Mot's blog

20 minutes in Atlantic Iowa.











For the third or fourth time in the time – I found that gas stations are plentiful when I am on 3/4 of a tank with the van. Once I get to a quarter tank – the story changes and I drive the van on fumes frantically searching for a gas station. Once past Des Moines – the van was on 1/4 tank and only corn fields for miles. [ Those stereotype images of Iowa are true!]
So – looking at a map I decided it was better to head 6 miles off the highway to Atlantic than 20 more miles on the highway to possibly find no gas at the next stop. So off I went to do a quick tour of Atlantic. Coke a Cola capitol of Iowa. [ I do not know what that actually means…] Before I could get into Atlantic – I had to wait for this non-moving train to actually move.











Atlantic looks like a nice town situated on old route 6 – that just got bypassed by route 80. You would never know about it unless you got off the highway. After gassing up – I decided to take old route 6 into Council Bluffs / Omaha instead of going back to the highway.

At first a neat drive.




















I paralleled a lightning /thunderstorm most of the way and took a few photos. It was literally a mix of Close Encounters / Wizard of OZ landscape.





















The novelty wore off as the route made a turn right into the storm path as the sun finally went down. So I had complete darkness lit up every few seconds by a lightning strike with heavy rain, so so wipers and a windshield full of bug smear. Visability went to Zero every time a car passed by me. Novelty ended quickly. Things improved as I drove into Council Bluffs/ Omaha. I located a KOA on the west side of Omaha and called it a night. Tomorrow I will wait for some more VW people to catch up so we can caravan.