Sen. Kamala Harris fields questions at the Asian and Latino Coalition at the Iowa Statehouse on Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa. | Stephen Maturen/Getty Images 2020 Elections My bone-chilling adventure trying to cover Kamala Harris in Iowa A native Californian learns that Iowa is as nice as it's cracked up to be.

BUCKINGHAM, Iowa—Janet and Mike Shock reclined in loungers while trying to write the first sentence of this story.

Janet offered a literal interpretation of my misfortune: “Stranded in Buckingham, Iowa,” she said.


Mike veered toward a more universal opener. “Stranded in the middle of nowhere,” he said.

We met serendipitously only a few hours earlier. The Shocks welcomed me to their home, my teeth chattering after I slammed my rental car into a snow drift on a closed road a few hundred feet away. The walk by this native Californian to their door — in 12-degree, blizzard conditions — was brutal: I was wearing a thin jacket, and no boots or gloves.

I was on my way to watch Kamala Harris shake hands with folks like the Shocks at a coffee shop in Waterloo; then on to a nearby Baptist church, and a town hall in Bettendorf. Janet wasn’t surprised the campaign scratched the coffee and church from its Sunday schedule because the roads were so dire.

The drive from Buckingham to Bettendorf is 140 miles; and the street where my car was stuck — the only way out — was blocked by a head-on collision on one side and an overturned semi on the other. While we got to know each other in their kitchen, Mike pulled on several layers of clothes, warmed up the truck and prepared his snow plow.

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Not long after, Janet started in on her chili and biscuits. She joked we’d all watch the Oscars together. It was 9 a.m.

Anyone familiar with Iowans won’t be surprised by their generosity. Over 12 hours, they fed me; pulled my Nissan Maxima out of the middle of the road and into their driveway; and good-naturedly refreshed a website that monitors closures. Mike taught me some about farming, from the utility of corn crib barns to the process of “detasseling,” removing the immature pollen-producing bodies, or tassels, from the tops of corn plants.

With the Iowa caucuses less than a year away, nonpolitical debates felt appropriate, so I warily moderated what I came to know was a periodic faceoff between the Shocks: The best sandwiches to eat with chili.

He went to school in nearby Traer, where it’s customary to have cheese sandwiches with the meal. But she, a product of Waterloo schools, keeps to a tradition of peanut butter, hence the jar of JIF next to our butter and biscuits. We also talked about their family, and they FaceTimed with my wife and baby.

I tweeted about their kindness, and many others, inside and out of politics, shared stories about being helped by Iowa strangers during a bone-chilling adventure.

Even Harris weighed in after her staff briefed her on my first brush with Iowa hospitality. In a voicemail she left me, the fellow Californian compared the roadside support I’d received to Iowa’s version of the American Automobile Association.

“Good thing you have that ‘chili friend,’” Harris said. “We’re going to miss you in Bettendorf, but I’m glad you’re safe.”

The Shocks don’t consider themselves political people. They voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, though they weren’t especially excited about her candidacy. “I felt like if I didn’t vote, I couldn’t complain,” Janet said.

With Donald Trump as president, that would have been problematic. They don’t like his border wall, dismissing it as expensive and unnecessary. They’re convinced he made myriad promises about jobs and reforming government he hasn't kept. The Shocks aren’t close to deciding on a candidate for 2020, but they want someone who can restore a sense of decency in the country.

Janet was preparing a supper of goulash and corn when the Oscars came on. I told her about the tweets, and she urged me to write something about it.

“I want people to know that there are good people in the world that would take a stranger in,” she said. “We’re all people. We’re all human beings. God put us on this earth for a reason. We should all take care of each other.”

Before pulling out of their driveway at about 9 p.m., I told her it wasn’t my thing to write about myself. So she suggested we make it about her state.

“I want people to understand," she said, "what Iowa is all about.”

