Mile 11,755 – Fremont, Indiana (in the extreme northeast corner of the state). There are good things about returning home. The weather, especially late today after we passed Chicago, was exceptionally clear. The trees and countryside in Indiana looked lush after the parched grasslands of South Dakota and the dusty farmland of Iowa.
It appears in Iowa they don’t seal their gravel roads with something that inhibits dust. The countryside was filled with dust clouds, sometimes kicked up by a single car. When I pumped gas this morning, I found the outside crevasses of my car filled with a tan-colored dirt. When I tried to wipe it with my finger, my finger became greasy black. It is either Iowa dust or smoke soot from the West. We breathed that stuff? I will forego the chemical analysis. I am tired of the smoke and dust. I am glad to be back in the lush vegetation and relatively clear air of the East. Who would have thought that?
We may not have Internet access our last two nights in Austin, Pennsylvania. So we’ll complete the blog after we get home on Tuesday.
[Photograph © 2012 P.J. Gardner. All Rights Reserved.]