Passing through Iowa and Nebraska

Today was just one of those long highway days that you have to do if driving to Colorado.  We started out in  Eastern Iowa. I remembered my last time on this route in 1959 as a 16 year old traveling with my family. Can you imagine four children and two parents tucked into a 1957 Buick Century convertible towing a home made trailer stuffed with camping gear?  We made it as far as San Francisco and L.A and back to Ohio in 6 short weeks.  My memory of Iowa is pretty clear after 53 years.  There was no interstate and the pavement was pretty much put down on the land contour as nature provided.  Iowa doesn't have mountains, but it does have dramatic rolling hills.  In the 50's, that meant a two lane road that did about three 200 foot cycles every 5 miles.  No Passing!  Today interstate 80 smooths that out a lot and of course adds at least 2 more lanes.  So it's just not the same - thank heavens!  

The corn in Iowa looked stressed but at least the plants seemed to be alive.  All that changed in Nebraska.  A few fields were being irrigated, but most were completely dead and quite a few were already chopped down.  As we got to the western end of the state driving along the Platte River things greened up as the big wide multi-channeled river still contained a little water.  But just a few miles north and south of the Platte were completely desert like.  We have seen a number of fairly new ethanol plants and already the price for unleaded is increasing here.  We are happy that in this area diesel is actually cheaper than regular unleaded.  The locals say that the price of beef and pork will head lower as ranchers slaughter their herds that they can't afford to feed.  Then watch for big price increases.  Time to do you wallet and body a favor by switching from animal to plant protein.  Beans and rice anyone?