Lots of driving

Rose is now on the farm with my parents and her two cousins. We left our house right around 7am and made it to Des Moines around 12:30 where we met up with everyone else. The trip there went very smooth, no wrong turns or anything.

The trip home, well not so good maybe. I had realized on the way up, that I hadn't been checking my overall mileage on the vehicle and seeing when an oil change was due. Well it should have been do probably a month ago. I found a Firestone on the way back that could get me in right away so that was done. I filled up the gas tank--I made something like 33 mpg--very cool. The I made a wrong turn that took me about 10 miles in the wrong direction. It actually wasn't that bad, because I then kind of looked for a different route just to be able to see something different.

I found a Catholic church in Ottumwa and made 4:30 mass. An older looking church from the outside but the inside looked okay, not as old or maybe gothic as I expected. Well speaking of gothic, I then stopped at the American Gothic house in Eldon. It was kind of neat. The house was still there and there was a little museum and gift shop there. The place was also nicely landscaped and done fairly recently. It sounds like they probably got a nice donation a few years back making this all happen. I wasn't really sure how to take it. Part of the exhibit talked about the importantance of the artist Grant Wood and how he tried to develop artists in Iowa during his lifetime. The other part of the exhibit talked about everywhere this painting has been used in pop culture, kind of a comedic look at it. I guess the painting does belong both as a series painting and also it's influence in pop culture. Well I didn't take any pictures because I didn't have a camera and it was also just me. I did grab a couple of brochures though. Staying on the 2 lane hwy I then eventually made it to Houghton, Iowa. I didn't stop but just passed through.

On Thursday I drive to NE to pickup Rose & then drive back on Saturday. So even though today was a lot of driving, it was really just the beginning.