Pizza in Iowa

Indiana Museum of Art

Coralville, Iowa

Last night we stayed in a Baymont Inn that seemed kind of empty to us. This morning we learned that most of the other "guests" were living there. Serry overheard someone say she had lost her job, including the money she had contributed toward her retirement plan. It's very sad. At home, people experience hard times when their Mercedes is no longer brand new. Out here people really have it rough.

I'm glad to report that about 20 miles west of Dayton the road started to become less crowded and crazy. I guess these days you just have to travel a little further west to get out of the hubbub.

When I sit in the car as a passenger, I sit quietly looking out the window and maybe checking the map. When Serry's the passenger, it's like there's a family of monkeys in her seat. Out of the corner of my eye I can see her texting, playing with the GPS, climbing in the backseat to retrieve something, etc. It's exhausting just to watch her.

We stopped in Indianapolis today and spent three hours at the Indiana Museum of Art, a terrific place in the middle of 100 acres of gardens, sculpture gardens, etc. They have some great exhibits and I was really impressed with the quality of the little notes explaining the pieces of art. Concise, clear, and very accessible, they reminded me of Kimberly's masters thesis. This place is well worth a visit if you're ever out this way.

After the museum we drove the rest of the way through Indiana, all the way through Illinois, and part way through Iowa. Lots and lots of corn. It's kind of amazing that we can use it all, and we just rode through a narrow strip of only a couple of the states where it's grown in such large amounts. I tried to discern whether the corn has been damaged by the drought. I assume it has, but I don't know enough about how it should look at this time of year to be able to judge.


Now we're in Coralville where we just finished have a pizza in a sort of hip, trendy new brew pub. The beer was good and so was the pizza. But the kitchen is too small for the amount of patrons (on Friday night, anyway), and it took almost an hour for our pie to get to the table. (The waiter warned us it might take about 30 minutes. He was well-meaning...but way wrong.)

Tomorrow we'll see if we can get as far as Cheyenne, WY.