Iowa

We entered Iowa being chased by another thunderstorm a week ago. We had just stopped at a place to eat on the way from Wisconsin, sat down and Nate happened upon a tick in baby girl’s hair. So we hurried over to the convenience store side of the gas station/eatery, a very classy place, and bought some Vaseline to smother the tick out. As we went about this, I realized that everyone in the eatery was watching us intently, so I announced that we were just getting a tick out and that it was going fine. Expecting icy stares followed by silence in the typical Seattle manner, I was pleasantly surprised when the other parties expressed concern and relief along with their personal stories of ticks. That’s when I knew Iowa was just over the border. We ran out of the store in the pouring rain, hoping to drive out of it as we were to spend the next couple nights camping in my grandmother’s backyard. And luckily we did. She has an indoor cat, so as soon as we got there our little guy’s face puffed up and stayed that way for both the days. Needless to say, sleeping inside the house was not an option. So we camped in the muggy heat of the Midwest, where it often threatens to rain, but just falls short leaving one to suffer in the 90% humidity.

Iowa is amazing in many ways, though, and many of those ways are hidden to outsiders. As we crossed the border both Nate and I mentioned to each other how it suddenly looked so Iowan. If you don’t know what that means, it looks something like this…tiny, rolling hills coated in corn growing up to the sky, tassles swaying in the wind, clouds dotting the sky, the huge wide open blue sky, popping up amidst the cornfields are little thickets of trees where inside resides a farmhouse of some sort, grain bins, hog barns, and tractors all sit on the horizon. It’s a simple, earthy place and that feeling permeates the atmosphere.

We spent Monday and Tuesday with my grandmother, sleeping in the tent at night and finding things to occupy ourselves with during the day. She lives in a small town, maybe 200-300 people, most of them retired, where our most noted observation was that good coffee was hard to come by. Her home is usually one of my favorite places. She is a pack rat and so amongst all the seemingly useless items she has kept, there are some gems that can be admired. I always enjoy hearing the stories behind those gems. But we soon realized that being cooped up in a house with 2 young children, my grandmother and my uncle was not ideal. So we went to the farm. It was my great-grandmother’s farm, and then my grandmother and grandfather took it over, and now my other uncle is working the farm. He showed us around, and we felt a bit like farm tourists, shooting photos of the 1941 tractor that my grandpa had bought, which they still use, taking rides on the tractors, and oohhing and ahhing over the cows, sheep, and laying hens. It’s a pretty cool place to be. He talked to us about the hard reality of working a small family farm, trying to make a living by raising a small contingency of antibiotic/steroid free animals to sell at market and then there’s the second job he has as a tree trimmer. It’s not glamorous, but I admired him for his dedication to working the farm in a certain manner. We met my cousin’s baby twins, they are 1-2 month old little bundles of sleepiness. I have never seen two more kick back babies, picked up and put down several times, they slept through most of the afternoon.

The next evening was the county fair parade. Our kids first time gathering the candy thrown from the floats. Since we don’t allow much candy in our house it was so much fun to see their excitement over the little treats they were plucking from the street. Amazingly, they followed the rules about the candy and we haven’t heard a peep about wanting more since.