Day 6: The Heartland to Tornado Alley Part 2

.....Back to the ice cream. Without any hesitation seeing as Fran and I are lovers and huge consumers of all types of the frozen delicacy, we chose to make the pitstop. As should have been expected in Iowa, if you want to go anywhere, you need to expect that the destination is far away. After about ten minutes with no indication from signs of where the so-called Ice Cream capital was, we became a bit apprehensive yet plodded on, determined to experience this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  FINALLY, after traveling forty-five minutes in the opposite direction, we reached Le Mars, Iowa, a quaint little town and the home of Wells' Dairy--the world's "largest producer of ice cream novelties in one location." I was disappointed that my daydream of a Disneyland for Ice Cream was not at all real, and it took about ten minutes to find the one ice cream shop in the little town. Despite the lack of extravagance, the Blue Bunny ice cream parlor (Wells' Dairy's main product line) was marked by a huge ice cream cone sculpture and immediately reinvigorated our appetites:

I assume despite it's lofty title of "Ice Cream Capital of the World," Le Mars does not see much tourist volume. Nonetheless, the employees at the Blue Bunny were lovely and certainly enjoyed our enthusiasm. On a month-plus roadtrip, you become aware of the massive variance in customer service between regions and while every town/city/state have their fair share of miserable employees, it was clear to me that the middle half of the country represented, on average, America's most pleasant employees who often went out of their way to maximize the customer experience. This ice cream parlor not only had great employees, but had an even better size-to-price ratio (the benchmark ratio for any ice cream fanatic.) For less than three dollars, I got a dish of ice cream the size of my head, and I couldn't have been happier. While the ice cream itself did not stand out as the greatest I had ever tried (obviously this title goes to White Mountain Creamery in Cleveland Circle and Wellesley) the overall experience made me one happy boy. I was actually shocked that I finished probably an entire pound of ice cream and Fran made sure to capture the sad state I fell into, with ice cream covering my mustache, after this extraordinary feat:

My feeling of contentment and hyperglycemic euphoria almost instantaneously turned into a hypoglycemic coma which forced me out of the driver's seat for at least the next few hours and allowed me to do some passenger sightseeing as the drive became ever-more scenic as we headed west. After the 45 minute drive back to the highway, we started north again on our way to Sioux Falls and then I-90. At this point, we were wayyyyy behind schedule, yet luckily about half way through South Dakota the clock moves back an hour when entering the Mountain Time Zone. We re-joined I-90 West after a 1,000 mile hiatus and it was fantastic to be back at this glorious cross-country highway-

 The beauty of the highway--any highway--after Chicago is that there is not a trace of traffic at any point in the day and rush-hour is a foreign concept (minus Denver). My brother had told me prior to the trip that there was technically no speed limit in South Dakota, and I took his advice to heart regardless of its validity. Although Indiana maintains that it's motto is the "Crossroads of America" and Missouri ardently believes that it is "The Gateway to the West," these titles are complete bullshit as neither state's motto correlates to the actual experience when traveling through them. Fallacious titles indeed. What I mean is that, upon re-entering I-90 in Sioux Falls, I immediately had this revelation that I had MADE IT to America's crossroads and the gateway to the West. The feeling was truly intoxicating; while Nebraska and Iowa were filled with Big Wide open spaces, I always had the feeling that a small town was right around the corner. Such was not the case in South Dakota...the state is massive and the vast, flat roads of its Eastern half felt truly uninhabited other than the occasional Cowboy ghost town. Not to mention, the unprecedented flatness of the highway made for incredible views and even better forward vision of potential cop speedtraps that one could see miles ahead in the dusty oblivion of the turnpike. To make up for lost time, I let Fran drive for the daylight hours in South Dakota, for my driving record did not match my self-proclaimed driving expertise, and I had to deal with the daunting task of avoiding a speeding ticket for the entire trip. Needless to say, we (Fran) flew by even the most aggressive of macho locals in their F-150s, and I lived vicariously through my lady's lead foot/Big Swinging Dick (metaphorical) as we tore up the pavement in the exceedingly smooth ride of the new Jeep which seemed to be nicely broken in. I will leave the psychological/subconscious digressions for later posts except for this final point; imagine the purest, most unadulterated moment of freedom--and the resulting surge of adrenaline--that you have experienced. While no ones ultimate sense of freedom is truly the same, the subconscious reaction of having that moment be frozen in time, during the original occurrence and during any future moment of sensory recall, is universal. Despite some pretty incredible and thoroughly stimulating adventures by the ripe young age of 21, both my prior memories and conception of sensory excitement would be forever heightened to a new, lofty realm beginning with our return to the I-90 corridor and lasting throughout our time in the western third of the US. Strangely, it was the banal experience of cruising down a flat, relatively lifeless highway which served as the catalyst for the first of many, exceedingly euphoric moments of profound freedom.

