Day 17: Travel day
Welcome
Yesterday we drove from North Platte, Nebraska, to Davenport, Iowa.
The continental at the North Platte Holiday Inn Express was first class and I struggled to choose from the great selection of local and imported ingredients. It was well past due for me to dive into the stainless steel food warmers that lay in between the waffle machine and juice dispenser, and I withdrew two sausages, two rashers of bacon, and a cheese-filled omelette. These items were assembled on a plain bagel schmeared with ketchup and hot sauce.
It was another day of epic scenery and it began as have the past several, by embarking on America’s 4,600km transcontinental freeway, the i80, heading straight into the rising sun.
The i80 closely follows the River Platte for around 200km while it snakes slightly south of east heading towards Nebraska’s Rainwater Basin wetland region. As the river passes the Roman L Hruska US Animal Meat Research Centre in Hastings it swings around gradually to the northeast and we continued our own heading, directly east for another 160km.
This takes us into the Dissected Till Plains, an extremely fertile region that marks the western edge of the corn belt. Till plains are formed when a large section of ice detaches from a glacier and melts, depositing the suspended debris to form a large plain of glacial sediment. These 400,000 year old plains extend up to South Dakota and Minnesota to the north, and into western Iowa to the east, which was where we found ourselves soon.
Cornfields seen from the i80 shortly after passing Grand Island.
Crossing the Iowa state border and passing Warren Distribution, North America’s largest manufacturer of private label lubricants, with Ameristar Casino furthur along the riverbank.
About 100km into Iowa as we pass by the town of Atlantic the i80 absorbs Highway 6 for a time and becomes the Grand Army of the Republic Highway. At this point we are driving across the Southern Iowa Drift Plain, notable for the steep rolling character of the landscape which noted Iowa artist Grant Wood has attempted to capture in his famed paintings Young Corn, and Fall Plowing. The Southern Drift Plain encompasses much of the southern part of the state and like the Till Plains was formed by Glacial deposits around half a million years ago. Stream erosion has carved these deposits though with rills, creeks and rivers creating a landscape of steeply rolling hills and valleys, erasing the moraines, kames, kettles, bogs, and lakes typical of a freshly glaciated landscape.
‘Young Corn’ by Grant Wood.
‘Fall Plowing’ by Grant Wood.
I struggled all morning to take a good photo of the scenery so while I was driving I set Tristan the task of taking a great photo of corn. Please enjoy the following series which without painting a great picture paints a great picture of the experience of driving through the Southern Drift Plain.
After heading directly east for another couple of hours the i80 doglegs slightly north to pass through Des Moines, the capital of Iowa. This city is located at the southern tip of the Des Moines Lobe, formed as you probably guessed by a glacial deposit, this one however was deposited only 14,000 years ago.
https://www.nps.gov
For the remainder of the journey we returned to the Southern Drift Plain and enjoyed the straightness of the roads and the greenness of the corn for several more hours before reaching the Mississippi river and the self-declared ‘Most Liveable Small City in America’, Davenport, IA.
Golden hour is upon us as we unload in Davenport.
We arrived with a few hours left in the evening and visited a local pub for dinner and an ale. Tristan and I finished our evening with a visit to the cinema, conveniently located across the carpark from our hotel. The tickets are much cheaper than in NZ but it’s good to know that the snacks are just as expensive.
Liz accidentally orders a big beer.
Tristan finishes dinner before entering the cinema.