I am blogging from Des Moines, Iowa. We are passing by newly formed “lakes” right now. There’s a lot of standing water out there. Looks more like a bayou than anything else at the moment. Incredible. And downright scary for some of these people only feet away from being engulfed. They say the river here crested last night, and with no further rain, it has stabilized.

Our detour took us about 60 miles out of the way to the north, to Dubuque and over. I wish I could tell you it was a pleasant diversion, but it was not. Although it was a divided highway, it was not Interstate driving. Poor Dubuque’s roads were clogged with all of us “I-80ers” but they couldn’t have minded too much since we saw several signs like the Burger King we passed by was displaying saying, “Welcome I-80 Travelers!” At least someone could benefit from our miserable drive from Dubuque to Interstate 35.

We fought strong broad-side winds the whole way. Not much fun. The whole thing put us back about two and one-half hours of travel time.

We passed field after field with what we could only assume were planted with crops. It was difficult to tell since they looked more like rice paddies than farm fields. Swollen rivers and streams were nearly at bridge levels and had spilled over their banks to create new ponds and lakes. Oh, those poor people. While we were merely inconvenienced by our little detour, these people have lost their homes and more. So sad. And we didn’t even get close to Cedar Rapids where the worst flooding occurred. It’s going to take a while for the ground to absorb all the excess water. wow.

We’ve stopped in Omaha, Nebraska tonight. We had hoped to get further, but being buffeted by that wind today and having the extra hours spent going out of our way, we just couldn’t put the cats, dogs or ourselves through anymore car time. Tomorrow we hope to make good time and arrive at the cabin before dark. I may not blog for a few days until we can get our satellite internet up and running. Until then ...