Minnesota and Iowa! All my best laid plans for reaching Chicago were (happily) altered and we’ve stayed at some places we had no intention of visiting.
Take Blue Earth, Minnesota for example - home to the world’s largest Jolly Green Giant statue. The thought of overnighting in a Walmart next to this imposing beast was oddly comforting. However, plans were dashed as the store there had recently closed. Yes, Walmarts do actually die and close! A boon to the mom and pop shops in Blue Earth.
So we pressed on to the city of Albert Lea and splurged on a site at the Myre-Big Island State Park. It was beautiful! Rustic, in the middle of a lake, with tall trees in full autumn blaze, and practically empty! Coco loved walking in the open nature. At one point, I thought we had a natural-born truffle hunter as she madly dug at the base of a tree.
The environment so reminded us of one thing: The Walking Dead. It was exactly like all those episodes where the characters are traipsing through what Georgia considers a forest...so foreign to us in the west as it’s completely lacking in hills and pines. And then I realized how practical it would be to have Coco as an alert after a zombie apocalypse, and wondered why the characters on The Walking Dead never found any guard dogs - ? Hmmmmm....
Today’s journey was short, bringing us to Dubuque, Iowa - another place I’d never thought I’d see. The forecast called for light rain throughout the region today, so we thought might make it a longer driving day and get closer to Chicago so the drive tomorrow would be minimal. But....thank you Weather Network for your accuracy!...we hit a torrential downpour complete with lightening and thunder so thought it best to get off the freeway. Right now relaxing at the Mystere Casino which sits on an island in the middle of the Mississippi River.
Driving through Dubuque to get here, it was like the actualization of all those midwest suburb scenes in the movies. Just like the Minnesota forest, so different and foreign to the look of the neighbourhoods I’m used to in the west. Old brick buildings, neat little lanes, nostalgic looking shop signs that look like they’ve been there 80 years, and probably have!
I consider myself fairly well-travelled. But I’ve never been to the eastern US (save NYC) and this is home to so much that pervades our culture. It’s been imprinted on me through books, movies, news, history, but I’ve never SEEN it. And experiencing it on the ground, driving through the towns and walking along the streets, will be a so much more authentic experience. Cheers to Chicago tomorrow!
Though if we hit the jackpot at the casino tonight, there may be a private jet to Fiji happening instead ;-)
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