Cleveland Ohio to Davenport Iowa

We leave Cleveland early and drive a good part of the day, covering the rest of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana and stopping in Iowa. We decided not to drive into Chicago and instead skirt the southern edge. Sydney said in his book, “We passed through a large section of farming country, containing extensive fields of corn, wheat and cabbage, though principally corn.” It is the same today. Large farms with huge sweeping fields. This time of year they are starting with new tender green shoots.

The farm houses are plunked down in the middle of vast spaces with a few trees around them. It reminds me of “In Cold Blood”. The wind is fierce. There are tons of red wing black birds, one every 20 to 30 yards on the wire fence. They must be guarding their territory because we saw three or four fights, with the birds wrestling down to the ground together.
At one point in a small town both L and I smelled wonderful fresh baking bread. It was thick in the air and everywhere. Then Lorena saw a sign on a huge silo, “grain terminal”.

When Sydney went through this area, he said there had been a long drought and everything was covered with dust. For us it was the complete opposite. They had terrible flooding last week. The river was still very high and close to the edges of the bridges. Lots of sandbags and debris around and people were still stunned. I remember hearing about it on the news but it is so differant when you see it.

There is lots of German influence (or at least more than we are used to) Wurst, beer, pretzels and town names. More mid-west tomorrow.