Two years ago we met Ron and his Ford F150 camper van in San Carlos, Sonora. We met him again last year and we traveled with him on and off down the Pacific Coast of Mexico.
He lives in Iowa in a tight knit mid western family but he is a traveler by inclination and he takes off at the drop of a hat. He also invites us to visit him in his home near Kalona about as central to the center of Iowa as you can get.
Some excellent cheddar cheese and some Belizeans trotting by in a horse and buggy as though we were back in Spanish Prospect last winter. Life in Kalona.
We got to sleep in an actual Iowa soy bean field. Ron’s parents are as sweet and patient as you might imagine but Ron’s capacity for mezcal has not diminished. We went to bed after setting the world to rights. (Layne and Rusty gave up early).
There was some consternation between Kalona and Richmond as live music was not heard Tuesday night at the Bridge. It turns out excessive heat was to blame, Iowans wilt in one hundred degrees (as do we in point of fact).
It’s as though you walked into a Hollywood set, the river flowing and the cicadas creaking and Clint Eastwood either as a thwarted lover or as a steely eyed lawman could have popped out of the shrubbery.
I am sorry to say not all of Iowa is lyrical, pastoral and dreamy. There is a hard reality underpinning it all and that starts with Interstate 80 the great connector and truck route a couple of dozen miles from Kalona.
We stopped in Iowa city for cheap gas at Costco, thirty five cents less than the average $3:69 price around the state. I notice no difference with fifteen percent ethanol but the subsidized price (thank you fellow tax payers) is pretty low in some gas stations.
Iowa 80 bills itself as the biggest truck stop in the world.
Upstairs there is a barber a chiropractor and a tooth cleaner among other services. It’s a pity this place isn’t in Nevada because god knows what else might be on offer to make it really interesting.
Rusty probably wished this place was a long way west and out of his life.
He got as long a walk as he wanted but he paid for it later. We are going moochdocking in Chicago so this seemed just the spot for smelly dog:
And it’s right next to the truck wash though all Rusty wanted to do was escape as he waited while we rummaged for a five dollar bill in the van, as the credit card machine wasn’t working. It was a slow execution for our water phobic dog.
Seven minutes later he was fine scampering and shaking off the moisture the hair dryer (!) failed to remove. We put him aboard GANNET2, turned on the roof top air and went for a walk.
I know I sound like an idiot but it was your average truck stop writ large. I don’t know what I expected.
We got an Orange Julius for old times’ sake and wandered around looking at truck parts, and $3,000 in-cab refrigerators and microwaves sold as a kit for self sufficient truckers.
The bored trucker can check out 1953 Internationals and 1979 Petersons on sale where a conventional market might offer news of the weird.
We got some cleaning supplies and pressed on.
The parking lot was a vast burning desert with the car half of the lot packed,
while the truck half was…
…half empty at lunch time.
Been there, done that. Got the dashboard cleaner to prove it. Oh and the ice cream headache from the giant Orange Julius!