Wow, I hope you made it through a common case of me waxing philosophical. If you did, be ready for more, especially as the Jeep edges westward into the promised land. Anyways, we hit I-90 W at perhaps two in the afternoon with a shitload of driving left to do. At first, in Southeastern S Dakota, there existed some life in the form of shrubbery and grassy farmland spreading towards the horizon:

and some hipster shots of pavement and trucks and wind power

....

....and eventually things became a little more desolate with roadside junkyards and firework stands every mile while simultaneously alluding to symbols of  aggressive masculinity and even more aggressive love for Jesus (this began my collection of roadside signs threatening everything from liberals to atheists to pro-lifers throughout the various bible-belt regions):

.

...Finally....we made it to Hartford? The site of the name alone made me shudder at the thought of somehow being transported from South Dakota back to that miserable black hole and sad home of my alma mater. Makes you just shake your head at the laughable regression from prosperous insurance capital to DA HOOD. 

Luckily, this was just another tiny frontier town in the middle of a frontier state. After checking out my roadtrip app I noticed that we were supposedly coming up on an "experimental" sculpture site literally 100 feet off the road on the side of a sloping hill. I had no idea what to expect--who would want to exhibit their "art" on the side of a highway in the middle of the sparsely populated farming country? Presumably this guy had no problem with those uninspiring facts, and it was pretty sweet to view some bizarre, massive, and randomly placed sculptures of various creatures like Steer:

and Monks/Grim Reapers...

and your run of the mill cows

After that random display of art, there was truly nothing to possibly stop for for multiple hundreds of miles, yet I could not have been more content with the drive as we passed by bikers who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the perfect riding conditions and pristine roads. The only thing to keep us company other than the occasional biker were the remarkably dense grouping of highway signs which continued, on and on and without pause at perfect intervals. I was shocked. In the middle of nowhere on land which seemed undesirable from a real estate perspective, these signs choked the sides of the highway, often times seeming as if they were less for practical marketing purposes than simply colorful placards to keep motorists from dozing off. There was one in particular which came up, in different silly variations, every few miles:

 At first I thought it was some home spun tale of a mythical local Druggist. After checking it out online, I found out it is a full-blown tourist attraction/shopping mall with a romanticized story about its humble roots as a drug store which survived the Dust Bowl of the 1930s by providing free water to "parched" travelers and vagabonds headed westward towards the land of opportunity. Just adorable....yet its old charm is now trumped by the mall which beckons travelers--for hundreds of miles down I-90-- to buy useless baubles and trinkets. Just like the endless highway we chewed up on the way to Rapid City, this  post is getting prettay prettay long. The day was far from over as we passed by the legendary exit for Wall, SD as the sun hung low in the summer sky, milking its time illuminating the twilight hours before finally succumbing to a total, INCREDIBLE, darkness around 9PM. The final third of our trip was as intense as it was totally unique to two East Coasters...more follows.

Day 6: The Heartland to Tornado Alley Part 1

Here's some key advice for you frugal travelers out there:

