Why a steam locomotive should be the first thing to come to my mind I have no idea. Perhaps it was because of the way the smoke billowed outward as well as up - the way steam from a locomotive would hiss out across the wheels while a column of grayish white rose from the smokestack.
There were no railroad tracks anywhere near that particular stretch of divided highway so my thoughts quickly turned to the possibility of smoke billowing from a building engulfed in flames or a dust devil on the verge of becoming a full fledged tornado.
Smoke, steam, dust, whatever it was, it effectively hid a hundred yard stretch of roadway.
Closing the car windows and adjusting the air control to recirculate the air in the car rather than draw in the contaminated air from outside, I braked as I entered the swirling shroud.
And there, off the far side of the divided highway, was a piece of farm equipment big enough for an entire infantry platoon to pile into.
The John Deere or International Harvester was turning up acres of farmland.
Never, with so much surrounding land still under standing water, would I have thought that any significant stretch of ground was dry enough to produce enough dust to mimic the Icelandic volcano.
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