We are back from our travels. We stayed at The Abbey Resort in Fontana, WI, in Springfield, Illinois, in Davenport, Iowa, and in Madison, Wisconsin. If you hear that area called "fly-over country", I recommend some doubt. Whether it is a person, a book or an area, not paying attention can deprive you of fun and refreshment.
Lynn likes to tell the routing and GPS apps to avoid highways. She feels calmer and like she gets a better experience of both driving and viewing on back roads, less traveled roads, where the speed limits are lower. What we are driving past is closer to us and seems more human. Because of her taste for back roads, I got to see wonderful vistas of farms and hills.
We went to Springfield to see things related to Abraham Lincoln. We did and I learned more about his presidency, the public's views of the man, and his personal family life. We sent out pictures of the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum, realizing that big trucks and containers on ships, trains and trucks bring us much the greater portion of what we have.
One aspect of the telegraph and telephone systems I hadn't thought about until that museum was the need for poles to carry the wires. Google search finds that there are about 180 million such poles in the US, which is roughly one pole for every 2 or 3 people in the country. The information says that a treated pole can last 30 years without maintenance, or up to 75 years with maintenance. I remember the project my stepdad and I had just digging post holes for a farm fence. The telephone poles are much bigger and heavier. Seeing an early truck especially built to dig adequate pole holds and hoist the poles in place made me realize the labor involved in our communication systems and history.
We saw the flooding in downtown Davenport and we realize that there is still flooding to be dealt with in many parts of the country.
Of course, a major reason for travelin off somewhere is to give ourselves the very great pleasure of coming home. It is a wonderful place and we are grateful.
