Some Lessons from Iowa

Who would of thunk we would wind up spending a week in Iowa? Part of it was because we needed repairs, but part was because we found neat stuff to do.

Judy will fill you on on the details, but I had a couple of thoughts I wanted to share. First of all, the view from horizon to horizon is planted fields in most of the state -- especially corn. Every once in a while there is a clump of trees with a house and other buildings. This is the farmer's home, and some of them are quite beautiful.

But sometimes there is a surprise right around the bend. We went to see the Winnebago factory (whence comes HaRVey the RV). We were driving through cornfields and the GPS said we were 4 minutes away. No way! No how! And then sure enough here comes this huge manufacturing complex virtually in the middle of the cornfields. The tour was great. More about that from Judy.

The other thing I found fascinating was that a large percentage of the trucks on the Interstates carried oversized loads. Some of them carried huge farming equipment -- no surprise there. But a large number of them carried parts for wind turbines. There are wind farms all over Iowa, and it's quite a pretty sight. I am not so sure that wind farms off the coast would be such an eyesore as opponents would like us to believe.

Iowa is quite different from states in the east. But different means different -- not better or worse. We enjoyed our stay in Iowa and learned a thing or two as well.