The new twist for travelers setting out from Iowa City is that, due to closings of roads, bridges and now highways from the flooding in Eastern Iowa, you cannot get to the Cedar Rapids airport  without going in a huge loop, way west to Des Moines and then north and back east. That means what is ordinarily a straight-shot 20-mile drive will stretch to more than 400 miles. Pretty silly.

Three of us were destined to take off on international trips this Monday. I canceled mine — a ten-day academic fellowship in Israel, which I was so looking forward to as a break from the usual focus on, yes, China. Giving up this opportunity was a real disappointment, but making the decision to stay in Iowa City and face the high tide and then deal with cleaning up the wreckage was a relief.

My younger son was scheduled to go to Israel as well — on a different trip entirely, but leaving the same day. And his dad, the Chinese author Gao Yuan, was going back to Beijing after a month here. I spent a morning on the phone changing their departure point from Cedar Rapids to Des Moines, so we only have to drive about 135 miles to get them to their planes, and they’ll get airborne Monday morning after all. Then I’ll come back to the farm and let this craziness start to sink in.