Hands down, the best budget hotel chain out there is La Quinta. For anywhere from 75-125 bucks, La Quinta offers an immaculate, very comfortable King or 2 Queen room with all the basic amenities as well as a mediocre gym and solid breakfast buffet. After staying at an array of hotels from literally the nastiest motel to 5-star resorts (the latter of which was only possible due to some very fortunate connections within the hotel industry), La Quinta offers the best bang for you buck at an average of 100/night which can turn into 25 per person if, say, you are traveling with four people. At that rate you could be relatively more frugal by strictly staying at La Quintas around the country than camping at a quality campground which will often run you around 50 per night excluding bathroom, shower, A/C (very important) a gym to get ripped and burn off those daily roadtrip fast food stops, and a quality sleep, let alone food. In the morning, we headed back across the border into Nebraska and spent the early part of the day in Omaha. The thing is, there's literally nothing to do in Omaha and I wonder to this day why my idol Warren Buffet has lived his entire life there . In reality his reasoning is quite clear because the man leads a very simple life outside of the 23 hours per day he spends investing, which consists of drinking disgusting amounts of Cherry Coke and going to his favorite, extremely mediocre restaurant--Gorat's Steakhouse. After reading the TripAdvisor reviews of Gorat's (2 star average) we made the tough decision to avoid the Oracle's fine dining stop and instead choose a very cool brewery/restaurant called Upstream Brewing Company. I was excited to dine in Omaha because it is known to have the best steak in the country. After eating, I realized that this claim is somewhat fallacious, and really, having the best steak is less defined by the region than it is by the quality of the restaurant and expertise of the chef. Consider this my sagely insight of the day. As another aside, I realized that one's conception of a city is all relative, for what we think of as typical cities on the East Coast such as Boston and New York City have absolutely no commonalities with the cities of the Heartland and Great Plains other than containing buildings. Omaha's cityscape was pleasant enough, yet the environment felt barren and bereft of feeling. The long streets and perfect-grid composition of the city seemed infinitely larger than its true size, and I was left feeling somewhat spooked at the complete lack of street life/sound of humans on that sunny morning. Long story short, by the conclusion of lunch, we were ready to bounce from Mr. Buffet's ghost town. But first, here is some visual evidence to complement my description of Omaha's "ehhh" status, plus a scandalous innuendo-see what "comes" to mind:

Our drive from Omaha to Rapid City, South Dakota, a cool little town with a Western-feel on the cusp of the Black Hills and the western end of the colloquial "Great Plains." This drive was no cakewalk:

Our direct mileage was about 575 miles or 8.5 hours and obviously we would deviate from that straight-line path. This area of the Great Plains surrounding interstates 29 North and 90 West is filled with fascinating points of interest which far outnumber the bland farmlands and mind-numbing attractions of the Midwest (refer to 10 foot rotating ear of corn sculpture from previous post). We had planned to drive straight up I-29 to the intersection with I-90 West at Sioux Falls, SD before stopping. This did not happen. We made it up to Sioux City, IA (ranked # 14 on 40th drunkest citiest in the US and unranked in any and all other categories of interest)

 before we got distracted by a highway sign that said "Ice Cream Capital of the World." Our adventure to Iowa's oasis of ice cream and more in the next post; despite what you may think would be a very dull travel day from the Omaha and the Eastern plains to Rapid City and the Western plains. It was not...to say the least, and after finishing the day's post, I realized it was necessary to split the day into two to keep those with short attention spans focused, and begging for more.

Day 5: Farewell Chicago, Hello Heartland

Another perk of staying at the James hotel, other than fueling my fiendish delight of air conditioning, was a late check-out time of 2PM. This extra allowance of time gave us great leverage to travel once more around the city, unencumbered by parking and sans baggage until we had to head out for the afternoon. After consulting my trustworthy travel companion--TripAdvisor--we hoofed it over to the nearby Millennium Park in the Loop. On the way, I caught a couple nice shots of the city--the second (sepia tone, reminds you of Sim City, right?) of which complements the point I attempt to emphasize in the next paragraph:

 



