Look in the trunk!

Left Indianapolis in a downpour of epic proportions. Living in the drought state, I haven't seen much rain in a few years and this storm seemed like a whole season worth in an hour. I sat in the car for about an hour waiting for it to stop and finally gave up. I did get to see Louis Chevrolet's grave which was very  modest. I expected something the size of a Suburban at least.

speaking about graveyards, I've been a heap of them lately. I was amazed at these old towns and how large, like several thousand acres, the graveyards are. I have resorted to going into the office and asking for a map and sometimes have to stand in line with grieving people. If they only knew why I was there....."get the tarbucket, fred....." I was followed around one cemetery by the security for a while and so I'm also amazed at the millions of tons of granite that has been quarried, carved and shaped. Are these monuments the last clinging gasp of people for some physical immortality?  And another thing, I keep wondering how much formaldehyde is in the water table under these plains of the dead. I think it's time to letterbox somewhere else for a while.

I recrossed the Mississippi river at Davenport Iowa and headed directly to Le Claire, home of American Pickers TV show. No stars were there except one gal who worked in the office and was on TV a few weeks ago. They have two stores, one in Nashville and the one here in LeClaire. This store is really tiny, a converted gas station. There is no way they are covering their costs by picking stuff, its all the TV rights and swag they sell. And I bought a T shirt too. If you watch the show, you know they have an iconic old Nash in front of the store. The trunk of this car is filled with letterboxes,  yes about 50 of them in a big bucket. I spent half an hour stamping in.


I headed across Iowa to and then down to Cameron Missouri where I stayed in a motel with about 50 prison preachers. they rode motorcycles and were planning to visit the Penitentiary the next day. they were very pleasant and asked me " Is Jesus in your life?"  I was able to reply simply , and then started worrying if the next question was how?  I wouldn't have had much of an answer for that....Maybe I could have said I spend lots of time with the dead.
I visited the gravesite of two of my great grandparents, Henry and Martha Carroll and then drove through Kidder Missouri where my grandmother grew up. No one in my family lives there anymore and from the looks of the place its in pretty sad shape. I retraced my steps and got up to Nebraska City on the Missouri River and saw where Lewis and Clark started their cross country trip. I'm still amazed they crossed the country twice and not a single member of the expedition died.... this was in the early part of the 19th century too.

I drove across Nebraska and headed down into Kansas and found the geographic center of the lower 48 states and just down the road a piece the spot where "Home on the range" was composed.

Of course there were letterboxes there.. that's why I went there. tonight Venus and I are in Ft Hays, Kansas on I 70. Tomorrow  Colorado!