The Breadbasket of the World (but we saw only corn)

God help me. 

Let's just start with the highlight of the day, shall we?

This is one of the main reasons that we took this particular route. Meet Elwood, The World's Largest Concrete Garden Gnome. (He's the one holding the trowel.) Elwood lives in the Reiman Gardens at Iowa State University in Ames. I am grateful that they have a reciprocal relationship with the NC Arboretum because otherwise, it would have cost us $12 each to enter. Don't get me wrong; it's a lovely garden, and if we had taken time to walk around, it would have been worth $12 each, but we high-tailed it to find Elwood and get back out (after a quick detour to see the orchids), so I'm glad that we thought to look that one up. 

The orchids there were lovely, however. They have them displayed in a lanai (who would have thought to find an lanai in Iowa???). They are just hanging out in there. It's very warm and very humid, but not as hot as it was outside today (94 degrees until we got to the western side of Iowa, when it dropped to 83).

So. After the Elwood experience, we were in search of the World's Largest Popcorn Ball. In the big town of Sac City (appropriately named, and sorry if that offends anyone) stands a tiny house with a big-ass popcorn ball in it. For obvious reasons, you cannot touch, feel, smell, or taste the popcorn ball, so it is, I'm sure, hermetically sealed inside this house. Carnac The Magnificent would be impressed, even if it's not a mayonnaise jar. Lenin could likely be inside here and be just fine. But it's just a popcorn ball, created in 2016. 

So. That's it for the World's Greatest things today. But there will be more tomorrow. 😳

Other thoughts of the day:

• Why isn't weed legal everywhere? I'm not a big user, but we did grab some for a friend while in Illinois, and it's just so easy - and no worse than alcohol. And the money? Friends, the taxes alone would do wonders for the public school budgets. 
• We had lunch in the Amana Colonies (https://amanacolonies.com/visitors-guide/history-of-the-seven-villages/). It's an interesting collection of villages that seem to be more tourist traps than anything at this point, but I can see that it was probably cool for those folks to all live amongst one another at some point. 
• Dinner was in Sioux City and consisted of something famous and local called "loosemeat sandwiches." People, it's just cooked ground beef (I hope) on a bun. I guess that we can say that we've been there and done that. Do not need to do it again. [Dan here. In this part of the world, loosemeats outpace hamburgers.  It wasn't bad, especially with a beer, but I think I prefer a burger.]
• We had ice cream at Whitey's, recommended by our friend, Bill Mobley - and I think the only person I've ever known who actually lived in Iowa. 
• The plains are very flat. Dan says that they are corny (because of the corn growing everywhere). They remind me of the Mississippi Delta area, except that those fields have soybeans and cotton and rice. There is a LOT of corn growing here. And we did see the wind come sweeping down the plains. 
• There are a ton of wind turbines... hundreds. We have seen them in other countries but not in the States. I'm glad to know that we are utilizing the wind for power. I tried to get some photos, but they didn't come out very well, as you can see below. 

• This was a cool bridge:

• And we got to bypass this (The World's Largest Truck Stop). That was a win/win. 

Dan is doing laundry and I'm preparing myself for tomorrow's adventures. And no, I'm not going to tell you. That might spoil the surprise, which would be tragic. 

[Today was our longest drive in one day: 530 miles. There are a couple of other days that break 500, but this was the longest. We listened to podcasts and started an audiobook.]