On the road seeking more presidential history we headed from Springfield to West Branch Iowa and the Herbert Hoover Presidential library. It was raining. There was a nice visitor center, and a small village with a few restored houses and Hoover's birthplace cottage. Nearby was the museum and presidential library. Again I found myself learning about a president I did not know much about. Hoover's parents died when he was about 9 or 10. With 2 dimes sewn into his pocket he boarded a train from Iowa to Oregon to live with an uncle. He eventually went to Stanford and graduated as a mining engineer. He went on to become very successful and traveled the globe with his wife and family. He was very successful at raising money to feed war hungry Belgium during the WWI. With this success he went into politics and you know the rest. He ended his political career with the Great Depression. So the moral of the story is stay with what you are good at. Which in his case was mining and organizing large relief efforts.
After the museum we drove west away from West Branch and teeming rain and thunderstorms. Elaine suggested a hotel room for the night. I kept driving west till Des Moines and Walnut Woods State Park. I will have to relent at least once this trip with a hotel stay. But Walnut Woods was a good spot and a quiet place for the night.
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