Hot Day on the Plains

Left North Platte this morning and continued our travels eastward on I-80, across the state of Nebraska (all 460 miles of it) and then on in to Iowa. 

Nebraska corn

In Nebraska we were following the Plate River for much of the way and there were more trees and there was more farming because of the use of irrigation.  In both Nebraska and Iowa there were just mile after mile of corn fields.  On our trip westward, it was right before the 4th of July ("knee high by the 4th of July") and the corn was still small, but now the corn has the tassels on it and is quite tall (5-6 feet high).

We crossed the Missouri River at Omaha (Nebraska) and Council Bluffs (Iowa) and didn't get even a small glimpse of the river.  There was construction zones everywhere on the highway and there was a high concrete wall where I think the river might have been.   I-680 (which is what we tried to use before) and I-29 are still both closed from the flooding.

During the morning Daddy noticed that we were getting close to 150,000 on the odometer and we wanted to stop and take a picture of the car and of the place where it happened.  We got just into Iowa and Daddy noticed that the odometer was at 150, 019 - we had missed it.  We assume  that it must have happened in Omaha, and probably in the construction zone where there wouldn't have been anywhere to pull off.

Iowa farm with corn fields

In western Iowa the land is more rolling than it was in Nebraska, but still lots of corn fields and large irrigation systems.  We saw numerous wind farms, with the tall wind turbines right in the middle of the corn fields.   There would be many rows of turbines that would extend for miles.

Part of an Iowa wind farm

There is a dome of extreme heat centered over Nebraska and Iowa with daytime highs just over 100 degrees and high humidity so the heat index was 112.  At 8:30 this evening the temperature was still 97 degrees and the heat index was 103.  Because of the hot temperatures we ate lunch in an air conditioned restaurant and ate a "picnic" dinner in the air conditioned motel room.  We had leftover barbecue ribs from the dinner last night, small carrots, and a raspberry pastry for dessert.

Tonight we are staying in a Days Inn in Des Moines (actually it is in Clive which is a suburb of Des Moines).  This is the first motel with an outdoor pool on the trip.  The water in the pool was quite warm (I suppose because of the very high air temperatures.  But, I certainly enjoyed my long swim in the pool this evening.  There was a breeze (there is always a wind out here on the plains) and it actually felt chilly when I got out of the water.

Cooling off from the heat

Tomorrow we will continue going across Iowa, cross the Mississippi River, go across Illinois, and stay in Crawfordsville, Indiana.  There are only a few more states (Indiana, Ohio and a small piece of Pennsylvania) before we get back to Morgantown.