Is this heaven?

I’m sitting in our teardrop camper in the middle of a muddy field that is masquerading as a campground.  The downpour of a few hours ago didn’t help, and both the camper and truck are covered in splatters of a certain light tan clay that is so common here in Northeastern Iowa.

I lost the rear mud flaps to the truck on icebergs left by the snowplows past winter, so there’s a little more spray than usual.  Actually, a lot more.  It looks like someone took a drywall texture gun and packed it with this same tan clay and let his five year-old loose with it.

That said, I’m not complaining. I’ve been parked here in full view of the road, a scant hundred yards away. Two vehicles have passed in the last hour; a car (while sedan similarly decorated as mine) and a tractor pulling a grain drill. The river burbles through the little window, a soothing sound.

Today I paddled the Yellow River.  It has been on my list for a while, and I finally scheduled myself off for a few days mid-week so I could have some peace and quiet.  I get precious little time alone, and it is so nice to be alone with my thoughts.

You know, Iowa gets a bad rap. Sophisticated people from the coasts look down in wonder as they fly from concrete jungle to another. They wonder “Just who lives down there? Why would they want to live in such a sleepy little town?  I mean, how do they survive without Thai food?”

For the record, I grew up around these people, and I am somewhat schizoid about them, simultaneously feeling sorry for them while wondering if their parents had regrets after seeing what they created. They’re sorry little creatures, all form and no substance.  In other words, Anti-Iowan.

Iowa is a lovely, lovely place.  The people are down-to-earth and kind, the sort of folks who strike up casual conversations over a piece of pie, should you sit at the counter at a diner. The old folks are awesome, strong and wiry, weathered with countless summers of picking corn and milking cows. They’re the salt of the earth, and I like them all. *

Swallows are swirling around the teardrop, buzzing and clicking as they scoop up early, tender insects.  It won’t get dark for a few more hours but I feel cozy in here.  The teardrop is almost cheating: I paddle all day and here I lay after a nice dinner of curry and local cheese and crackers, on a really comfortable mattress, between 400 count cotton sheets.  Mary Chapin Carpenter sings back-up to a couple of wrens in a honeysuckle bush a few feet from my window.

And I haven’t even paddled the Upper Iowa yet. That’s tomorrow.  This is bliss.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

* Unless you’re from California, New York City or Florida.  In that case, Iowa is full of corn and pig farts. The people here are dim-witted, hirsute, clumsy, drooling troglodytes, and that’s just the women. The men are even more coarse and slow, dressing only in dirty overalls, shirt optional. Those who may have heard of phở mispronounce it. They speak an unintelligible variety of English that makes Cajun sound like the King’s Speech. They may or may not eat human flesh. Do not come to Iowa.