Well John Cougar Mellencamp has finally put it all to rest.  In the Barker grand tradition, we name our car after the first girls name featured in a song on the car radio. WCAA Classic Rawk!! outta Jonesboro or some such plays A little ditty 'bout Jack and Diane, (Two american kids doin'......The best they can) so Diane it is.

We barrel out of Tennessee and into Missouri through the stunning Ozarks, the Mark Twain Forest, Jonesboro, Pocahontas, Walnut Ridge.  At the roadside we notice a huge weir, the volume of water pouring over it shakes the ground.  Turns out we've stumbled across "Big Spring" the 10th largest fresh water spring on earth!  Just below 10,000,000 gallons per hour!! (no kidding!) comes up out of this amazing place and is captured by a dam which until the 70s served a generator.  Now it's just an impossibly scenic spot with a beautiful story. 

It seems there was a time of of great drought and an Indian Chief and his son went in search of water for their people.  During their search, the Chief's young son was killed.  Weeping, the Chief started to dig a grave, he was exhausted through lack of water and when he found a large rock stopping his efforts to dig a suitably deep grave for his son he almost dispaired.  However he bent to his task and levered the rock from the ground and the water from Big Spring gushed forth and saved his people.  The Chief sang to the great spirit that the water from this spring will flow forever, that is, as long as his tears would flow for his beloved son.

Passing through Willow Springs we learn that this is the birthplace of Steve Cropper (He helped write and played guitar on The Midnight Hour, Dock of The Bay, Knock on wood etc etc etc)   On to Mansfield where Laura Jan Ingles wrote some of the Little House on The Prairie books and then Springfield, home of the Simpsons.  What else can we tell you about Springfield?  There's a lovely, newly renovated motel here, managed by two lovely ladies who "Just love yor accints" and give us a great discount on the night and after a breakfast of sausage and egg, we're off to Kansas City.

We've no big plans for Kansas, it's just a stop on our route North.  By the time we get to Kansas it's a little late to see anything of the place so we head through town and stay at an airport motel to save some money and, up next am in pouring rain, waiting in the motel reception for the worst to pass so we can bundle the bags in the back, get to Highway 29 and floor the peddle.

Across the corner of Idaho at Shenandoah and into Nebraska. It's got cold, and the vistas are now wide, wide open, horizon to horizon of plains and prairie land, the stuff of dreams fer all us young cowpokes.

Omaha to me has always been a D Day landing beach head in Normandy. But here it is bang on the border between Nebraska and Iowa.  There's a bridge here where we can stand with a foot in each state.  We beseech James Brown....Take me to the bridge.

Kim had a bit of  a whinge on the way up here that we'd spent all that time in mississipi and Tenessee but she'd never got to eat any Gumbo.  Well, don't that put the dink in co-inky dink? just 5 minutes walk from where we're staying there's "Jazz" a Louisiana restaraunt.  Jazz is a weird place, once inside it's like a pretty large New Orleans courtyard, a 1st floor balcony runs around the place all wrought iron, straight out of Bourbon Street.  Up there somewhere a Jazz band is manfuly struggling through a number of standards.  In fairness they're pretty good but completey invisible to anyone at ground floor, ie the punters.  As such they're pretty much ignored except by Kim and I as we give them a rousing round ofappluse after each tune, eventually recieving a disembodied "thanks y'all" from somewhere above.

I have some lovely creole shrimp with andoine suasage and jambalaya.  Kim choses some brown stuff....so famous are Kims doubtful menu choises that few of our friends will choose a meal until Kim has settled on something so that they can avoid opting for the same items.

We set out to walk the river front.  It's freeeeeezing!!  A feirce wind is blowing through town and it's really very cold. We cross the bridge and stand with a foot in Iowa and one in Nebraska and make our way around a beautiful lake and memorial garden.  Like Australia America seems to do these public areas so well! Wonderfully cared for the place, even in the bitter cold, is a sheer joy.

There's an old market area here and we head here for lunch.  There are a number of brew houses and restaraunts of all stripes.  Ridiculously atmospheric, even as the rain starts setting in, t6he area is a great place just to "hang out" as our US cousins would have it.  I have a great deal of fun convincing a couple of guys that I was convinced the American Football on the multiple screens was Womens Rugby.  

"It's really good you let the girls wear all that padding and helmets, our ladies just get stuck in like the guys back at home" I tell them.

In fairness when they twig "Ahm a yankin' thay-ar chains" we all have a good laugh and a beer.

We fell in love with a bar here "Mr Toad" could be a country pub almopst anywhere in the uk.  Very nice, very friendly.....we like Omaha.

So we've decided to rest up 3 days here and have pushed out the boat a little on the room.  One of the joys of the place is they'll shuttle you for free pretty much anywhere in town. As the rain really sets in this comes in very handy. 

Second evening in we're sitting at the hotel bar chatting to to a very polite and personable black guy.  He tells us eventually that he's walked out on his wife and family telling them he needs a weekend away.  We're trying to convince him to ring her so she at least knows he's ok, he goes to the restrooms.  When he comes back he's a different character.  He eyes Kim as if he's a starving man and she's a cream cake....

"How do you keep your hands off this beautiful sexy woman"? he asks..... leering "I can't keep my hands off her"

"Do try" I suggest

He suggests we all 3 go upstairs....

As it turnds pout Kim and I go upstairs while outr black friend "hits on" another woman and is eventually taken out of the bar by security in a wheel chair.

Anyway we have a whinge and wangle a complimentary night in the hotel.  It's still pissing down, we make it 3 days and nights straight of torrential rain now.  We make our way to the Hotshops.  Basically an old matress factory converted to an artists community based around a glass foundry.  It's a wonderful place to spend a cold wet day.  There are few other visitors today and all of the artists including the glass makers take time out to chat as we pass through 3 floors of gallerys.