Day 4 - Iowa and Wisconsin.

Woke up and drove into Iowa, ending up at our friends house in farm country. Caught up on gossip and news, ate a home cooked country dinner, by Carole, and relaxed. Not a long driving day today.

Slept on the couch, and was rewarded with a fabulous omelette cooked personally by Leroy. It was worth 4 days of driving just to hang with these two and eat their cooking.

Anyway, Monday morning (day 5) and I'm out of there,
and a quick stop at Fishlips3, a bead store in West Des Moines, Iowa, owned and operated by Dennis. He has been holding some wood and stone carvings for me that I had imported 2 years ago with a Zimbabwean friend Wayne. Only the small carvings - the big ones will have to wait until next time we come through Iowa. (the van was stuffed before I loaded the carvings).

Saw an interesting transaction while at the bead store - a Eritrean man purchased over $650 worth of contemporary stone beads cut in China and strung like African Trade Beads (with raffia) which he was taking back to the Sudan to resell to tourists at the markets in Khartoum. He was flying out in the morning.

Drove through Iowa passing two truck roll overs, one in each direction, due to strong winds, and made it into Madison, Wisconsin and my hotel, without a problem. Almost there - 1 hour drive tomorrow and I can start unloading and setting up my booth. Yeah!

Bring it on!