The View from Interstate 29

Above: pictures from a sweltering, South Dakota-bound road trip along the Missouri River, which forms the Nebraska-Iowa state line. Record snowpack and heavy rains throughout the river's watershed will likely threaten communities in seven states until mid-August, the New York Times reports today.

The flooding hasn't dampened spirits at Omaha's Florence Mill, behind OJ's Mexican diner, where tomato starts compete with a dozen recipes for homemade pie, including strawberry-raspberry-blueberry-blackberry-rhubarb-filled "Farmer's Basket." A nearby placard explains that the Mill allowed Utah-bound Mormons to weather Nebraska's winters in the late 1840s.