Go West...

After a wonderful respite from driving and a great time with our families, we left Madison for the great American West. Our route took us southwest through Iowa, then Nebraska, and finally into Colorado, with a final push out to Moab, Utah planned for tomorrow.

We had hoped to stop somewhere interesting in each state, and were almost successful, but ultimately defeated by the stubborn monotony of Iowa. (Wikipedia claims that this is a diverse and interesting state, so maybe we'll come back someday and look a little harder, but for now - why visit the idiots out wandering around when beautiful Wisconsin is so close by?)

Early on we faced some truly impressive rain and lightning, but not before we were able to stop at the lovely Dickeyville Grotto in famous Dickeyville, Wisconsin. There's nothing subtle about the religion and patriotism here - shrines to saints, Jesus and Mary, Christopher Columbus and Thomas Jefferson - but whether you agree with the viewpoint or not, the construction is pretty marvelous. Literally every inch of each of the shrines (maybe a half-acre of total area) is covered with rocks, resin chips and seashells. The amount of time Father Wernerus put into these structures is a real testament to human idealism - or is that endurance?

Aside from Dickeyville, we also really enjoyed the scenery in Wisconsin around the western border - river country - and lamented that neither of us had really seen very much of our home state. At places the road cuts right through the hills revealing starkly contrasting layers of limestone (we think), sandstone, and various other strata. Quite pretty.

Iowa was a bit of a bust (no surprises really, based on memories of prior trips), but we made good time and then really opened up the old throttle once we hit Nebraska. Nothing but flat, little but corn, and a speed limit of 75. The road traces the Platte River, so there were pretty stands of cottonwood to break up the monotony and we found a real-life stop on the pony express with a friendly local docent to answer our questions. (This alone vaulted Nebraska way past Iowa in the favorite-state-of-the-day competition.)

(This is the second story of the original building, which was restored and moved to a park a few miles south of the original spot. Inside is kind of pretty, in a rough-hewn way, with thick irregular beams and neat displays of Pony Express history and general frontier relics.)

The Pony Express ran all the way from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California: almost 2,000 miles, with posts every 10 miles to change horses and every 50 miles to sleep. The mail was carried in mochilas, special contraptions made to fit over saddles, that carried only about 20 pounds of mail (not much, when you see the mochilas in person). Prices were high - $5 per half-ounce - but apparently couldn't cover the high costs of maintaining so many feeding and resting stations and according to our docent the founders lost a total of over $100,000 over the span of less than two years of operation. Still, it seems like the riders were pretty tough dudes and its an interesting story. All in all, this was a fun stop and one that netted Erica a pretty awesome t-shirt as a souvenir.

So far, Colorado is beautiful and empty and much more contoured than the Midwest. Not so surprising... It is also crazy dark out here. We can see the appeal. Lots more to go - we're really looking forward to the mountains.

Until next time, all our love to all our readers and thanks to Super 8 for free wireless. Take that S.S. Badger.