YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A TOWN CALLED COLO IN IOWA

After Belle Plaine, we went thru Chelsea, Tama, Montour, Le Grand, Marshalltown, State Center and took a break in Colo for pie and coffee.

The sky started to get dark when we got to King Tower Cafe in Tama. The neon Indian head sign was still there but the notice on the door informed us that "due to the changes and road closing" the cafe has gone out of business. Perhaps someone would re-open the cafe in the future so we could sit in the comfy booth and have a piece of the famous rhubarb pie. I hope the waitress who knew everyone by name and called the guests "honey" will also come back.

This concrete bridge, built in 1915, on the east end of Tama has "Lincoln Highway" in both of its side rails.

Here at Rube's Steakhouse & Lounge on Elm Street in Montour, Iowa, customers get to grill their own steaks. Glen Rubenbauer (where the name "Rube" came from) opened the tavern in 1973. To make sure the tavern never ran out of steaks, a meat store was opened across the street in 1992. Visit www.rubesmeat.com if you wish to have the steaks shipped to your home.

Inside Niland's Cafe were decoration on the history of Lincoln Highway and other highways. The cafe and gas station were from 1920 and the motel was added in 1940. The lady who worked at the cafe told us that her son works for the street department in the City of St. Louis. It sure is a small world.

It started raining again when we were leaving Colo. We continued to follow US30 thru Nevada, Ames, Boone, Ogden, Beaver, Grand Junction (we stopped to take photos of the trio of concrete bridges), Jefferson, Scranton (we only found one of the pair of Lincoln busts), Ralston, Glidden, Carroll, Westside, Denison (Donna Reed's hometown), Logan, Missouri Valley and crossed the Missouri River into Nebraska around 5:25 p.m.

We were getting tired and decided to spend the night in Columbus, Nebraska. I called my sister CH to touch base. CH and QQ were somewhere in North Carolina. They were on their way to Atlanta, Georgia. My Dad used to say, "Cai nha co chung no cung di", if the house has legs, it would probably be on a trip too :)