American Discovery Trail: Malvern, Iowa

I like this picture because of the mural

Today I am just over 20 miles from the Nebraska border, near the town of Malvern, Iowa, population 1,046, headed for Council Bluffs, then Omaha on the other side of the Missouri River.
 

I expect the walking will progress better now, as the weather has changed for the better, and I have no more bridge tournaments until April.

February is usually when I start to feel better about the weather after our cold, dark winters, and this year is no exception. About a week ago, the temperatures increased 10 degrees or so to mid-forties most days, and it makes a big difference versus the near-freezing conditions we had for a few weeks, so Arlo and I have stretched out our walks and started to make up some steps.

The bridge continues to go amazingly well, by the way. I am more than halfway to my Life Master ranking, and at this rate I expect to get there before I finish walking to California.

I just looked up "What is interesting about Iowa?" on Bing. Took it a while to find an answer, but it gave me a list of 102 things. Number 1: It is the only state name that starts with two vowels.

On to Nebraska then.

I do not know if this Malvern church is still standing, because the picture comes from an old postcards website, but it looks like a cool building, with stained glass and steeples and interesting architecture.

American Discovery Trail: Last Leg in Iowa

 This week, I am near Atlantic, Iowa, on the last Iowa trail segment, 70 miles from Nebraska. As I write I am just 1,000 steps short of 4,500,000 steps for the trip.

Pictures on Bing Images (screw Google) of Atlantic are mostly not very interesting, so I copied this picture of Atlantic resident Jerry Overton from his obituary in the local paper. Don't worry, Jerry was not a little kid when he died; he was 88. His obituary was not very remarkable - he like to read old books, play the piano, tend to his yard. Pretty tame.

I mentioned that to Jackie, and she challenged me to write my own obituary and see if it was any more interesting. Well, that's a tough one. My first thought is that I might want to talk about getting my bridge Life Master, tracking my walking for 10,000 miles, and visiting all 7 continents and all 50 states plus DC. Only problem is, I have not done any of that stuff yet. Better keep at it.

Walking is challenging now, because the weather is in the twenties at night and low thirties when we walk in the morning, but the days are getting longer, and it won't stay this cold forever.

Stay tuned for my obituary. I think I will give that a shot.