except for a couple of very short sections. Tomorrow, I’m back on I-80 and suffering the overabundance of tractor-trailers trying to get up hills as I gain a few thousand feet of elevation into Wyoming.