Well we started our day again at free Wi-fi at McDonalds and was waited on by a women who had just returned to work after an 11 week sabatus for a hip-replacement. She was 80 years old and still working. Was it choice or necesity?
We got on the road today about 11:00 after researching and ordering our replacement license plates from the NH State website.
.
We’re trying hard to put Route 80 through Iowa and Nebraska behind us. We have entered the land of giant wind turbines, tons of them dotting the countryside. Iowa seems to be quite proud of their energy stance, not only with windmills but also with ethanol and electric car docking stations. We stop every couple of hours to fill up the gas tank, get a bite to eat and entertain ourselves. Gas is running around $3.25 out here, occasionally lower for ethanol.
One such stop that sucked us in was an authentic Dutch Windmill in Elk Horn Iowa . The tour was $2.00 each and so worth it. Here’s a link if you want to check it out. http://www.danishwindmill.com/. I’m trying to concentrate on things that are undeveloped so much so I won’t go on about it.
We toddled on down Highway 80 towards Omaha and all of a sudden I remembered a conversation I had with Eric Moriarty when he was the head of the antiques department at eBay.
He mentioned that in the mid-west there is a retail chain of antique malls called the Brass Armidillo and for some reason it dawned on me we hadn’t stopped at any antique places yet so we veered off the higway and visited my first Brass Armidillo Shop.
There we found acres of people’s junk storage. There was very little that was homey, edgy, one of a kind, historical, important or really anything but it was “collectible”. Even that word is spelled differently out here. It is spelled collectable but that aside, it’s mass produced stuff people no longer want but can’t let go of, so they put it here in this second hand store. I’m beginning to see why people are so impressed to go antiquing in New England. It’s a look, a feeling, an atmosphere, history, nostalgia, just something different about New England.
Slept in a State Park the last two nights. Thank you Iowa. We’re on our way through Nebraska today.
No comments:
Post a Comment