Images of America

People on the International Writing Program have been taking a lot of photos. Most of them have been taken in Iowa, but others were taken during the Mountain West trip. Some of my favourite landscapes are featured here.

Thanks to Alice, Vicente, and Azeem (and others) for photos.

Effigy Mounds in north-east Iowa

Gees, the trip in the van was squashed and hot. There were four of us squeezed in the back seat where it felt like there was no air, and the sun was streaming in the window. We girls had to strip off to our skimpy singlets, which was probably offensive to some, but when you're that hot and feeling nauseous, you really don't care who you offend.

It was about six hours total travelling time to and from the northeast corner of Iowa near the Wisconsin border, and looking out over the Mississippi River. We had a picnic lunch (this was a highlight - I adore surprise boxed lunches) and walked to see the Effigy Mounds, which are Native American Indian burial sites and ceremonial grounds (made up to 2,500 years ago). Many of them are in the shape of animals from their tribal stories, like bears and birds. There are 206 of these prehistoric mounds in the National Park. We only had time to see a handful of them in a few hours. You would think that looking at mounds of dirt wouldn’t be that exciting, but knowing what they really are, and feeling momentarily part of that history – that’s priceless.

The only disappointment was that we went specifically this weekend because we had been told the autumn colours were spectacular right now - but whoever said this was misinformed. The trees are all still green, so we missed seeing the yellows, oranges and browns of autumn.

This treat is yet to come!

Thanks to Alice for the photo (doesn't the ranger look like a wax model?)

How's this for a big deck?

In order to be understood here, I have discovered I need to open my mouth wide and scrunch my face and say 'ass' not 'arse' (not that I have needed to say either of those words - just demonstrating the letter 'a', you understand). So I found myself saying pathway, not parthway yesterday. And ah-some, not oar-some. And apparently a New Zealander's 'i' and 'e' sound very similar, which can be problematic.

Pam, my landlady at the College Green House, suggested I might like to talk about a balcony or a porch rather than use the New Zealand term 'deck', especially when referring to someone having a big one because there may be some confusion over my pronunciation (I'll pause here to allow you to think about this carefully).

I told this story in the van on the way back from a dinner function at the Levitt Centre and all of the other IWP participants rolled around laughing. Now they keep prompting me to say 'deck'. Our driver and coordinator of all sorts of vital activites, Joe, was very quiet during this conversation. However, after everyone else had been dropped home, he said very calmly, 'To the right is the home of another IWP person who will probably host a party soon. He has a very big deck on his ute. I think you should ask him about it, Kathy.'

Ha, ha, ha. When hell freezes over.

I suspect I'm going to americanise my vowels quite quickly. But I'm sure all of you will set me right when I return.