The red barns and silos and corn fields for miles. I don't think these states grow anything but corn and the occasional cow. Catherine was kind of grumpy from lack of sleep, so her appreciation was probably less than it could have been.
In any case, we stayed on smaller roads through Iowa, stopping at the Little Brown Church in the Vale. The church has hosted more than 70,000 weddings and has nice bathrooms. The historical gift shop next door has a decent selection, and a small dog that isn't particularly friendly (not that his owner (who is the cashier) seemed to care....).
After speeding through Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, we crossed the Mississippi River again into Illinois. People should not stop on busy interstates to try to get the "sign" picture. If you can get it you get it, but don't become traffic hazards.
We ran into a surprising amount of traffic around the border (construction) and Denise reaffirmed her dislike of Jersey barriers. Catherine was doing her best to sleep through most of the nonsense.
Everything was still really, really wet, but at least the corn was up to knee high. And there is a lot of corn in Illinois -- there's more to the state than Chicago.
Catherine had been told that the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is in the middle of a cornfield. The rumors are correct. There is nothing here but corn and corn processing units. Nothing. If she'd gone there for grad school, she probably would have been done in 3 years because there is nothing else to do but school.
We can't really recommend the La Quinta in Champaign. While cheap, it also has paper thin walls and is pet friendly. The pets were all well behaved when their owners were in the room, but one poor puppy was whining and sad for a while because this people went to get dinner without him.
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