To: OnTheRoad
From: Richard Dean <richdean@clark.net>
Subject: iowa...
greetings from walnut, iowa, home of lots of antiques (or so they say...). If you curious where this place is (and who wouldn't be...), take your map o' iowa, fold it in quarters north-south... i'm on the first fold east of omaha :-) exit 46 off I-80.
today the weather closed in on me. On the radio, I've been hearing about snow and rain just behind me and i know its cold in boston... well, they met up here in Iowa today. Rain, thunder and lightening (!?) forced me in early tonight.
after steamboat springs, i drove down 40 towards Denver, stopping in Idaho Springs for an unsuccessful search for a ghost town called Nevadaville. My disappointment was soothed somewhat since the search was along a stretch called the "Oh My God" road... a nice dirt path that literally jolted my radio out of place (resulting in a nice buzz until i banged it back into place today...). All over the side of this steep road are abandonded mines, with gold-colored tailings streaming down the mountain side. The scars are really scary, and even more so because it appears that some of these places are still active.
finally hooked up with US-6 down into Golden where the smell o'beer hits you about a mile out of town. of course i stopped... had the tour, bought some stuff, and drank an interesting pumpkin beer. Coors makes a bunch of beers under the Blue Moon label (inc. the pumpkin...), but their names doesn't appear on the label. Coors actually makes some pretty decent beer, but i guess there are those who won't buy a beer made by a major. Golden's a cute town with nice shops... i got a new pair of black cowboy boots... pointy with silver on the toes... a bit much, but what can you do? :)
got to the nebraska border last night and stayed in Julesberg at a motel that actually had a sign on the wall saying, "no cleaning of game in the room." Yikes. Nothing like gutting a deer in a motel room, but its a bitch to get the entrails into those little waste baskets.
met a truck driver from rapid city, sd in the bar. we bought each other beers for a while and talked about places we had been. interesting fact learned: trucks (the cabs part) cost 100 thousand bucks.
today was a pretty uneventful drive across nebraska. At one point I was teased by the offer of a real pony express station in Gothenberg, but it turned out to be closed and was moved from its real location *4 miles* away. I did, however, get pictures of a life-sized buffalo made from barbed wire. cool. Also stopped at Pioneer Village, a real must-see kind of place. This guy Harold Warp built the place in the 50s and its an amazing collection of "authentic americana." dozens of cars and buggies, trolly cars, trains, home appliances, you name it. Just about antyhing you can think of, you can trace the evolution of here. After nearly two hours i was overwhelmed and had to leave. :)
anyway, i'm 1300 miles from home... and plenty of flat roads betweeen here and New York state...
see ya...
rich