 The park is a must-see when visiting Chicago for the first time and is reminiscent of the Boston Common in my opinion as the expansive lawn is ideally situated in the middle of the Midwest's largest cityscape, comprised of the usual yet tasteful concrete, steel and glass. The Yin-Yang relationship of monochromatic, man-made precipices reaching into the sky and the vibrant, earthy colors of grass and flowers which provide temporary asylum from chaos of the concrete jungle is just right. It may be hard to conceive of through words (as exemplified through my wordy description), but the ratio of endless city blocks and cacophony of street sounds to the relative solitude of green grass and pleasant, natural smells is truly harmonious and offers the weary traveler a peaceful respite from the over-stimulated tourist mind. After traveling to city parks from New York ( sorry, but Central Park is a suffocating zoo and an ironic caricature of the overwhelming city it seeks to provide solace from) to San Francisco, I view Millennium Park as the best design out there and a true feat of landscape architecture. What really makes Millennium stand out is that its generally flat topography allows one to experience the feeling of being immersed in a completely wide-open environment, able to view a 360 degree panorama of both buildings and water despite the fact that it sits in the midst of a massive city. Sorry to obsess over this point, but I believe the variable of spatiality is essential to the overall feeling of a park. A park that is choked with trees which inhibit both perception of color and view is not a park at all, but rather an arboretum or woods such as the legendary Muir Woods. So I guess it's pretty obvious I liked the park. Before showing some visual evidence of my various claims, I must further explain why the park is quite unique. First off, almost upon entering the park from any entrance, you can see the glorious stainless-steel shine of the "Bean." After doing a little research, I found out that the mysterious Bean-shaped structure prominently displayed in the Northwest section of the park is named "Cloud Gate," the vision of an Indian artist who is said to have been inspired by liquid mercury. The "Bean" definitely resembles a massive drop of mercury, but more importantly the massive droplet of liquid metal reflects and greatly distorts Chicago's skyline. Although the sculpture is constantly surrounded by a throng of tourists, I felt inclined to push my way through and take both a few distance shots as well as some shots attempting to capture the unique way it warps size and shape when viewed from below:

 

For purposes of brevity as I could write all day about the park, a few of the other noteworthy sites included the Crown Fountain (a granite reflecting pool surrounded by glass towers which create a montage of videos that further creates a sort of optical illusion with a hole in the middle that serves as a spigot for the fountain), the  Lurie Garden, the massive Art Institute of Chicago and the Jay Pritzker Pavilion. The latter is a large stainless-steel music venue which complements Cloud Gate in that it is extremely modern in design and constitutes amphitheatre-like seating surrounded by a massive metal shell or web with huge speakers attached and which encloses a large lawn seating area. Essentially, for purposes of comparison, the Pavilion is a much more artistic design of Boston's Hatch-shell.   At the time, a large string symphony was practicing and the mellifluous sound of the huge orchestra was incredibly crisp even when standing at the outer section of the web.

Unfortunately we were not able to check out the Art Institute of Chicago which looks to be definitely worth a full-day visit. At around one we headed back to the Hotel, grabbed our stuff and headed west; our trip to Chicago thoroughly impressed both of us and we were sad to leave yet our time spent there elevated the city, without a doubt, to the top five of future places to live. Again--who would have thought there would be such a dynamic city, filled with beautiful sites, people and all forms of art, situated in the heart of the midwest? Finding such gems was precisely why I chose to take a roadtrip in the first place. Sadly, we had to bid adieu to I-90 for the time being, making the tough decision to bypass the upper-Great lakes region for a journey down I-80 deep within America's Heartland on the way to Omaha, NE. The drive to Eastern Nebraska was no casual day-trip-clocking in at just over 500 miles-especially when considering the fact that we were leaving at 230 in the afternoon and would be making multiple stops to take advantage of every authentically amuuuuurican attraction the lovely Iowa had to offer.

Northwestern Illinois was quite a pleasant part of the drive, and Illinois is similar to most states with a large metropolitan city. Once you leave that city, the rest of the state is still symbolic of old-school Americana, i.e. quaint villages comprised of Agrarianism's core principals--simple, rural lifestyles built around farming and honest, hardworking folks. Perhaps the most memorable part of this short drive was driving up to a naked truck (my ignorant term for a truck without it's load) with a simple yet efficient piece of marketing attached to the cab:

This might be a wild assertion, but I'm guessing that this trucker, and perhaps most of the midwest, dislikes Obama's bold new Healthcare reform? Shocking...who would've thought that the color-coded map of the presidential primary showing the entire interior of the country in red (CONSERVATIVE) would translate into the Midwest being opposed to a political euphemism for legal, and massive additions to the Federal budget deficit? Anyways, I will go no further as this is not a political blog and my apathetic views are inconsequential to the purpose of my writing. I must say though that this moving advertisement was quite effective. Within about two hours, we crossed into Iowa, and with that distinction, entered the hybrid state which some consider the western portion of the Midwest, and others (me included) consider the Eastern section of America's Heartland. Thinking back, our short time in Iowa was lovely. The beauty of Iowa is that it is rarely, if ever, mentioned in the media. This fact allows the state to elude the nonsense of being labeled with a particular title--thus it maintains its quintessential Heartland simple-yet-authentic charm (similar, in a way, to Bob Dylan's enigmatic yet thoroughly fascinating personality.) I loved the fact that upon entering the state, the only things I knew about Iowa was that its capital is Des Moines and it's license plate contains a picture of a grain silo--how wonderfully simplistic and old fashioned. 

