Day two took us 550 miles through the rest of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and the eastern half of Iowa. I’ve now set foot in 3 new states on this trip, and that was just about the most exciting part of yesterday. (Okay, I’m kind of kidding, but if I don’t see another cornfield again for a few years, I think I’ll be alright.)
The highlight of the drive was actually stopping at Lake Michigan in Indiana, where the highway brought us so close we couldn’t help but take a quick detour to check it out. Soft sand, surprisingly warm water, and very high winds! We could even see the Chicago skyline waaay off in the distance. Strangely, it reminded us both of Cape Cod (where we’ve spent many a summer vacation).
The countryside is beautiful and the air clean and clear. There’s something mesmerizing about cruising past block after block of perfectly planted rows of corn…for a split second, you see a straight line of stalks and then it blurs away.
And nine hours of hypnotic corn rows later, we arrived in Des Moines! Des Moines seems to be the cultural center of the mid-west west of Chicago. Here, we had an excellent (by any standards) meal at Alba Restaurant in the up and coming “East Village” of Des Moines, and then promptly went to the hotel and fell asleep! Stay tuned for Day Three, in which we’ll venture into South Dakota…
tuesday is yoga day 