Iowa for my mother

June 23 Mom tells me she has never driven through Iowa in the daytime and both times it was at night. This was also in the 70s when they drove from Ohio to Vancouver, Canada in a VW Bug. During mom's stint in Iowa, Dad woke up and said "Why are you driving down a dirt road?" Mom said "I'm on the interstate. They're doing construction." Dad went back to sleep. If you know my dad he can sleep anytime in a car. He took a nap on the way home from my drivers test. Well here you go, mom.

 First a little Illinois...it was hilly and the pics don't do it justice. Quite beautiful. Lots and lots of corn!

Here we were running south along the Mississippi hills were cool looking against the flat plains of farm ground.

IOWA.....
It wasn't as flat as I expected. Lots of hills and rolling countryside.

The mighty Mississippi!

 In the pictures, the land looks relatively flat but it is not. More like they cleared off southern Ohio and planted corn.

On top of the dam at Saylorville Lake. We stayed in Bob Shelter Recreation Area run by the Army Corp of Engineers. Cheap stays all around. Two nights for eighteen bucks.

Our trailer is behind the big tan one.

Des Moines was rather hilly also. It was a pretty town.

June 24 When I was planning the trip, I did more planning at the beginning of this trip than the other three because I wanted to have a place to spend the 4th of July (Mt Rushmore, teaser), I was looking at the map and I saw Matchstick Marvel Museum in Gladbrook, Iowa. I was sitting in my office, looked it up on Google and sent a message to Becky in the living room who approved of the stop. That's how we get it done. Patrick Acton builds models out of matchsticks and has been doing it for many years. He has 22 creations in Ripley's Believe it or Not locations.

USS Iowa

Cutty Sark

Even the figurehead was carved from matchsticks.

478,000 matchsticks, 10 gallons of glue and 2000 hours to construct

This is Locomotive 22 for the 22 item to go to Ripley's. The levers and buttons in the engine operate. Yes it has wings bolted on by quarter inch bolts. 

After Matchstick Marvels, we drove down to Marshalltown and had lunch at a Uncle Jack's Tacos. Then on back to Des Moines to a store called Wines of Iowa. They had every wine from every winery in Iowa in one place. Rather convenient for us.
It rained very hard that night and we were glad to be in the shelter of the dam. Des Moines had eighty mile per hour winds but we had nothing in our hollow. The Lord has kept us safe from really bad weather but we have been in and out of lots of rain.