Well, we are deep into Iowa. I’m sure we had the air conditioner running, as we only got a little over 100 miles on a tank of gas. We stopped in this little town called “Little Sioux”, seriously on empty, and it looked like there was no gas station. The first one we came upon was a Cenex, which was closed down tight, out of business, and had weeds growing all over the parking lot.
We kept going further, and came up on this building, one pump, that had regular gas...Thank goodness. We filled up, and it came to $91.00. So we paid basically $100.00 dollars for 100 miles. We were just grateful they even had gas.
We spent the night at the KOA in Sioux Falls with my friend Joelle, her husband Kent and their two boys Carter and Grayson, who are from Winnipeg Canada. It was so fun. Although Joelle and I have never met before in person, we have been Internet friends for 6 years. We’ve also talked on the phone several times over the years.
It was like talking to someone I had been friends with for years, it was amazing. I had such a good time. We were even too busy talking to realize we forgot part of dinner last night. Our husbands were talking just as much, and the kids got along great and were fast friends from the get go.
So we took them swimming in the pool, and both of my kids turned into fishes yesterday. Brian was still really scared and clinging on to me, but was getting a little easier about it. Leslie, she was already doing fine, but became even braver.
I tried to coax Brian into jumping off the side of the pool to me, and he was very scared and wouldn’t do it, until he saw Carter do it. That was all it took. He started jumping off the side to me, and began to trust his life jacket. He began dog-paddling to the edge, holding onto the edge to work his way to the ladder and then jumped again. When Leslie saw Brian doing it, of course she had to get into the act and started jumping to Rick. To say the kids had a good time is an understatement. To say the grownups had a good time was an even bigger understatement.
As we are driving through Iowa, I’m struck by the sameness of it. I guess I expected it to look so different than what I am used to, and though it does, not so much that it looks foreign either. Just normal, green country side with a lot of corn farms. The corn looks like it is doing well, and hopefully this is representative of the corn crop as a whole, and not just the area we are in due to the floods that happened in the previous months.
We are currently driving through “Council Bluffs Iowa” and can see city center of Omaha off in the distance. We are now at the halfway point between Sioux Falls and Kansas City.
Hi there! Love following your stories as you visit different places! So glad your having such a great time!
Posted by: Laura R | July 13, 2008 at 06:19 PM