Saturday, 2nd August, 2008

As some of my friends and family know we have spent the past week in the US.

As we headed back to Des Moines Airport to return the rental car and get our flight to Milwaukee en route to Toronto we passed a cemetery. There were two bright, new, temporary signs right by the highway. 'Price Reduction' and 'New Owners!'

And in the distance you could hear the announcer 'Welcome! We have a Blue Light Special in the southeast corner. Head on over there folks, five minutes only, it's a two for one deal plus a 10 per cent discount!'

OK so I made that last bit up, but not the signs advertising the price reductions from new owners. Do you suppose established owners (of the graves) might get a bit ticked and demand a price reduction of their own? Zombies on the picket line? I would be there with a placard, mouldering away and complaining if I had had the misfortune to croak just before the sale and had paid good money for a plot beside the bargain bin holes in the ground. Yet another good item to add to my list of reasons for not wanting to be buried………

Things like that just make the whole Midwest of the USA so endearing to me. A sale at a cemetery? How cute is that?

Pella is still as beautiful as ever, the Stepford Wife of small-town USA. Perfect, clean, smiling and very, very conformist. So pretty and pristine and you can't swing a cat without hitting a windmill or a perfectly manicured park. Not that I imagine too many of the locals swing cats, well not without a permit and the right windows……. ;o)

We also popped over to southwestern Iowa to hang around a few old haunts where we wondered if Bill H's menu had changed in 25 years - it hasn't; or if KMA had bought a new record - I was stunned and amazed to discover that they have! Possibly two. They played two songs from the 1990's no less. I am still recovering from the shock.

Other than that, the corn looked and tasted great, the beans look good too but maybe a little green still so no telling if they will ripen well before the first frost. We slipped right back into the 'Iowa Wave' as we drove around and recognised locations not by street or town names but rather by 'Oh there's the old Melendez or Swanson or Johnson place; the old high school; the locker; the elevator; the big coffee pot.'

We dipped our toes into Nebraska. We reminisced about Mrs. B, resplendent in her buggy competing fiercely with her family running the place next door: zooming up with her raspy voice 'D'you vanna make a deal?' We went shopping in the Old Market in Omaha. We wandered around the galleries and quirky stores and were amazed to be reminded of how many of the restaurants and pubs we have been to over the years. We finished up with a lovely early supper at M's Pub. Yes again unchanged in decades décor-wise but the menu is, as always, up to the minute, eclectic and really excellent.

It was a fun trip and over much too soon.