Iowa---Day 1 (in town less than an hour and we are on TV)

Beverly Hills....in Nevada?
The 100 year old hall we will be performing in.

View from my room. The glass elevator up was a surprise to the kids. They loved it.

We left Lincoln at the leisurely time of 8am and drove off an hour or so into Iowa...Council Bluff, IA. I had found a Petco on line and needed to pick up food (mice) for Buttercup. So we pulled off the hwy in search of Petco. Well, Google maps blew it and we found nothing. So we tried the other way and found a Petsmart. We went in.

The store was large and clean but no costumers. The larger than average sales clerk who leaned resting her arms on the board that separates her register from the other one (she was on the wrong side) never moving from her spot watched us walk in. I walked over and she gave me an attentive head nod as I said, "hi" and asked if they had mice. She asked, "What for?" (What business is it of hers?) I said it was food for a snake. She said they had mice but not as feeders. I said that she should just forget I just said that and that she should just sell me mice. I have a snake in the can that is need of food...she doesn't want it to die does she? She called her manager and before she could speak to the manager (who was a skinny, short haired, hemp choker wearing, vegan looking hippy) I told her I needed a couple formice. She too asked what they were for. I said, "a science experiment" (we are studying the digestion of snakes). She nearly soppngly ld me they have to ask because people try to feed them to snakes. HMMMM. Ironically the mice section was right next to the snake section of the store. She explained they sell frozen mice fetuses for them. (Yup, that's not like eating a live one...just kill them in the womb...I'm taking a leap but I bet they support human abortion under they same mindset too.) In the end it was the price that stopped me. Seven bucks for vermin?

Needless to say we left and once we were settled in Waterloo we found a Petco who were happy to sell us Buttercup's live food. Buttercup was thankful and quick to chow down. So Viva Petco and down with Petsmart.....eternally on our no-shop list. By the way right before we fed them to Buttercup we named one Lazy cashier and the other Hippy Manager...Apparently they were tasty.

Since our hotel is in the downtown historic area there isn't much parking for a big van with a trailer so we headed out to the fairgrounds and dropped it off. While there the manager came over and said the local TV news folks were sending out a reporter and could we do something. So Out came Buttercup. Out came James in Stilts, out came fire-eating and out came Miles and his bullwhips. Hardly in town an hour and we are on TV...cool.

When I posted we were in IA their comment was Corn-corn corn corn.

I agree but there is also a lot of soybean. It's strange out here; you travel for hours passing corn and soybeans then all of a sudden there is a town. A real town that looks like any other in the US. In fact, there are old buildings, highways, tall buildings and then all of a sudden corn again.

Like I said, the folks out here are nice. Very nice so far...everyone but Petsmart and the two red doper diaper babies.

Looking forward to a nice sleep tonight.