#32 IOWA

Of all the state names, “Iowa” is the only one that begins with two vowels, it’s known as Hawkeye State, Tall Corn State, Land of Rolling Prairie, or Cyclone State. Northeast Iowa is the Silos & Smokestacks National Heritage Area I would have loved to take the 64-mile Barn Quilts loop through Grundy County or the John Deere Factory Tour in Waterloo but we were bound for the center of the Hawkeye State, Des Moines. It was the eve of the Iowa State Fair and we were challenged to locate accommodations for the night. Everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, was going to the fair. The Rodgers and Hammerstein movie State Fair is based on the Iowa Sate Fair. Movie fans know that both the 1962 remake with Ann Margaret and the 1945 original are fun to watch today. With the help of the Hilton Honors Diamond hotline we secured a room in the Des Moines suburb Urbandale. Weary from the many miles, we opted to walk across the parking lot to a restaurant rather than explore when it came time for dinner. The Texas Roadhouse was offering a drink special for fair ticket holders, but I suspect it was a popular destination without that incentive. This was my second visit to this chain, the first being in Alabama early this year. I’ll go to extreme lengths to patronize independent establishments but I confess I’ve been happy with Texas Roadhouse on both occasions. I suspect the margaritas were a contributing factor.



The next morning was our opportunity to see the sights. The Des Moines Art Center’s three buildings are designed by Eliel Saarinen, I.M. Pei and Richard Meier so I had to take a look. We passed it by on Grand Ave. at first and had had to double back to the unassuming setting in Greenwood Park. The collection and restaurant were tempting but we contented ourselves with admiring the architecture and continued our town of downtown Des Moines, culminating with the Iowa State Capitol, which conveniently was at the end of the road.

Bill Bryson’s memoir, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is about his childhood in Iowa in the 1950s. I really enjoyed his Grand Avenue musings:
“I liked Grand Avenue very much. In those days it was adorned from downtown to the western suburbs with towering, interlacing elms, the handsomest street-side tree eve rand a generous provider of drifts of golden leaves to shuffle through in autumn. But more than this, Grand Avenue felt the way a street should feel. … Where it ceased being residential and entered the downtown, by the industrial-scale hunk of the Meredith Publishing Building (home of Better Homes and Gardens magazine), Grand made an abrupt dogleg to the left, as if it suddenly remembered an important appointment. Originally from this point it was intended to proceed through the downtown as a kind of Midwestern Champs-Elysees, running up to the steps of the state capitol building. The idea was that as you progressed along Grand you would behold before you, perfectly centered, the golden-domed glory of the capitol building (and it is quite a structure, one of the best in the country).
But when the road was being laid out sometime in the second half of the 1800s there was a heavy rain in the night and apparently the surveyors’ sticks moved – at least that was what we were always told – and the road deviated from the correct line, leaving the capitol oddly off center; so that it looks as if it had caught in the act of trying to escape.”






Satisfied that we saw at least a smidgen of the city we headed west. Route 6 broke off from I 80 about 55 miles west of Des Moines. How could I resist my new favorite highway? What’s even better was it was only a quick detour to the site of the first robbery of a moving train. The Jesse James Gang staged the misguided crime on July 21, 1873, after having learned that $75,000 in gold would be on board. They ingeniously pulled train from it’s rails, killing two and injuring scores and forced a guard to open the safe only to discover $2000 in currency within. Their cleverness let them down because that in combination with cash and items looted from passengers yielded only $3000. The $10,000 reward offered for the capture of Jesse James “Dead or Alive” was too tempting for fellow gang member Bob Ford and thus ends the story. Yet another crime doesn’t pay moral. The bucolic Route 6 led us into Council Bluffs as we contemplated James’ fate.


I was craving spicy food and when we located a Mexican restaurant in Council Bluffs right off the freeway I had to go there. La Mesa Mexican Restaurant is just south of I 80-29 exit 3, right next to the Motel 6. It was good, very good, but I would have liked it if it were only marginal, salsa junkie that I am. Pulling into the parking lot I experienced déjà vu. Could it be that I’ve been here before? Possibly. My sister & I drove east across the country on I 80 in 1999. I know we made an overnight stop in Council Bluffs, I’m 95% certain we stayed at that Motel 6 and I can’t imagine we opted for Burger King over La Mesa. Who would have thought I’d return!

Some Iowa trivia for you:

• Cedar Rapids has one of the largest cereal mills in the U.S.
• Indianola is home to the National Balloon Museum.
• In the U.S., Iowa ranks first in soybean, egg, corn and hog production.
• John Wayne (Marion Robert Morrison) was born in Winterset. You can visit his birthplace and view the eyepatch from True Grit and other Duke memorabilia.
• The RAGBRAI®, The Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, is an annual seven-day bicycle ride across the state. RAGBRAI is the longest, largest and oldest touring bicycle ride in the world. Check out the Roadkill Raccoon story from this year’s ride: http://tinyurl.com/67q5vv

My musical selection for Iowa is Joni Mitchell’s The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines Mitchell's 1979 collaboration with Charles Mingus, a story of a dry cleaner from Iowa who, to the disgruntlement of our narrator, is enjoying a lucky run on the slot machines: "Des Moines was stacking the chips/ Raking off the tables/ Ringing the bandit's bells." Thanks again to 50 songs for 50 states.

I couldn’t resist reading Bill Bryson’s The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, a Memoir. He’s one of my favorites and I needed some comic relief after the North Dakota and Minnesota selections. How can you resist chuckling aloud when you read Bryson’s wry wit.

“Iowa’s main preoccupations have always been farming and being friendly, both of which we do better than almost anyone else.” ___ “The climate is ideal too, if you don’t mind shoveling tons of snow in the winter and dodging tornadoes all summer”