I Love Iowa! (Day 4 of the Cross-Country Road Trip)

Omaha, Nebraska, to Peru, Illinois

Driving time: 5+ hours

Most of our driving time today was spent in Iowa. We drove the length of the state along I-80, only stopping once. We’d planned to stop in Iowa City knowing it was a college town and would likely have healthy and tasty dining options. The night before, we’d scoped out a restaurant near the highway called Blackstone, which featured such items as crispy flatbreads, satay samplers, a gluten-free menu, and organic salad greens.

This was a great bit of planning on our part. That lunch was the best meal I’d had since before we left Salt Lake City, and all I had was a salad and the satay sampler, which we all shared. This was especially nice since I seem to have made a tactical error with my frozen smoothies (they’re really not that great after 4+ days in the cooler (frozen and thawed and, sometimes, refrozen and rethawed again) and my other snacks are nutritionally dense, but calorically light. I mean, 30 calories for a powdered greens drink is not going to get me very far, even if all I’m doing is sitting on my bum in the car).

I already had a positive impression of Iowa City because they’re home to a really great writing program (to which I’ve never had the courage to apply, comforting myself with the idea that one doesn’t need an MFA to be a writer while still retaining the dream that I might one day be part of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop). Lunch added to that positive impression, as did the surprising beauty of Iowa.

How the state got so hilly between flat Nebraska and flatter Illinois, I have no idea. All the way through Illinois, the largest hills were more like swells, like the land had paused in taking a breath (there’s a little something for the Iowa Writers’ Workshop), whereas in Iowa, they were out-and-out hills. It reminded me of eastern Ohio (yes, most everything reminds me of Ohio for one reason or another), specifically of visiting Malabar Farm and reading about how the owner of the farm (a Pullitzer Prize-winning author, by the way) had to research special farming techniques to work with rather than against the hilly terrain in that area. I noted that the corn in Iowa was planted in curving rows perpendicular to the incline of the hills to minimize erosion and maximize yield.

The one thing that gave me pause about living in Iowa (aside from the total absence of jobs in my husband’s field), was the presence all the way across the state of these unfortunately named service stations:

More photos of Iowa:

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