Iowa

Have you ever driven from Chicago to Iowa?   If not, I highly recommend it.  I’m not saying that sarcastically, it is one of the most American drives ever.  Ethan and I drove from Northbrook through downtown Chicago and got on I-88.  We inched forward in the rush-hour traffic away from the steel buildings along the Lake and soon we’re speeding through the endless miles of suburbia. 

            When I told Ethan that I wanted to stop in Iowa, he almost laughed.  “Why Iowa?  All they have is corn.”  Yes, that is the overriding stereotype for Iowa, but Iowa has deep personal meaning for me. I’m actually 50% Iowan.   My mom was born and grew up there.  Her grandparents moved there from Europe and were instantly accepted into the small, close community in Iowa.  This was no small task for a homogeneous group to do, given their poor, Jewish, and European background.  They eventually built themselves up in the community, becoming an integral part of it.  Nowadays, no one is left.  All of my extended family left for Chicago, Florida or Colorado, yet Iowa is still home.  I grew up in New York, but there was something uniquely un-American about that.  New York isn’t real America.  My mom would always talk about growing up in Iowa: the ice-skating on the frozen streets, the horseback riding, and eating a pint of ice cream while watching TV as a family at night.  Iowa became my America, and I lived in it through stories of her growing up.   I needed to go.

            There is nothing like hours of conversation in the car with a true friend.   Ethan and I had one of those epic conversations that no one wants to end, and that never seems to end.  It was just so natural.  We talked about what we wanted out of life—what we actually wanted, not the short bullshit answer.   After going through many drunk nights together in high school, there weren’t many secrets left, yet we still managed to unearth a few.  We covered everything, from sports to movies, history to whether we are living in a computer simulation.  Our conversation is as endless as the fields that we pass through.

            Gradually, the cornfields pass as the sun goes down.   There is something so quintessential about a sunset over an empty highway.  The country seems endless. Sometime after the sunset we pass into Iowa and go through downtown Davenport.  Like so many other cities in the Midwest, it has seen its share of better days, but there is a new renewal in downtown and we stop for a quick dinner before heading off.  We want to get to Des Moines before midnight. 

            We get on I-80 and kept going West.  All of a sudden, we heard a roar behind us.  Some asshole was going 90, and zig-zagging through cars.  He was driving a Ford Taurus and somehow I knew he was from New York.  He had all his windows down and was blasting Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger.  What a terrible choice.  Anyways, we soon left him as he got off at the exit for Cedar Rapids. 

            It was almost 10 PM when we passed probably the most American thing ever: Iowa 80, the largest truck stop in the world.  It has 15 fuel stations, endless restaurants and even a dentist’s office.  We don’t even bother to stop, but we stare as we roar past the behemoth.  We get into Des Moines at 11:57 and go right to bed.  We have an early morning tomorrow.