Well, we are not quite there
but not far away !
We have begun our tour and hit the road but haven’t ventured quite as far along the road as the Iowa state capital, Des Moines – we will start there tomorrow. But the town of Winterset – our stop for tonight – has its own notoriety !
Our flights were good and both on time, however being a daytime flight from Sydney we didn’t get a lot of sleep. We dozed a little on the Omaha leg.
Early morning start in Sydney 
Quite a queue to takeoff at LAX
After our early morning arrival and connection in LA, with another couple of time zones to cross on our next flight we actually arrived mid afternoon in Omaha, Nebraska – officially marking our 37th state. However our plan was to use the rest of the afternoon to head a bit further east before stopping for the night.
Crossing the Southwest 
Spectacular band of cloud nearing Omaha
Omaha is very close to the state border – in fact we crossed that border 3 times in about 2 kilometres – but heading in the opposite direction ! A large part of the border between Nebraska and Iowa is the Missouri River, however a quirk in the changing course of the river over many years has left a small “balloon shaped” part of Iowa on the Nebraska side of the river. So the area known as Carter Lake juts into East Omaha near the airport. And after collecting our luggage and picking up our car, we zipped out of the airport across into Iowa for 500 metres, back into Nebraska for 1 kilometer, then finally started heading east and joined the Gerald Ford Fwy across the Missouri River into the rest of Iowa – and our 38th state of course !
With the latter part of the afternoon left in the day, we hoped to drive for a couple of hours before our first night’s stop – assuming I didn’t fall asleep ! The tip is that when you arrive after a long flight, you get out into the sunlight and fresh air so your body clock adapts to the new time zone. Not sure that inside a Walmart quite meets that criteria (nor the safest option 🤔) however it certainly gives us a chance to stretch our legs for a bit after many hours on planes. Anyway, after about an hour east in the car, we reached the town of Atlantic, Iowa and hunted down the local Walmart Supercenter. Adrienne has already started re-stocking her cosmetic collection and we have picked up lots of old American favourites for our driving day provisions.
Well rested and acclimatised – to Walmarts again anyway – we filled the car and moved on further east. Our original destination for our first night was going to be Des Moines, the state capital. Adrienne is a big fan of the author Bill Bryson – he just happens to be heading to Sydney for a speaking tour while we are away – who was born in Des Moines before spending most of his adult life in the UK. One of his books is called “The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid” which is a humorous account of his childhood in Des Moines and the Mid West generally. Anyway, we thought it might be easier to stop a little short and tackle that first thing tomorrow morning instead.
Corn fields ! Who’d have guessed !
So tonight we are in Winterset, Iowa. Does that name ring any bells yet ? Winterset actually has a few claims to fame. It is in an area made famous by the movie “The Bridges of Madison County” (starring Clint Eastwood & Meryl Streep). There are a number of historical covered bridges dotted around the area and we took in one of these as we drove into town – Hogback. The others are called Cutler-Donahue, Holliwell, Imes .
Hogback Covered Bridge
An even earlier, and the original, claim to movie fame for Winterset is one Marion Mitchell Morrison (actually born Marion Robert Morrison) – any ideas yet ? Well Pilgrims, yes, it is the birthplace of Hollywood legend “The Duke” – John Wayne. And the house where he was born is now a museum – off John Wayne Drive of course. We’ll have a look at the house in the morning.
Apart from that, Winterset is generally a pretty sleepy US town but our stop for the night – the Cobblestone Inn – is more than adequate.
And as I’m now a card-carrying member of the AARP – the “American Association of Retired Persons” 🤣🤣 – we picked up a nice discounted rate !
Dinner was in the hotel restaurant. There was not much else around and we were too buggered to go looking for something so we decided to have a few snacks from the bar menu. All I can say is the food on this tour can only get better ! 😂 – at least the beer was good !
Well, that about sums up our shortened day of sightseeing – tomorrow we really get started on our tour !
Today’s Tour Trivia – Iowa is the only state whose west and east borders are 100% formed by water – the Missouri River to the west and the Mississippi River to the east. It is also the only state name that starts with two vowels !