Dear Diary

We crossed into our 9th state yesterday afternoon and after an amazing visit to Council Bluffs (see earlier entries by a couple of my other personalities) trotted halfway across Iowa to Iowa's Best Burger Cafe and Kellogg RV Park. If they have the best burger in Iowa then that is a sad state of affairs for the heartland of America.

Apparently there was some drinking last night (more evidence in earlier entries). The aftermath was not pretty. We filled a 40 gallon drum with the remains. Somewhat surprisingly most people were rather chirpy this morning; perhaps they were still drunk. I slept quite well in the tent, despite:

• being rudely awoken by a drunken lout who fell over one of my guy ropes while putting up his own tent (while being egged on by other drunken louts), and
• it being 3 degrees (in the sensible scale) overnight; extra layers helped.

I still have no voice and have started to communicate by grunts and sign language. It's challenging to communicate complex concepts this way.

I had this vision of Iowa being dead flat. It turns out it is not so much dead flat as undulating. Still not very exciting though. We have just crossed The Mighty Mississippi into our 10th state (Illinois), heading for a brewery in Chicago, where I intend to have Chicago style pizza (when in Rome, and all that). And beer. We will wave goodbye to a couple of good friends and welcome a new friend.

One more night of camping and we will hurtle across Indiana and Ohio before finally arriving at our destination, where we will watch a strange sport where men dress up in padding and hurl themselves across frozen water chasing after a mutilated ball. These people are strange. I intend to blend in by pretending to be Canadian: I hear they love Canadians.