The drops splash into the trickling Purgatory Creek in Calhoun County. They're soon joined by water pouring in from underground tile lines and steady runoff from cropped fields.
Rain continues to fall as the creek then flows through a gently winding valley of pastureland.
Ten miles downstream, Purgatory Creek empties into the Raccoon River, and is swept along as more water surges in from cropped fields and tile lines, less water as the river flows by wooded and grassed buffers. The Raccoon makes its way to Des Moines, then joins the Des Moines River and flows, relentlessly, to the Mississippi River and down to the Gulf of Mexico. We all have a watershed address, a way of identifying our place that is perhaps just as important as our street address. That land use gives us a lot of clues about the quality of our water and the quality of the water downstream. Water contaminated by oil from our cars and trucks runs into our rivers.