Travel, Trials, Tribulations...mebbe one Tribble

 At the end of April 2023, I voluntarily stepped down from my position as a manager for three casino surveillance rooms in Colorado and retired. Sorta.

Having been a tax paying member of the work force since 1972, it was time.

I decided to take a road trip back home. Iowa, where the family left in 1971. Granted, I'd been back since, but hadn't always been able to connect with some friends and family there.

This time I would. Plus, my elder sister tasked me with some genealogical assignments for her ancestry research.

I set out in the very wee hours of the morning on a Friday in early May. A great time to start out, since next to no one was out on the Denver metro highway system. 

Which also pretty much held true as I navigated I-76 toward Nebraska.

Except for one pesky skunk.

About 11 miles SW of Sedgwick CO something went THUMP on my right rear side of the car. Before I could venture a casual "WTF", the source was olfactorily revealed.

It stayed with my car interior for another 60 miles. It stuck to the car exterior when I stopped periodically for another 500 miles.

Not that it mattered: it didn't degrade the quality of the full service fuel stop coffee I was in need of.

 Some of the worst truck stop coffee I've ever had, I had on this trip.

The skunk might have improved it.

Of no surprise on this trip, there were the inevitable cone zones.

A miles-long stretch in NE Colorado. A couple more in NE. And of course a couple in Iowa.

You figure they'll get this stuff done by the next Millennium.

Still, all things considered -- skunk, bad coffee, road construction -- the trip was pretty much uneventful. While Nebraska is a boring place to transit -- at least to me -- it has one huge plus: the plethora of strategically placed rest stops.

My kidneys and bladder were forever thankful.

I had planned my journey so as to hit traffic in Lincoln and Omaha NE off peak, and I was successful.

Just prior to the noon hour, I crossed the Missouri River into Iowa.

And ran straight into Mothra.

The Japanese are short one B movie monster now. And I had one unplanned stoppage to return visibility to my windshield.

After skirting West Des Moines afternoon traffic and another hour on, I turned east on my final leg of the journey. US 20 eastbound toward Waterloo.

In this picture the highway isn't totally finished, but in 2023 it is interstate style, two lanes each way.

And after 62 more miles on my 803 mile journey, I found the hotel.

Not fancy, but reasonable.

Sometimes when you travel, you imagine your reserved accommodations a bit like this:

Sometimes, that's not how it winds up.

Thankfully, my reservation wasn't quite like the latter.

Or quite like this. All the corn cobs in my bathroom were red.

Something of a relief.

As this would be my 'base camp' for the next 7 days, I checked out the restaurant on the other side of the parking lot and found it was not only still there, but it was also still as awesome as heretofore. They have a killer pork tenderloin.

And farmer's daughters' waitresses.

Well okay, not QUITE like that. But nice and efficient.

I got myself briefly reacquainted with the Cedar River that cuts through both Waterloo and Cedar Rapids.

Over the next seven days I was able to visit friends in Waterloo and Davenport, living relatives in Ely, and dead friends and relatives in Waterloo, Grinnell and Swedesburg.

This took an entire day to complete, but Big Sis got everything that she was lacking for her records. And I had some quiet moments with those departed.

Lots of rural driving that was traffic free and well...very Iowa-esque:

While there I learned that a 'tribble' had won a prestigious dog show.

That, I was assured, is a dog.

That's more what it looked like.

After a great visit with folks I hadn't seen in as much as 30 years, it was time on the early morning of Day 8 to point the nose of my flivver west and head back to Colorado.

The trip was long and repetitious, except for no Mothra or skunk encounters.

Eight days, 2560 miles. All in all, a great road trip.

Except for one thing: I forgot to get my pet rock, Seymour, a souvenir.

Nothing like a pouty rock.

I came through on my next trip in September: a soybean pod.

Seymour has no idea what it is, but it's from Iowa and it's his.

Meantime, I am back to work....part time. Not a manager, just an hourly grunt. And it's much better this way.  All's well with my peculiar little world.