May 18, 2010: The Long Drive to Iowa

I started off redeeming my free breakfast ticket at the Grand Country Music Hall. The breakfast choices were amazing. If I wasn't trying to lose weight I would have really enjoyed it. Still, I did sample some of the food. They had Ozark Omelets, biscuits, scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, apple and cherry turnovers, plus a number of other things.

Aside from music, Branson is big on odd comedy. On the wall, I noticed what looked like a picture in a frame with an elderly couple. But then the characters began to talk, complaining that their children never came to see them and never phoned them. The husband pointed out that they don't have a phone where they are. There was a lot of back and forth discussion and then suddenly the conversation ended and the picture "froze" for a while. But still, it was cute and surprising in an entertaining way.

After breakfast was done, I began the long journey northeast. I left Branson and drove about an hour on US 65, headed towards Interstate 44. After about an hour on I-44, I went on a series of US routes, working my way up to West Liberty, Iowa. The Missouri countryside is beautiful. There were lots of small shops along the way and lots of farms. I passed through the state capital, Jefferson. I saw the actual capitol building from the road.


View Larger Map

The drive took over eight hours (counting stops for meals) and there were lots of turns onto different roads. There wasn't a simple interstate that would take me up to the area I intended to visit.

One interesting (to me) point in the drive was when I got close to the Illinois state line while still in Missouri. There were signs pointing to Monroe, Missouri and Quincy, Illinois. The fifth president was James Monroe and his Secretary of State was John Quincy Adams, who was the sixth president.

By the time I crossed the state line into Iowa, the sun was setting. But, I was able to at least see a little bit of the farm land as I continued to drive north. Iowa is very flat. From what little I've seen, I would say it's flatter than Kansas. Minnesota (which is directly north of Iowa) is also quite flat. Missouri is mostly flat too, but it does have the Ozarks in the south.

The last ten miles of the trip was along I-80. The Herbert Hoover national historic site was well marked along the interstate. I had to drive five miles east of that for the hotel. When I got off the exit for West Liberty, the GPS had me take a left turn when I needed to take a right. Thankfully I didn't go far before I realized the GPS messed up again.

The hotel I chose was an Econo Lodge. It took the minimal amount of points. Going there in the dark sort of frightened me a bit just based on looks. I was expecting something filthy based on the outside. However, it did have good ratings on Trip Advisor.

When I checked in, I was given a security code for the Internet. This was different from the usual ID/password used at most hotels. This was a security code used at the time you connected to the wireless network. I got a little nervous about that.

When I got into the hotel room, I was pleasantly surprised. It was clean and the facilities were nice. It's hit or miss with Econo Lodges. Sometimes they're really bad and other times they can be very reasonable even if not as fancy as a Comfort Inn. (The fanciness of a Comfort Inn translates into higher costs and higher numbers of points required for free nights.)

Unfortunately, my fears about the Internet were realized. Despite typing the code correctly several different times and trying a number of ways to connect, my computer refused to connect. Thankfully, I had already reserved the hotel for the next night (just inside Kentucky along the Ohio state line). Still, it's nice to be able to check up on email and such in case of emergencies. On the positive side, lack of Internet access meant I could get to sleep a little earlier that evening. I would need that sleep because the next day would be another brutally long drive. Iowa to Kentucky is a lot of driving, with three states (Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio) in between.