The jaunt that it took to get us to the Midwest has been a tad torturous. Bellingham to Seattle to Chicago to Des Moines, and from there we snagged a car to take us to Kansas City. This is the first leg of the tour that will take me to see my grandma for the first time in a while, a few months more than the amount of time I’ve last been to my home state.
Getting off the plane and walking to the car, there is a sense if your nose that you are no longer in Vancouver, or the Pacific Northwest for that matter. Maybe it’s the dryness of the air, or the fact that you can’t smell the sea air. We certainly don’t have the amount of pine or fir trees that scrub the air and stock the air with oxygen.
Contrary to belief, we have trees among our rolling prairie hills that tend to gather in decent bunches, but folks around here often refer to those areas as “the timber”. It’s a far cry from “the bush” in B.C. that can seemingly swallow a person away from civilization.
It’s very much dryer here, and the skin on my hands and arms are noticing it right away. This was an issue when I lived here, but this is a drastic shift from the wet climate of Vancouver. My arms were so itchy by the time we went to bed on our second night that I had to fight the urge to itch my skin raw before I fell asleep.
We’re actually in route to my hometown right now, heading north on I-35, back in Iowa for the second time on this trip. Our first round was only for a handful of hours, so this will be the longer stay in the “field of opportunities”. I’ve heard rumblings of a basketball game by some of my nephews, and some old friends have made requests for gathering together.
We’re about to round Des Moines for the second time this trip, maybe the third. We got turned around coming out of Des Moines International, and I’m not the most knowledgeable about getting around this city as I am driving around it. Eastern Iowa rules, Central Iowa drools. Never found myself coming here very often.
Glad to see you’re enjoying the Midwest! After being born in Chicago, I myself spent a few of my early years growing up in the small Iowa town of Orange City in Sioux County. I actually got to go back for the first time this summer. Good golly, I had forgotten how flat it was out there!