Mostly driving today. A few interesting detours. Some planned some not.
I left Panora around 9. Made my way to West Des Moines via some lovely parkways to nowhere. Found a Barnes and Noble with a Starbucks and got an iced latte. Officially summer now. Tried to plan a reasonable route for general easterliness and failed. So I decided to go with the “what’s about 100 miles east of here?” game.
That would be Pella, IA home of Pella Windows. So I stopped, illegally, and get this quick shot of the corp headquarters for my friend Paul who works for Milgard Windows.
(pella)
![pellawindows headquarters of pella windows](http://blackdogandmagpie.net/shoes/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/pellawindows-361x400.jpg)
This was my first view of the Mississippi river in Fort Madison. Then the GPS routed me away from the river and I ended up not crossing until Hannibal, MO.
![1stlook first look at the mississippi river](http://blackdogandmagpie.net/shoes/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/1stlook-400x266.jpg)
I stopped for lunch at a Taco Johns. In Canton, IL maybe. There were some sad looking train bits on a disconnected siding.
I don’t know whose livery this purple is/was but It must have been an attractive car at one time.
![tacojohnspurple purple railroad car](http://blackdogandmagpie.net/shoes/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/tacojohnspurple-400x131.jpg)
The Caboose seemed to be doing a bit better. They have so much more charisma and so much less surface area to paint.
![tacojohnscab caboose in a parking lot](http://blackdogandmagpie.net/shoes/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/tacojohnscab-400x266.jpg)
Today I saw the first police I’ve seen in four days. (Not counting the Panora officer who waved at me while I parked in the lot at the historical village.) The first one was marked and as I came up behind him he pulled into the center median and U‑turned back the way we’d come. The second was an unmarked white unit with the interior lightbar. I was doing 72 (cruise control) in a 65. Driving right, passing left, etc. He came up on me as I was passing a tanker truck. Pass completed, I pulled over, and he powered on past at 80-something. Clearly the time had come to get off the road for the evening.
![dudley sleepy good-sheep](http://blackdogandmagpie.net/shoes/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/dudley.jpg)
You went through Hannibal and you didn’t get a photo of the lighthouse?!?
Yes. A lighthouse on the central Mississippi. In Hannibal. The “Mark Twain” lighthouse.
Okay — for the next road trip. Iron Butt check-point photo-ops. Right?
If you’re so inclined to visiting this sort of thing, New Madrid, MO is host to the largest earthquake to ever hit the continental US. Changed the course of the Mississippi, creating a dam, if you stretch the definition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_Earthquake
http://www.new-madrid.mo.us/
http://www.newmadridmuseum.com/
I think that might indeed qualify as a dam — at least in the loose sense that road-tripping requires. I’ll see if it fits into the return route.