Some days, I wake up and feel the need to head out on a highway somewhere, the end destination somehow unimportant. Today was one of those days. I chose to head east into Iowa, ending up as far from Omaha as the wonderfully named (yet quite unimpressive in reality) Defiance, Iowa.

I've been reading William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways off-and-on for the past month or so. It's a great book, one man's travels through rural America in the early 1980's, and Heat-Moon's writing makes me want to take off cross-country even more than usual. Little day trips like this will have to suffice for the moment. School starts up again in less than a month and my wallet is even lighter than usual.

The photographs above and immediately below were both made in the small, small town of Westphalia, Iowa. The last one comes from Woodbine.

Also visited: Carson, Oakland, Hancock, Avoca, Harlan, Earling, Panama and Portsmouth, Iowa.