BREAKOUT
Keota Road Trip, Part I
US 40 in these parts is a fine, smooth, two-lane highway with wide gravel shoulders and very little traffic. The speed limit is 65 mph and I usually drove 70 mph plus. I never saw a single cop or sheriff the entire way although they must be out there somewhere. The road usually skirts the little towns instead of passing through but still requires slowing down to 45 mph at least. Except for swilling gasoline, the 2001 Dodge Dakota with its 230 horsepower 4.7 liter V-8 and automatic transmission is perfect for this kind of driving. A tap of the brake disengages the cruise control outside towns like Weskan and I coast down to the limit. Leaving town I press “Resume” to launch the truck to preset cruising speed. The hot rod muffler roars. - JHF
From the morning of October 28, 2025 at approximately 7:30 a.m. MDT in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico…
OH MY GOD I’M IN THE DITCH! Barely on my way 30 seconds past the Ranchos P.O. I fiddled with the heater controls and let the Dodge slip off the pavement: BANG BONK BUMPITY BUMPITY BUMP crashing through the weeds, a quick correction—too quick, here comes the tail around, rollover flashing in my brain—and just as fast I’m safe again. It’s a narrow curvy road where everybody drives too fast but John, you gotta keep the wheels on asphalt. (No shoulders either, dammit.) It almost happened again two minutes later on Blueberry Hill Road where my excuse was trying to take a picture of The Mountain at 40 mph, fucking idiot. Very Taos, though, except that I was sober.
So began and almost ended my fourth annual trip to Keota, Iowa to lay red and yellow roses on sweet Kathy’s grave.1 Thought about staying home this fall but knew a missing year would haunt me. I wonder if she notices and tell myself she does. There’s always a quiet whisper. Sometimes I’m certain that it’s her, other times I think I made the whole thing up. Space was what I needed anyway, still do. Room enough to park a blimp inside my head. An aircraft carrier in my heart. Forty acres and a mule. A big oak tree. A bit of grass. There has to be a realm of emptiness for things to come to me. Like resting by a glassy sea watching an unknown ship on the horizon. No time or reason left to blunder on with painful rules. The old ways just won’t do. Paradise is now.
If you’re wondering how I get there, here you go:
• Taos to Fort Garland, CO.
• Over La Veta Pass to Walsenburg (don’t stop for anything there, no matter what).
• CO 10 to CO 71. You’ll miss the turn the first time. Take that thru Rocky Ford, God help you, up the road to Ordway. God help you there as well but soldier on.
• CO 96 to Eads.
• US 287 to just outside Kit Carson, CO.
• US 40 (yay) to Cheyenne Wells and on to Kansas all the way to just outside of Oakley.
• US 83 to wherever it turns to KS 383 and keep on going to Nebraska.
• US 183 to Alma, NE and on to Holdrege.
• From Holdrege head for Kearney on I-80. Pick your route. All of this is roughly 575 miles that you can manage either direction in nine to 10 hours without touching a single Interstate. The scenery is a privilege to behold except for agribusiness murder lands that don’t last long at posted speed limits. Think sugar beets, corn, and feedlots. No need to name them but you’ll know.
• The next day’s run to Keota, Iowa (southwest of Iowa City) is complex and sometimes crowded. I usually take I-80 to Lincoln and follow NE 2 to Nebraska City where I cross the Missouri River into Iowa. The rest of the route changes every time due to washout detours and changing predilections. I look for tiny county roads in my Rand McNally Road Atlas and only use a phone app if I’m lost. Iowa can be beautiful in the fall but feels “off” to me after living 25 years in mostly-wild New Mexico. There’s little natural landscape except where you can’t plow. The highways are wide and smooth but frustrating due to speed limits set in ‘48, perhaps. Most locals don’t speed, either.2 Inculcating guilt is oh so Iowan. It settles on the fields like mist on cold October mornings. The rest of the year the Lord finds ways to punish everyone accordingly, but then they’re used to it. Roadkill raccoons and deer are everywhere. Gas is kinda cheap. I didn’t have a single problem.
