We’re seeing a crop we’re not used to seeing. Soybeans!
And other stuff.
And a great sky.
And lots of seed corn.
Peoria, Bloomington, Champaign. We crossed into Indiana. Now we’re in the Eastern Time Zone. Indianapolis, the largest city we’ve been through since Seattle. We got past it before rush hour on a Friday afternoon.
Seattle to New York part of the trip map
Now we’re camping in forests.
760 miles to Pleasant Valley. P minus 7.
Any time we want something, we just log-on to Amazon, find it, and buy it. In two days, it shows up at our doorstep. That’s what we’re used to. That’s what we expect now. It’s Amazon’s fault we’re like this. They built the expectation.
That’s all well and good, but what about while we’re driving; when we’re not at home; what about us now? We want to buy something. We stop at a store, but what we want is not in stock. We call around, and nobody has it. Amazon has it.
Okay Amazon. You built this expectation. Let’s see you deliver to a moving target!
Eastern Iowa.
We crossed the Mississippi. Now we’re in Illinois.
Seattle to New York part of the trip map
1,002 miles to Pleasant Valley. It would be P minus 9, but the puppy pickup got moved up a day to Friday. P minus 8!
We saw a lot of what could be viewed as poverty, but much of it looks like it could be on purpose. Living in remote areas, or living off the grid, by choice, doesn’t look like it generates much income. There appear to be a lot of people living just off the road, just doing whatever they need to do to get by in the bush, live in Alaska, and not live in town. That makes me wonder, if by choice someone living off the grid’s income is below the poverty level, do they show up that way in the national and regional statistics? Is there a statistic for poverty-level-by-choice?
We’re still just west of Des Moines. There was severe weather last night and all the occupants of the RV park were evacuated to the tornado shelter for a time. It’s still raining today, but no sign of severe weather for this evening. I think that diagonal band of severe weather on the radar moves a little east every day. Maybe spending two nights here will let it get far enough away we don’t catch-up to it tomorrow.
We’ll see…
Seattle to New York part of the trip map
Still 1,174 miles to Pleasant Valley. P minus 10.
Only six new birds in August. Nine new birds in September.
We’re at 422 for the year with only three months to go. As we continue our travels, we’ll get to some eastern birds we haven’t seen yet but still, at this pace, less than ten new species a month, we won’t make the 500 count!
We enjoyed a one-day respite from the rain on Sunday. Since then, we’re back in it.
The Iowa windshield.
Seattle to New York part of the trip map
1,174 miles to Pleasant Valley. P minus 11.
This one!
Lesser black-backed gull.
South Dakota again today.
Seattle to New York part of the trip map
1,433 miles to Pleasant Valley. We’re halfway there!
