June 4, 2019

One of the great things about driving through the Heartland of America is that it is really hard to get lost. All you have to do is figure out which direction or directions you are going and start driving in one of those directions.

I pulled out of Hannibal, Missouri today heading to Davenport Iowa. Davenport is about 170 miles from Hannibal, or following the route I took, about 250. Davenport lies northeast of Hannibal. The beauty of the roads in this part of the country is that you can drive one direction for a while, north for instance, hop onto a road going the other direction, east in my case, and just keep zig-zagging until you get where you’re headed.

I was lost a good part of my drive. I had no map, but my car did have a compass. I traveled north for a while until the road I was on kind of petered out. I turned right on a county road, the number which escaped me, and traveled east for a spell. I kept turning right and then left as roads either dead-ended or looked uninteresting. I traveled through small towns and by large farms. I passed more tractors than cars and I saw more cows than people. By 7:00 PM, after northing and then easting for five hours, I finally ran into the Mississippi River. I couldn’t go north anymore until I found a bridge, which I did by driving east for a few miles. North across the river and east into Davenport. I was no longer lost.