Storms in the Mid-west

The four days of April 29th through May 2nd of 2002 were some of the hardest that Tamara and I have ever spent together ... and we had been together in person for only four weeks.  The consequences would plague and mess up our lives until just days before Canada shut down as a country on account of covid.  I can't begin to tell the whole story, not now; so much of it is embarrassing, so much would seem to an outside viewer as perhaps the stupidest string of decisions that two people might conceivably make, one destined for disaster.  Yet we are still together, nearly 22 years; in fact, we are just 15 days out from that number.

On the second day, we woke up in a motel in Davenport, Iowa, anxious to drive across the country to seek a friend of Tamara's on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state.  We started out early, it was a fine day, and unquestionably Iowa is a beautiful state to drive through.  We reached and passed through Des Moines on I-80, and thereafter the scenery grew rich and green and flabbergastingly beautiful.  I'd never seen green hills like that in my life, though Tamara could remember such.  It all seemed fairylike until we came to a sign that let us know the Missouri border was 35 miles away.

Somehow, in Des Moines, we'd missed some twist and turn that would keep us on I-80, and had wound up driving south on I-35 instead.  Naturally, we took stock and turned around ... whereupon I made the stupid suggestion that we should drive cross diagonally across Iowa rather than head back to Des Moines and find the right interstate.  I had a map; I'd never been lost before; Iowa's a generally flat country and heck, while I was there, I wanted to see Iowa.  So cross-country we went.

And I got lost.  I'd spent too much time on Alberta roads, which follow rules of north and south, east and west, in grids that make sense.  Backcountry Iowa is nothing like that, as anyone who knows Iowa can say, as they vigorously nod their heads just now.  In some dumpy gas station in fuck knows where, a place not apparently marked on the map in any way that I could find (and I am a fellow who knows maps), Tamara and I had a fight.  A bad fight, an accusation fight, the sort of fight that couples who have been married for three years never want to have again.  Then we picked a random direction and drove until a place that was on the map went by.

The fight evaporated, many apologies were made, we found out way to Council Bluffs, where we took I-29 north to Sioux City, then Sioux Falls.  We bought some food for the car and struck out west on I-90, which we could safely follow all the way to Seattle.

The fight was long forgotten by then.  Tamara was feeling fairly good about still driving, so we weren't sure about stopping in Mitchell or going on.  Then the weather made up our minds for us.

I'm not a hundred percent sure on this; I've looked at maps many times and I've never quite been able to absolutely state where we wound up.  It was six-thirty, there was still sun in the west, but a storm so black that Tamara was talking about tornadoes she'd seen and lived through in Kentucky, where she lived as a girl until she was 11.  I have to admit, I can't say for sure I've ever seen a storm black out the sun like that.  We were following an eighteen-wheeler, about 50 yards ahead of us, when the hail hit.

This was literally like driving through a curtain.  The road was dry, bare, and then it was pure white and an inch-deep in hail.  Tamara's Buick LS immediately began to plane as the tires lost their grip on the road ... but we weren't thinking of that, because the truck in front of us began planing as well.  Swear to gawd, it began to swing 90-degrees to the road, right in front of us, and we thought we were going to have to aim for the space between the axles to save ourselves.  Tamara gave our car some gas, just as the trucker got the truck starting to straighten out, and we came up to his back corner, missing the trailer by about five feet.

As we slowed down, an overpass approached and we agreed, the hail still falling, that "fuck this," we were done for the day.  We turned off and rolled along a very low quality yet somewhat paved road, towards I think a place called "Spencer."  I'm pretty sure it started with an "s"; I was using a road map and identifying where we were by the road number.  If I'm right, it was "431st Ave."   The map of Spencer on google maps looks right for the layout of where we stayed the night, in this very low-brow country motel with six rooms, built of not-thick cinderblock.

We weren't keen on the accommodations.  But we were hungry and tired and the only place to eat was this little roadside cafe across the road.  We showered, changed, and tramped out for what we expected to be half-rate diner food.

I cannot remember what the place was called ... but without question, in 2002, it served the best damned food anywhere in South Dakota.  And not just because we were hungry; I was still working as a cook then.  The food was outrageously well made and served.  The server was warm, friendly, chatty, funny and had a great sense of humour.  We stayed and ate two meals each, and bought a fifth to take on the road with us the next day.  I had a hamburger and then two pieces of fish in a tartar sauce I've never tasted since.  I can't remember what Tamara ate.

We liked the restaurant so much, we went over before leaving to have breakfast there.  Damn.  It was so good.

Well, that was the 30th of April.  Probably do the first two days of May before I build up the courage to talk about the 29th.