Okay, I realize this is a long post in a less-than-extraordinary part of the roadtrip so I will try to stay focused for the latter half of the day. Here is Iowa's state sign: pleasant, humble and welcoming. 

I am making gross generalizations because I spent about six hours there but I assume they are pretty accurate. Most of the following pictures will exemplify these "Heartland" values. However, I learned that Iowa also contained many eccentric features--specifically, attractions that deviated from the characteristics/personality one would expect from a farm state. Although we did not stop at most of these sites, a few interesting ones that one might be inclined to visit found on my roadtrip app included: a hotel with a "taxidermied" polar bear, a memorial entitled "Rex the loyal dog" with the description: "After the two children in the Dimick family died of diptheria, their dog came every day to the cemetery and sat by the grave from dawn to dusk, mourning," Herbert Hoover's birth site, a sculpture made of wagon wheels, a 10 foot rotating ear of corn, Albert the Bull, a working Danish windmill and the fake "Golden Spike Monument" which ostensibly commemorated the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad (real one in Utah) but actually serves as a promotion for the 1939 film "Union Pacific." Whew. Hopefully you have the chance to enjoy a few of these bizarre sites.  We did, however, make two legendary stops in Iowa which symbolized the creepy and wonderfully Americana split-personality of the state, respectively. First was Iowa's claim to fame--the "Iowa 80." The Iowa 80 is supposedly the world's largest truckstop. Here are some exciting facts about the infamous truck stop: 229 acres, parking for 800 trucks, 15 fueling areas and 450 full time employees. Fran and I were in shock at the enormity of the stop which was literally a Disneyland for truckers. Yet what really shocked us was the inside of the main building which included the mundane--a massive restaurant, bathroom and plaza highlighting Iowa's attractions-- and the thoroughly strange-- a 40,000 foot truck showroom of pimped out trucks and accessories, a huge trucker's-only shower room, a 24 hour dentist.theatre/barber shop, and the most bizarre gift shop I've ever seen. Here is some visual evidence of this fascinating place:

 

In summary, the gift shop was mostly made up of jesus-freak clothing, knives, ball-and-chains and other medieval murder weapons, and my favorite-an entire section of animal tees:

Who knew that many animal tees were in circulation? Incredible! We were lucky to have left the Iowa-80 without purchasing a single animal tee or partaking in a impromptu dentist appointment. I did purchase an ice cream and Fran was able to capture me consuming my favorite food in the world while playing the part of a humble Iowan:

It's unbelievable how much a blond pornstache can enhance one's ability to resemble a pedophile/ appear to be really really good looking. I know you're on the edge of your seat to hear about our second adventure in Iowa, but that'll have to wait, as it occurred in North-Central Iowa the next day on our way to South Dakota. Shucks. My notes from the second half of the trip to Omaha are quite sparing, as there are literally two cities in Iowa, one of which--Davenport--is on the border of Illinois and the other, Des Moines is, well, unexceptional. We decided to get a beer in Des Moines to say we had been to the capital, and as I said, it was unexceptional. On a Friday night in the middle of one of Iowa's state colleges, there were maybe twenty people outside, none of whom wanted to hang out with some tourists. And that was that. The five hour trip from Walcott, IA where the truck stop was and Omaha, NE was marked by grass, road, a few cows, even fewer houses, an elevation change of perhaps 20 feet, two bridges: 

and a sunset:

We crossed the border into Nebraska and then found out that our one-star luxury La Quinta hotel was actually in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, directly back across the river that separates the two states. Fran was pleased about this, for she then mentioned that pleasant little Omaha, out of all the ghettoes in the country, is known to be the sex trafficking capital of the United States. We arrived at the hotel and promptly went to bed, happy to know we were back in Iowa and would live to see another day.