A beautiful day in Iowa!

Max and I had a great day out and about southwest Iowa today. It took me awhile to wake up this morning, but once I got moving and out of the house, I was fine. I didn't even fall asleep in the car once (when I was sitting there waiting, not while I was driving, I promise!) We took off on Highway 92 going east. I always like to drive on these excursions because that gives Max a chance to keep an eye out for the perfect image. He's so transparent, it's adorable. We were driving through Carson and I saw an old run-down red building to the left. I could see his eyes trailing as we drove past. "Max, should we stop and let you look at that?" I'd already driven past and he was turning around looking at it. "I guess I'll just go up here and turn around, would that be a good idea?"

Turns out, it was a great idea. He spent some time shooting pictures of this great old building while I wandered with Leica and then worked on my Greek. I'm going to have to get a good lawn chair for this summer so that I'm not stuck in the vehicle on gorgeous days while I wait for him.

There were lots of opportunities for pictures. I tend to drive off the main highways and on to the gravel roads so that we can easily pull over and not obstruct traffic. Poor Max feels like he draws a crowd when he shoots, anyway! I'm not afraid of the minimum maintenance roads most of the time, but with the winter thaw, those things are a mess right now and I avoided them today. We pulled into a state park near Griswold and pulled right back out because the parking area threatened to intimidate my Jeep!

The best pictures happen out of the blue. We stopped in Atlantic at the old railroad depot, which the Chamber of Commerce refurbished. Leica and I had done our wandering and Max was getting close to wrapping up his shooting when two hobos came off the tracks and asked him if he would like a couple of good ole boys to make the picture more realistic. He agreed immediately and they wandered over and began chatting with him. They sat on a bench in front of the depot and he shot their picture. I wish we had been able to do something more for them. Max was out of cash and it has NEVER occurred to me to carry a photo printer in the Jeep. There's so much history with the hoboes - not transients, not beggars, just free spirits who ride the rails. They don't frighten you or intimidate you and these two guys were just glad to be part of our day. Ok, I'll admit it - I cried a little as I watched my wonderful husband interact with them.

The wildest part of the trip was between Atlantic and Walnut. Wind Farms! Max and I had never seen anything like this. In fields of black dirt filled with black cattle rise these very science-fiction looking windmills and dozens of them spread across the area! These were absolutely images that I could see as covers for science fiction novels.

With the sun setting at such an early hour, we got home in plenty of time for Max to begin working on his images. He'll get them posted throughout the weekend. Check them out on his Flickr page!