After spending two relaxing days "down on the farm" in Nebraska we decided to hit the road. It was great seeing old friends and they fed us like kings on Nebraska beef, Nebraska pork, Nebraska asparagus (picked fresh)... you get the idea. If you ever had pity on the people in the middle of the country because they don't often see the ocean, or go to to plays on Broadway, don't. The best kept secret of middle America may be that since our food comes from there, they keep the best of it for themselves. Shhhhhhhhh!
Anyway, we had a nice breakfast and chat yesterday morning then hit the road in the rain to press northeast. If you have been watching the news or weather the past couple of days you may know that there has been a massive cold front that formed a line from the northeast to the southwest. I looked at the national realtime lightning and rain map on Tuesday night and the storm literally ran from southern Ontario to the center of Texas. Almost border to border. There were multiple points along the storm where tornadoes broke out on Tuesday and overnight into Wednesday. Welcome to tornado alley. We headed into that on a trajectory that almost precisely followed the axis of the storm.
Through the drive on Wednesday we saw conditions from clear and sunny to rain so hard I was driving half the posted speed limit. We were not on an interstate highway all day... state roads, county roads, "city" streets in small towns with names that I never heard before and will not remember tomorrow. The big city of the day was Sioux City, Iowa. This is a place that will forever be in my mind as the city where United flight 232 crashed in 1989. That ill fated flight is (in my opinion) one of the most amazing feats of piloting ever recorded. A catastrophic engine failure in the tail-mounted, center engine on a DC-10 caused total loss of hydraulic capability. That is the power for all control surfaces. The pilots managed to use differential thrust of the two working wing-mounted engines to get the plane to Iowa and "land" ("crash" better describes it) at the Sioux City airport. Tragically, there were 111 fatalities. However, 186 passengers and crew survived what any student of aviation would have predicted to be a loss of all souls aboard. I have no idea what else Sioux City has to commend it... and we didn't stop to learn.
We did, however stop for lunch in La Mars, Iowa about 30 miles down the road. Surprisingly, when I researched dining options I learned that La Mars is home to one of the top 10 steak houses in the country. Let's go! Sadly, they are open only for dinner (lazy bastards... what about those of us passing through for lunch?). We ate at the second best restaurant in town (this is a small town... the second best restaurant happened to also be the second worst). While dining on burgers and such we saw a tornado alert flash across the TV above our table. We asked the waitress about the location it mentioned. She said not to worry... that's an hour to our north. But... that's where we are going, I said to Mrs. C'.
So we stopped at Wal-Mart to round up supplies for the coming day and headed north into the warning zone and toward Spirit Lake. Through most of the day the weather was cold and wet... mid fifties to low sixties with intermittent rain, occasional downpours with raindrops that hit like small hailstones and sporadic small towns. One such small town represented what we saw all day, so I grabbed the iPhone from its holster, drew and fired! Ladies and gentlemen... Emerson, Nebraska on a rainy Wednesday noon:
Evidently, the cruise speed of the Silver Cliche' rig is faster than the forward progress of a late May cold front in Iowa because it became obvious that we were nearing the frontal boundary. How did we know, you ask? Well, today's Silver Cliche' Driving Experience set tells the story. We were heading east with the front forming a diagonal line in front of us. The view to the left is north, center is east and right is south:
In the 20 minutes that followed that series of shots we watched the front pass above us and the temperature went from 57 degrees to 73. Mrs. C' caught the best pic of the shelf cloud as we neared it:
We got to Spirit Lake with the temperature still warm and the sky partly cloudy. Within 10 minutes of parking the rig we felt the temperature drop, the wind pick up and the rain begin again. It found us! Of the 262 campsites in Marble Beach State Recreation Area on the west side of the lake there were... ummmm... two occupied. The local reaction to camping on a night like last night was Hell no! Iowa campers are sissies.
As for Spirit Lake, we can see it through the trees. I have no desire to explore it further. I'm sure there is local lore about it's naming... maybe there are creepy sounds emanating from the woods around it at midnight on Halloween that suggest it is inhabited by spirits... I don't know. For me, one look at this place makes me wish for a bottle of spirits to kill the feeling of foreboding, isolation and despair. I think the people who live here deserve a medal for not leaving... or a psychological examination.
So, that's how one finds themselves in Spirit Lake, Iowa. I think the sign on the way into town said "Welcome to Spirit Lake... enjoy yourself! You won't be back. Today we head northeast and will either pass directly through Minneapolis or St. Paul, Minnesota on the way to St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin which sits on the Minnesota/Wisconsin state line. I'm hoping that people in Spirit Lake, Iowa don't elbow each other and say "Well... at least we don't live in St. Croix Falls, eh?"
Later...
SC'
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