Getting across the Missouri was much more of an adventure. Early in the day we had heard that I-29 (which runs north-south along the Missouri) was closed in the section by Coucil Bluffs which was where we were going to cross. I-29 joins with I-80 during this section between Council Bluffs, Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska. They were re-routing I-29 on to I-35 which runs way east of there. We chose to go on I-680 which is to the north of Omaha and Council Bluffs, since we thought that this would avoid the flooded areas. We got to the turn-off for I-680 and headed on to the river. Came to an area where the fields to the south of the interstate were all covered with water. Then we came to the junction of I-29 and I-680 only to find a road closed barrier across where we wanted to go. There had been signs about I-29 south in the rest areas and all along the road, but no warnings about I-680 being closed. We got on to I-29 going north and got out the map and looked for the first possible bridge across the Missouri, and found the bridge between Missouri Valley and Blair on Route 31. As we headed toward the bridge we were traveling with flooded fields on both sides of us and with the water coming right up to the edges of our road. When there had previously been cross roads, there were just Road Closed signs and a little piece of side road leading into what were now lakes. Houses had pushed dirt up into piles to make levees around their homes. One farm house (with barns and silos) sat as an island out in the middle of the lake. Luckily there were other cars in front of us and traffic coming the other direction to indicate that the road was passable. You could see the corn fields with just a little bit of the tops of the plants showing above the water.
The Platte River which runs along I-80 in Nebraska is also at flood levels and right here in Kearney it is just slightly over the flood level.
Early that morning we had checked on The Weather Channel and heard that southeastern Nebraska and southwestern Iowa had a "moderate risk" (which they interpreted as 40% chance) of severe thunderstorms and tornados. This afternoon we kept watching the darkening skies, but we only got a handful of light showers. However, on the radio they kept breaking in to the music to announce the new warnings. I stayed busy looking up the counties named on the map. They were all around us, but not where we were.
When we left Bloomington this morning, the first thing we saw was a large "wind farm" with about 2 - 3 wind turbines. During the day we saw several more wind farms in Iowa. With the flat land and constant winds there, it would seem like a good thing. The large wind turbines were sitting right in the middle of the corn fields.
Iowa and Nebraska are both still farming areas as we have seen all along but we are now in more rolling hills instead of the very flat plains. In Iowa there were beautiful wooded areas. Coming down in to the Missouri River valley we got off at a scenic overlook and there were ridges of hills covered with woods.
We are currently in the Central Time Zone and tomorrow will get into the Mountain Time Zone. I was impressed that the cell phone knew where it was located and had changed to the Central Time Zone by itself this morning. (I'm easily impressed)
We were impressed with the Iowa Rest areas along I-80. Besides being very nice with covered picnic tables, they have free wireless internet available. The one where we stopped for lunch also had a playground.
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| Our picnic table, playground behind. |
Tomorrow our goal is to get to Newcastle, Wyoming.
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