Eye-Oh-Wah

So, I'm sitting at the 4-H camp in Decorah, Iowa and while my cell phone doesn't work, there is actually a pretty sick wireless internet. I've been here for two nights now, and I just assumed there wasn't going to be any access to internet... anyway, here goes.

Traveling from Omaha to Iowa was long... I picked up a passenger (Julie Westfall from Peace Corps Mali) and we headed East on 80 and then took 35 North. After that it was a series of smaller routes that took us through the very definition of small town America.

Easily, the best part of the drive was a gas stop in Huxley, IA. We ended up at a Dairy Queen (voted Huxley's best ice cream of 2007)), and I fell into a conversation with the people behind the counter about the ingredients for something called a Pizza Burger. None of the Dairy Queen employees could tell me what it was or what was in it (one of them told me it has flecks of white meat in it). Anyway, somehow that led me across the street to The Video Place and Tanning Salon. I don't know why someone ever decided to put those two things together but I like it... What's crazier is that they have something like 8 different stores across Iowa.

Since then, I've been hanging out at Mali La 2007 here at the 4-H Camp. It's pretty great. There are a bunch of people here from Peace Corps Mali and then a bunch of other people I've never met that are all connected to Dan Bellrichard. Dan was in Peace Corps with me and now lives here in Decorah.

We've been catching up on everything Mali.

Nick Benore and I have been dominating Badminton and I found the greatest flashlight in the world... Some guy here threw it in the fire for some reason and we pulled it out (still working), dumped it in the water (still working), put it back in the fire for a bit and then in the water one more time... Still works. I'm bringing it with me where ever I go. I can't tell who made it, because it's all melted, but whoever built that thing did a great job.

All right, that's it for now... I'm gonna come back and put some photos of it in an hour or so.









Sunday.... this is our proposed route back to DC.