Making time through Iowa - Nick Fohl's Blog

Absolutely gorgeous sunrise this morning while on the road. Even though I took my time with the hotel breakfast, I set out this morning while it was still fully dark. I managed to pull over and get a great shot of the sunrise.

Pre-dawn light from roadside of Interstate 80 heading east out of Gothenburg NE

It was a bit cooler this morning than yesterday but still above freezing. As I am continuing to head east, I am seeing more snow on the ground – in shaded places only however

I trekked across Nebraska, all of Iowa and into Illinois (I am staying the night in Peru IL). Iowa was a bit non-descript – but I did notice, almost belatedly, that there is a truly staggering amount of wind turbines in stretching from Wyoming through Nebraska and at least 1/2 across Iowa. Not everywhere of course – but so many that I stopped noticing them – and they are truly VERY big – each blade is several hundred feet in size (picture below). I didnt realize how big till I passed a rest stop (on the other side of the highway unfortunately – so no picture) and they had a single blade standing on end – it completely dwarfed the visitor center.

According to Wikipedia, Iowa has about 5 Gigawatts of wind generation capacity – as of two years ago. That is a staggering amount of sporadic inputs into the state’s power grid. Power grids are not static things – the current flow is exactly that – a current. Dumping in power input that ramps up and down like wind at that level must be fiendishly complicated. Maybe instead of the world’s biggest ball of string, they have invented the world’s largest and fastest spinning fly-wheel?

Not a great picture but I didn't think to stop earlier - this is looking back west along I-80 in Iowa. The number of very large wind turbines along the interstate is absolutely staggering - this is only a small sample (these turbines are probably over 1 mile away - the blades are truly big!) — Not a great picture but I didn’t think to stop earlier – this is looking back west along I-80 in Iowa. The number of very large wind turbines along the interstate is absolutely staggering – this is only a small sample (these turbines are probably over 1 mile away – the blades are truly big!)

Iowa apparently does not care too much about the Mississippi River – I was on the bridge over the river before there was a road sign indicating what was going on. Fortunately Illinois did it a bit better – they had a whole overlook rest area dedicated to it. The rest area itself was neat architecture but my picture of it didn’t come out well at all – oh well

I should be passing by Chicago (not very close to Chicago actually) and Cleveland tomorrow. I-90 and I-80 merge at Chicago and I plan on taking I-90 when the split up again. Based on the mileage, I will probably be in Carlisle in 2 more road days – or 3 if the weather turns bad (knock on wood)

Mississippi river - formerly a rapids area but there are now a number of downstream dams and locks which have smoothed things out on this leg of the river — Mississippi river – formerly a rapids area but there are now a number of downstream dams and locks which have smoothed things out on this leg of the river

Not as interesting or informative as the signs in Wyoming, but still worth posting