2022 KC/MI Wander: Day 8

This is Part 6 of the blog post documenting my epic wandering around the middle part of the country. You really should read them in order. To that end, here's a link to Part One. At the bottom of each post, click the link for "Newer Post" at the bottom. And here is a link to ALL the pictures I took on this trip. Viewing them will require that you scroll through God knows how many pictures of parts of old cars, so you might want to just skip that altogether.

I wonder why there aren't more motel rooms in places like Percival, Iowa. There are, it appears, only two motels in this town, which seems to consist of those two motels and two truck stops and a few fast-food restaurants. Both of the motels in Percival are fully booked, even though the room rates are pretty high. (The rates in Nebraska City, a few miles away, are positively exorbitant, even though there are lots of motels over there. That's why I'm in Percival and not Nebraska City ... well, that, and because there's a water tower in Percival that looks like a teapot, and I found yesterday evening that it's real pretty at night, all lit up with red neon.) (My sunrise pictures of the water tower from this morning are much better than the pictures from last night; although you still can't really tell that it looks like a big teapot. The red rings on top light up in succession, and it says "Sapp Bros" on the sides in huge letters. My pics are all taken from the handle side.)

Today was mostly supposed to be all about county-counting, but a good bit of it was about the failure of technology. I've already ranted about it over the phone to Sherry, so here I will just say that technology that depends on an internet connection is of very limited use in places like southern Iowa. And that includes Google Maps and Libby, the app I'm using to listen to audiobooks (or trying to, anyway). I got 8 of the 10 remaining Iowa counties today; I would have missed one because of the failure of Google Maps, but I thought to check where, exactly, the county was in relation to the highway. I really would have been pissed if I'd gotten to my hotel for the night and then discovered the omission.*

There were four counties in southwestern Iowa that I hadn't been to. The only point of interest in any of them was Johnny Carson's birthplace, in Corning (Adams County). It was $10 to go in, which is way too much for such a trivial place. Besides, he grew up in Norfolk, Nebraska, and that's the place he considered his home; this is just where his parents lived when he made his first entrance.

While I was stopped for a break at a convenience store I got into a conversation with a local woman who used to be the city clerk for Gravity, Iowa, in Taylor County, the last of those four. She told me about the town sign; said she saw it every day for years and never got the joke until one day it suddenly dawned on her, and ever since then she can't think of it without laughing. So I made it a point to go that way and see the sign myself.

It is kind of cute.

After that, it was a looooong slog across the state on Highway 2, from west to east, until I got to the remaining batch of counties, more or less along the Mississippi River. The only point of interest I found there was the Louisa County Swinging Bridge. It crosses a gorge in a park in the town of Columbus Junction. You can access one end of it just above the parking area, or you can access the other end by taking a trail that goes down into the gorge and then up the other side to the bridge. I chose to take the trail.

Two things about the trail: first, it's very narrow, about 18" wide on average, and fairly steep. Steps have been put in at a number of spots to help, and the drop-off is generally not great, but I would not want to be on that path after a rain. I'm sure it's very slick. The second thing is this: the path is lined with signboards containing pages from a children's book about an alligator. The book didn't make any sense to me; it seemed to tell the story of how the friendly alligator went from owning a restaurant for his friends the birds, to eating the birds. A really unpleasant story, not something I'd've wanted to read to my son when he was a child. But in the end I realized that the story is arranged to be read starting from the other end of the path: the lazy alligator opens a restaurant to trick the birds into eating in his mouth, but then he becomes friends with the birds. That's a much better children's book.

Louisa County Swinging Bridge

The bridge itself was pretty terrifying, but I made it across. It swings back and forth and it tips sideways like Galloping Gertie in the 1940 film of that bridge's collapse.

That's pretty much the whole day. Fortunately the scenery in Iowa, even in the ordinary places, is verdant and attractive, and the temperature today topped out at 86 degrees; and I don't think I saw a single cloud all day.

I'm in Coralville, Iowa tonight; there's a car museum here that opens at 10AM that I plan to stick around for; then I'll drive through the last two Iowa counties on the way to Illinois and Indiana, and on Thursday I should get to Michigan. I don't know how long it'll take me to do all the wandering I plan to do there. As you might imagine, I'm somewhat averse to that level of prediction.  

* I also have complaints about my phone's bluetooth, my phone charger, and my car's new stereo. Don't ask.

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