Best laid plans...

After I wrote yesterday's blog, we took Ozzy for a walk, then popped into the hotel reception to tell them we wanted to stay another night. Sigh. They were totally booked for the weekend. Go figure. Here we are in the middle of flaming nowhere, and the hotel is booked solid. I was really, really looking forward to a day off, to say nothing of wanting to wait out the storm of the year, but alas, we had to press on today instead.

So this morning at 8:30am we headed off into the heart of the storm and ended up driving all the way across Iowa to Sioux City, where we are now ensconced until Monday. We continued our journey on US 20, which frankly is one of the most wonderful highways imaginable, though the scenery was mostly mega-farms and corn fields. Still, there were rarely any trucks and a bare minimum of cars. It was a great drive, even if it started with bizarre clouds, and the threat of tornadoes dogged us the whole way.

As we got into the car this morning, Alan asked me if I had taken a photo of the car we're driving. No. So here it is: 2010 Chevy Traverse LT. It is very comfortable, and easily holds our four large suitcases, two carry-ons and Ozzy's dog crate, with plenty of room left over.

Then, as I was getting into the car, I glanced at the sky and saw this weird cloud formation. It was in layers and sort of creepy, like a sky tsunami. About five minutes after we pulled out of the hotel parking lot it began to rain and continued the deluge for the better part of the 60 miles we had to drive to get out of Illinois.

We crossed the mighty Mississippi and drove into Iowa.  There were some beautiful riverboats moored along the shoreline to the left of the photo, but we were at the wrong angle crossing the bridge for me to get a good enough shot.

See what I mean..??  The bridge girders were too close together for my camera angle.

Then there was the endless Iowa countryside.  The farms were enormous, but very meticulously cared for, though I may be off corn for the rest of my life. 

The skies cleared for a few hours in the early afternoon, and we thought maybe, just maybe, we'd managed to escape the really bad stuff--until these massive scary clouds began building.  We actually saw some funnels, though they didn't touch ground.  I was very relieved to get to Sioux City late this afternoon unscathed.

Now, a truly amazing and wonderful thing happened last night.  I was all bummed out about not getting a day off and was grumbling about it when we took Ozzy out for his last walk of the night.  There was a huge field behind the hotel and as we walked down this old country road into the field, the whole place suddenly lit up with fireflies..!!  It was like hundreds of fairies were having a party.  It was just breathtakingly magical.  I tried to take some photos, but it didn't work.  They blinked off and on too fast for my camera.  It was so very cool.

I'm looking forward to the day off tomorrow, as is Alan and most assuredly Oz, though he's quite the trooper now and jumps into his bed every morning and settles down for the long haul.  The humidity has finally dropped and it's only supposed to be in the mid-70s tomorrow which will please us all.  Tomorrow will be the first time in weeks the three of us will be just relaxing and doing nothing at all.  Cripes, I can hardly imagine it.