Iowa/Illinois:
So take a 2 minute detour
off I-80 in Des Moines, Iowa and go to Todd's on N. E. 14th and you can
buy French Toast mix, EGGNOG flavor, for only $2 a jar!!!! Say HI
to Alissa there who helped me locate a 1-hour photo place and the library.
She is the reason I got yesterday's photos and info to this site and I
thank her HEAPS!
There's a GREAT book sale going
on at the Des Moines library at about 5th and Euclid. Had to hold
myself in check but bought at least 6 books. Wanted to take them
all and the sweet librarians there said that I could take them too!
Hard bound books $1. Didn't see any of my old titles there!
Smiley face is painted on the
water tower at Adair, Iowa. Check out things like this at www.roadsideamerica.com
where I find this valuable information. Did not see ONE black squirrel
in Council Bluffs, Iowa but they claim to have them there. Maybe
I can find the white squirrels in Olney, Illinois. No, I'm not going
there but I love squirrels and miss the little rodents that play around
my house.
Take a heavy iron hammer and
hit yourself in the thumb with it, transfer the pain to your forehead--that's
what wearing my helmet feels like. Gotta do something about this
thing. Having to switch to my leather helmet because the hardshell
is TOO hard. Joy paid $700 for her helmet. Do I have to pay
that much for a comfortable one????? Argh.
Met John Engstrom in Princeton,
Illinois who demonstrated his fantastic eye glasses for me--made by Porsche
which I suspect are not available from WalMart. He seems like a cool
guy so if you live in Illinois and need a sun room built, look him up.
His wife is a championship horse person of Olympic proportions. You
meet the most amazing people on the road.
And some of them you wish you
had never crossed paths with. I refer you to the robbery that occured
this morning. No, I am NOT kidding. I was robbed. I'm
OK, the car is OK. Motel manager found my ATM card and one of my
credit cards in his very messy dumpster. I am shaken but not stirred.
(Sorry, saw a James Bond movie on cable last night...) Seriously
after about 20 long distance phone calls and a bunch of b.s. you don't
want to know about, I have righted this capcizing and I don't have too
terribly many good words for the Western Union station in Princeton.
Don't know how this is going to affect the whole trip. We'll see.
Have to press on to Chicago for a speaking engagement there, then I'll
take stock. This may be the shortest road trip you've ever followed!
Central casting could not have
sent two more perfect cops--Sergeant Barry Portman and Officer Scott Underwood.
I'll have Portman's picture for you later, I hope. Sense of
humor, in control, you'd want either one of them for a son, I'm sure.
Just when I was contemplating
my turn of misfortune (even lost my appetite--can you believe it?
great diet: get robbed), I happened to see the local paper,
the type coming thru the little window and I read this headline:
POLICE FIND BABY LEFT ON ROADSIDE.
Look, folks, I don't HAVE a
problem today and neither do you. Alyce from the library in downtown Princeton
the most perfect little picturesque village of 7,000 that you could possibly
imagine--no sarcasm here now. The precious town could have been constructed
by Universal Studios for Mickey Rooney and "my dad's got a barn!" movies.
BTW: plastic lawn flamingos are on sale at the feed store by the railroad
tracks in Princeton!!!
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