Day 4: North Platte, NE to Davenport, IA (578 mi)

I take back what I said yesterday about the Nebraska plains. As you head further east, they get really flat. There are a few ripples in the soil here and there, but that's about all until you get into the last 30 miles or so of eastern Nebraska. In Iowa, the plain is mostly rolling hills, but there still are a few places where there are no hills of any import for miles around. To someone used to the mountainous Pacific Northwest, it's eerie. No pictures of anything outside of the car today--no point, really. It was all just cornfields for the most part. (Davenport is, by they way, in Scott County.) It was nice, though, not to change time zones today; the entire trip was in the Central time zone. Losing an hour when driving for many of same is not fun.

The cats have gotten into the routine. They, in fact, seem happiest when in their cage in the car. (Gizmo has spent two of three nights hiding under the bed and is trying to get under the bed in the current room, but that isn't possible here. It also wasn't possible to hide under the bed in the second place we stayed, or he probably would have spent three of three nights hiding under the bed so far.) Gizmo seems healthier than he's been in months. Apparently, the long lazy days of dozing contentedly in the cage with no other worries agree with him. For this, we are very happy.

A typical scene inside the car

Rachel wants me to tell everyone that we tried to give cheddar cheese (a small piece) to Phoenix this morning and he just sniffed it and wandered off. Who's ever heard of a cat that doesn't eat cheddar cheese? He sure begs for it enough, so I guess is smells good even if it isn't worth eating to him.

Getting to the drive itself today, other than the flat plains, the trip through Nebraska can be noted for two things: "road construction" that consisted of many miles of closed lanes with nothing in them (no workers, no parked construction equipment; nothing) and the fact that we never saw a police car of any jurisdiction during the entire trip across the state. (So far, in crossing Iowa we've only seen one police car and that was for the Pottawattamie County police. It drove by while we were getting gas. There are about 5 miles left of Iowa for tomorrow morning, then we cross the Mississippi into Illinois.) There was one place where an electric sign warned drivers that there were state police ahead so not to be speeding, but the police were either absent or invisible. (The whole concept of invisible police scares me, though, so I prefer to believe they were absent.)

Gas prices continue to be strange. They have pretty much leveled out for the last 400 miles or so, but the "super" grade tends to run about 10 cents a gallon cheaper than "regular". I think this is because super unleaded contains 10% (corn) ethanol and this is corn country, but that's just a guess.

Oh yeah, there was one more thing in Nebraska that was interesting: the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument. I wish we could have gotten a picture of this huge arch over the freeway, but by the time we realized it went over the road, it was too late to dig the camera out. (Remember, we are not sightseeing, so any picture would have had to have been out the windshield of the car as we approached.) Here is a web site for the monument with a picture and an explanation of what it is.

In Iowa, we passed through a small corner of Madison County, but we saw no bridges.

Now for the most entertaining part of this post: weird place and business names!

First there was Kim's Nebraskaland Truck Center. I didn't see the place itself, but there was a billboard advertising it a few miles east of North Platte. (Speaking of billboards, can anybody explain to me why the billboards in Nebraska and Iowa are a couple of hundred yards off the freeway? It makes them hard to read sometimes, which is annoying when you are an out-of-stater trying to figure out where to stop for lunch.)

Next we have Pottawattamie County in western Iowa. Don't know what it means or even how to pronounce it, and we spent quite a while trying to find something with big enough print for us to see for sure how it was spelled as its length seems to make everyone want to write it in a smaller font than can really be read. (Edit: According to the New York Times, the pronunciation is pawt-uh-WAHT-uh-mee (and Barack Obama had trouble pronouncing it about a year ago when giving a speech there). It is one spelling for the Potawatomie tribe that once lived in the area.)

Third we have the town of What Cheer, Iowa. No explanation necessary.

Fourth is the (former) colony town of Homestead. That doesn't sound all that funny on its own, but it was the seventh of a group of towns all founded by the same people. The towns were Amana, West Amana, South Amana, High Amana, Middle Amana, East Amana, and Homestead. (Start Sesame Street jingle, "One of these names is not like the other...")

Finally, we have the Iowa gas station/convenience store chain of Kum & Go. It may be just us, but we thought that sounded more like the name of a roadside quick-service brothel. It also cast the chain of gas stations called Love's into a different light and left me wondering if the gas stations were full service or self service (and what, exactly, that meant in this case). I'll leave any further off-color jokes to you.