In the Land of Corn

I’m developing a distressing trend of “camping” in the rain, which inevitably turns into thunder and lighting. Last night, I slept in my car in the Mark Twin National Forest – a legitimate campsite, so a step up from baseball fields I’d say.

Yesterday started by getting obscenely lost in the land of cornfields. This picture on repeat is what I saw for hours…except when I got lost on a gravel road, then the corn stalks looked much bigger. I know the old saying that corn should be knee high by the 4th of July and well…I’d like to see some of the knees around here. The corn was over my head.

I finished following the Ohio River all the way to the Mississippi. But not before I made a few stops. I drove the byway into Old Shawneetown where the byway unceremoniously ended. There was a sign in the middle of the road that said “END.” If I had gone any farther, I would have driven into the Ohio River. The only thing I can say about Old Shawneetown is that it had about three buildings – one abandoned building, one huge three-story, Greek-style stone building complete with columns that looked like it belonged somewhere in the old section of a city, and one building that read “saloon” and there were many cars parked out front. And then I had to like the town because any town that can have a saloon without irony has to be okay.



So from there I drove to Metropolis, IL. Yes that would the fabled town of Superman. Except Metropolis was a bit more like Smallville than the New York style home of the Daily Planet.


I did have one unexpectedly wonderful stop – The Garden of the Gods. Illinois has only one national forest and they chose well. I took a little hike/walk and stood in awe at a forest that in prehistoric times was the bottom of a sea.



Now on a totally separate tangent – as I have been driving I see the same town names, street names, and even river names in every area. I mean how many Rip Rap Roads should there be. Our settlers didn’t have a very large imagination. But here are two of my favorites for well…my own amusement. Leather Strap (a small four house town) – for the absurdity of it. And Future City (another very small town) – for the optimistic propheticness of it (and no that's not a word, I know).