In the Long Ago Times while my honey was still alive, we’d drive all the way from Maryland (summer and Christmas) to visit her parents in Des Moines, and after they were gone, from Taos to Dubuque to see her sister and brother-in-law. That’s 45 years of driving to Iowa at least twice a year so maybe 90 trips?!? Ye gods. We used to visit her grandmother and Uncle Tom the banker in Keota, too, but only briefly. You may also grasp why I made the last three runs in just four days, a thousand miles each way. This year was different thanks to a miracle of sorts at 4:30 a.m. in my empty motel in Sigourney.
The Belva-Deer Inn [sic], a clean if spartan two-story motel with no elevator in Sigourney, seat of Keokuk County, is 10 miles from Keota. I’ve stayed there each trip since ‘21. There wasn’t any place at all for travelers to sleep in Sigourney until a group of local businessmen built the inn some years ago to offer lodging during hunting season. (Belvadere to Belva-Deer, you see)3 Whether that worked, I don’t know, but the Sigourney group recently sold out to an Indian-American business family, likely the Gujarati Patels. The only changes that I noticed besides the obvious were a better website, higher prices, and worse breakfast. The place was virtually empty, too. Just me and two gentlemen from Texas who’d come to blow up pheasants in the dark. Never a quieter night in my life, though. I was able to open a window for fresh air, hallelujah, and though the heater quit a short time later, actually slept straight through till just before dawn.
Something woke me up, though. That morning I’d planned to check out of the Belva-Deer, buy red and yellow roses at a shop downtown, visit the grave at the Keota Cemetery [above], then drive 400 miles to Kearney, Nebraska where I’d spent the night before at the wrong hotel (long story). My usual four day Thunder Road blitz. I was already exhausted. I also had my good camera with me, the Canon EOS R6 Mark II, and hadn’t taken a single shot since hitting the road from Taos. Suddenly I rebelled. Not against my circumstances, but against the old John tied to schedules and fixed expenses—why not stay another day? I didn’t want to hurry at the cemetery this time. I needed to be more present—crawl through empty residential streets, go downtown, be there where I’d buried Kathy’s ashes on the hill in ‘21 and photograph anything I wanted. An hour of online work later, I’d joined Wyndam Rewards to get a discount, canceled that night’s reservation in Nebraska, made a new one for Halloween, and added a night in Sigourney. All this from bed with my phone and laptop. The freedom was exhilarating.
“X” marks the spot, I guess. I texted my friend in Albuquerque that I was awake and she dared me to go outside and photograph the dawn. Happy that she did. I’m rarely up this early but look at what I found.
The oldest part of the cemetery, I am sure. Whatever kind of evergreen tree that is, is simply stunning. So many beautiful old monuments, many smaller stones fallen over but left in peace.
Why I came, of course. I buy yellow roses every year and dry them to crush the petals on the grave. My own little ritual. It’s really huge to make something like this happen for a partner of 44 years, and I still don’t know how I managed it. A universal chore, though. Rite of passage like nothing else. Her parents are buried a few feet over to the left with aunts and uncles all around. This spot is about 30 yards down the hill from the previous shot. That’s a lilac pictured on the stone.
A typical residential street in Keota (pop. 888). Mailboxes are clustered for each block. That sign? The only one I saw in Iowa. Massively different from a couple years ago. This image pushes buttons for me. Deciduous trees, safe quiet streets for kids on bikes. How I grew up although in several dozen places.
This place is on a paved street on the edge of town. No muddy farm lane here. Please note the apples.
“Near email length limit” so I’ll stop now and finish Part II. Expect more of Keota plus the Villisca Axe Murder House, the Everly Brothers childhood home, and other assorted wonders.
I once got a ticket for going three mph over the limit on an empty rural road.
Belvadere [sic] already being misspelled makes this a two-fer.
I’d love this series John. Interestingly, you and I were on the road about the same time for similar reasons I drove back to Portland for Lori’s memorial service, meant to take care of some business relevant to the selling of my house there I was gone for about two weeks and put about 3600 miles in my car So we’re both doing a hell of a lot of driving. My loss is so recent that grief is still a constant companion But being back in northern New Mexico really really helps You suppose we can get together before the snow arrives thank you very much
My brother and I took my Mom back to New Hampshire and buried her with her parents. Close by her godparents and another Aunt and Uncle in a graveyard with other family members. We wandered around seeing names of family she mentioned as we were growing up but didn’t see often at all. Mom escaped the cold to Florida. Enjoy your trip and thanks for the sharing the journey and pictures.