Towards Illinois

Another long hot day. Iowa has trees losing their leaves but this seems to be due to lack of rain rather  than seasonal chills. Here's a typical October roadside scene.

All the time we were journeying today Steve seemed strangely excited and when we came to Kalona all became clear.

There are about 7,000 Amish in Iowa with Kalona being the oldest settlement. Here's an example of how old technology lines up against new.

Roadsigns R us

Finally for today Steve's roadside hygiene took another predictable dip when he emerged from what was supposed to be a refreshing plunge.

Iowa

Iowa has been a really mixed bag so far. The roads are terrible from our viewpoint as the breakdown lane is gravel and therefore a nightmare to run on. Autumn seems to have been put on hold as it's still over 80 degrees Fahrenheit each day and very windy.

Some halfwit threw a carton of water from a passing car which fortunately hit Chris rather than Steve and then half a mile further on, a man flagged us down to say that he had seen what had happened and had taken a photo of the vehicle, which you can see below. Any good Iowan citizen reading this should feel free to pass it on to their local sheriff! (The plate is 965 TLO)

On a more positive note, most of the locals seem to be extremely friendly. We've had meals paid for, people stopping to give us apples and generally a great deal of interest in what we're doing.

Video Clip Update - Entering Iowa and Steve's diner wisdom

A short clip accounting Chris and Steve's journey into Iowa, as well as of Steve showing everyone the mental ramifications of running across america.

Another scorcher

Here in Iowa it remains stubbornly hot. The only thing to take the edge off the heat are the very strong cross winds which have been blustering around all day.
In the western states, particularly in Utah we were struck  by the number of  derelict properties. Here in Iowa the landscape is altogether tidier and more orderly. Here's a rare example of an old deserted cabin.

As a mark of the changing seasons  we passed through several towns where pumpkins and halloween were beginning to flex their festive muscles.

The dog that lived at this address soon became best mates with Steve.

Sometimes roadsigns can be baffling. Any thoughts on this one?!

Finally, we have found the people of Iowa so welcoming and friendly. In Carson, Boo, who ran the local diner, insisted that our breakfast was on the house. Here she is giving us a send off after making sure we had
a really good meal.

Hot sun beating on the blacktop

Still in the mid eighties out here and we are struggling with it. Anyway, enough of the drama, here's a shot of us having just crossed the Missouri on a bridge that wasn't washed away by the South Dakota ice flows.


Today Steve took an early bath en route when he was advised to take advantage of the roadside facilities.

Here's Chris at the city limits of a  Nebraskan town which almost gave its name to a search engine.

East to Omaha

We haven't seen a cloud in the Nebraskan sky for four days - not even a single wispy line to shield us from the remains of the Summer. At 5 o'clock today a neon sign outside a bank said 83 degrees. Surely the Autumn will arrive soon?!

We have again been struck by our inability to judge distances even when this is too early in the day to blame the effects of beer. When the grain elevator in Central City came into view way down the road we estimated that it was 5 miles away. After 40 minutes of slowish running directly towards it  we then estimated that it was still 4 miles adrift. When we  arrived in town we were standing next to a square, white, block type building of truly immense proportions - similar to an albino version of Guildford Cathedral.

For those of you who don't have the faintest idea of what a grain elevator looks like, here's an example of a far more circular one  from  earlier in the day.

                                                   Polite notice in the Shelton general store.

Video Clip Update - Entering Nebraska

A short visual clip recounting Chris and Steve's travels through Nebraska so far.

Stray Dogs

Living up to his reputation as Dr Do-Little, Chris attracted the attentions of a four legged wanderer this morning. After a few miles of our new friend running in circles around us and risking his life by venturing out onto the Highway, we knocked on the first door we came across and tried our best to convince the owner that she should phone the dog warden (which she was happy to do) and look after Fido until he arrived (which she was not). However after some persuasion, agreement was reached and hopefully our furry friend has now been reunited with his owner.  

 

As you can see from the photo below, we have now entered Hitchcock and Steve has booked tonight's accommodation in what sounded like the Gates Motel, but the line was a bit crackly...

Video Clip Update - A day in the life running and on the road

Julia presents a clip showing a day in the life of Chris, Steve and herself on the road.

Note from Ben: apologies for the low quality, due to the clip length and uploading restrictions I had to reduce the visual quality by quite bit to get it to fit on the blog, hope that you enjoy it.

floods

As a result of a chance conversation yesterday with a friendly local couple, we have discovered that the bridge we were planning to use to cross the Missouri river between Nebraska and Iowa was unfortunately washed away in a flood earlier this summer.

Well it could have been worse. Imagine if we had run all the way to the river bank before finding out. We now have to make a detour up to Omaha City and use the bridge there. This adds about 45 miles on to our journey, but never mind- who ever said that running across America would be easy?

ps I admit that "never mind" wasn't actually what we first thought on hearing this.