I feel compelled to let everyone in on our weirdest stories from our trip.  We have had adventures… some good, some simply strange but all really entertaining. It has made the trip special.

Iowa - The Bermuda Triangle of the Midwest

Every time we stopped in Iowa it was a huge kerfuffle.  This is not an exaggeration.  Soon after crossing the border, we tried to find a restroom and got off at a place called Van Wert, Iowa. We’ll have more pictures from Van Wert… it was lovely and charming but… completely empty.  Loads of derelict buildings and our first taste of close up wind vanes and snow.  The community center was locked and closed.  We left, unsuccessful and eventually stopped at a Kum N Go. Yes, that’s what the store is called.

Next we found a Wal Mart to buy socks… 7 miles off the highway- just past the big, proud water tower for the Central Iowa Water Association.  It was depressing.  Fritz and I managed to completely lose each other.  I scoped out both the back and the front sections to look for him paging me, while he was hiding in the fitting room asking the attendant to spell out my full name.  Listening to the intercom,  I heard them call other people’s names.  Something about the Iowa vortex.  Eventually we found each other, obviously…

We needed gas later on in the trip… Urgently.  My fault!  We ended up in Tiffin.  Oh, beautiful Tiffin.  We were right next to the highway, but caught in a maze of hilly roads that wound into endless fields with friendly misleading signs like (I-80 E ↑) that pointed to rows and rows of snow covered farm land.  The roads were dirt, gravel and ice, and I slid around as we tried to navigate our way back to the high way from the desolate gas station.  It took us 45 minutes of driving along parallel roads and frosted corn fields to find our way back to the highway again.

And then… Cracker Barrel.  It was visible from the highway in Davenport, but completely inaccessible except by a small unmarked road a few miles down.  It took us a half hour, 2 highway detours, and a u-turn in a highway gravel ditch that scared the crap out of Fritz, but we finally made it to Cracker Barrel.  The waitress explained that the city of Davenport didn’t allow them to put any more signs. Fritz got a real taste of American gluttony, and with the saddest eyes begged me to never let him eat that much again.  All in all, it was a great experience… as far as Iowa was concerned.

Kansas City is the most wonderful city we’ve been so far and we’re definitely coming back. Our KCMO host - Benjamin, the coolest guy in the world - showed us the city at night and suggested this diner for our breakfast - Winstead’s. So we had a couple of blueberry pancakes this morning - I think I’m becoming an addict. We’re now at this rest stop after Van Werk, where we took some pictures which we’ll be posting soon. Our Chicago host and friend Matt has forgiven our poor planning and is taking us earlier than we expected to get there. We’ve been extremely lucky so far with our hosts. We’ve made friends in this trip and in a few years we shall return and see them again. In Las Vegas, Andi was adorable, intelligent and warm. Albuquerquian Brian was so cool, great conversation and also made us feel at home. Now, Ben is something else - and this guy’s got the original Rad Mobile arcade in his game room, the same one from the CLASSIC movie Encino Man. Ben is almost as cool as I am, almost. We’re having the time of our lives and there’s still much to drive. New videos and pictures here soon and a few surprises are already online in our YouTube channel and in our Flickr account. See you soon! El queso esta viejo y podrido.