A handful of the states in the middle of America get a bad reputation for being the places you go through on the way to somewhere better. Sure, Iowa and Nebraska are short of large cities and fascinating geography that you’d find in states like New York or California, but it’s not that bad. David and I both have enjoyed Iowa!
David wrote about the Mazda CX-90 that he drove while vacationing in Iowa, of all places. Your Dad’s Sister:
As a resident Iowan, I love Iowa but how does one vacation here? Were all of the other states closed?
David was in Okoboji, a locale known for its crystal-clear lake, good hiking, great water, the Arnolds Park amusement park, and even some museums. I wasn’t aware that such a place even existed in Iowa! Personally, I’ve also had great fun at the West Overlook Day Use area at the Coralville Dam.
Jdoubledub also had the same question:
What are the vacation hot spots in Iowa that I am unaware of?
Anonymous Person has a great answer:
Lake Okoboji, for one. Find David’s article about the Classic Car Man Cave there.
Also, the eastern edge of Iowa, along the Mississippi River has some nice areas.
I make a yearly trip out to the Dubuque area to check out some riverboats and then to drive on the fun roads along the Mississippi. I’m also a big fan of the Maquoketa Caves State Park out there.
Casey Blake had an entertaining observation:
“While many of the commenters on that thread say they’ve never hit their knees, or if they have they’ve adjusted appropriately to avoid doing it again, lots of others commiserate with the Original Poster (OP) and many write about actually inuring themselves.”
This is one of those great typos that spellcheck doesn’t catch because the typo is actually a real word, kind of like “pubic” and “public”. Mazda owners should inure themselves to knee bonking vents!!
I went ahead and fixed the typo. Thank you all for keeping us on our feet!
Jason wrote about how he fixed his Citroën 2CV just for it to immediately break. Boulevard_Yachtsman:
I remember Click and Clack from the NPR Car Talk days explaining this. Basically, once you’ve given attention to a particular part of an old car, all of the other parts get jealous and start doing what they can to get your attention as well.
You’re going to be at this for a little while, although maybe it won’t be that bad given the number of parts a 2CV has relative to most other vehicles.
Thomas wrote about Honda’s head gasket problem. Josh O:
Did they get a good deal on Head Gaskets from Subaru?
Have a great evening, everyone!
Top graphic image: DepositPhotos.com
A handful of the states in the middle of America get a bad reputation for being the places you go through on the way to somewhere better.
That’s really the Central Valley of California you’re talking about there.
In order to get from the beautiful Pacific coastline up to the even more beautiful forests, mountains and lakes, you have to drive through places like Fresno, Stockton, etc.
Ugh!
The largest bicycle festival and event in the US is “The Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa” https://ragbrai.com/
I’ve spent a fair amount of time in both Cedar Falls / Waterloo and Des Moines for work. Cedar Falls in particular has some beattiful bicycle trails along the Cedar River.
I have watched “Cornfield Shipwreck” about unearthing the 1856 Steamboat Arabia out of a corn field 40 ft down and painstakingly preserving a lot of artifacts in the Arabia Steamboat Museum. I actually found it completely fascinating.
https://link.tubi.tv/pVBFeIu8Z5b
Also, I’ve always wanted to go to that huge I-80 truck stop
Coralville dam mentioned! Back in my misspent youth, we hitchhiked out there with push brooms to clean off the spillway so we could skateboard it
I lived in Cedar Rapids for a year for work, and OMG it is so cold in the winter. Daytime highs of zero (f) and 40mph sustained winds. Then summer comes and it’s instantly hot and humid.
They call it “The City of Five Seasons”. All five are bad.
Otherwise a nice place. I met a lot of really nice people there.
I did a couple of work projects in Crapids as some locals called it. I was there about a month before the horrible flooding in 2008. And there are a lot of nice people there. I felt bad for the area as a whole when that all happened.
Working from the West Coast, I lumped Kansas and Missouri into “flyover country,” but I really, really liked Kansas City on both sides of that border. It’s home to my favorite barbecue in the country and I’ve sampled more than my fair share. If there was salt water or even a really big lake (Lake America anyone?) nearby, I’d be tempted to move there. But there isn’t and it gets cold and hot and humid there too.
Garrison Keillor once wrote about Lake Wobegon, MN that it seemed unfair that a place that got so cold in the winter got so miserable in the summer. That sadly seems to apply to a large swath of the middle of the country.
I once applied for a really cool job in Des Moines (3 positions), and ended up 2nd among over 200 contestants. They appointed Governor’s friends, though.
As per my research, the city and the state were really nice places to live in.
I grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and the entire time I could not wait to leave. Got my chance and took it, and now I’ve lived all up and down the east coast. There is *something* about that part of the country, though. It’s a different color palette out that way — more yellows, richer browns, brighter reds. It’s been my experience that some of the prettiest places to drive through are some of the last places you’d want to live. By that metric, Iowa’s a solid “eh, alright” on both counts.
Iowa – it’s not as bad as Nebraska, but it’s no Kansas. 🙂
Nothing against Iowa, but I can’t imagine a single scenario where I would end up there for anything. Maybe a stop a once in a lifetime drive to the Mountain West?
I never thought I would end up living in Alabama but ended up spending 7 years there.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dd/Closer_You_Get.jpg
Me too, in SE Texas. My then wife, who I moved there for, and I had a plan to move to Asheville, NC, but man plans, God laughs and we ended up divorced. She’s still there and I am back in Washington state. I got the better end of that deal.
Google the Driftless Region and look at pics. Its part of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and a bit of Illinois. It is a geologic oddity that somehow the last four ice ages never touched, which means gorgeous rolling hills and bluffs and streams winding through valleys. Sort of like an American version of the Shire.
Thanks. Great looking natural area, awesome pics.
“I make a yearly trip out to the Dubuque area to check out some riverboats and then to drive on the fun roads along the Mississippi. I’m also a big fan of the Maquoketa Caves State Park out there.”
Since you love all-things trains, have you ridden the incline railway there? It’s just two counterbalanced cars, but it’s a cool experience.
Fenelon Place Elevator
Also, thanks for including me in a COTD article!
Come on in, the corn is warm! This was an extra fun COTD in that I made it via my memories of my old favorite Car Talk, but not based on the comment I was thinking of seeing the title.
I actually missed the CX-90 post today (I only get so much free time at work :-), but managed to invite DT to come and visit Iowa in order to watch How I learned to Stop Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb sometime in a response to TMD. Apparently, he had already been here.
The Autopian continues to amaze and delight (just like Iowa!)
I once spent a week in Iowa, and I learned what Slipknot were so angry about after all.
You got to experience Iowa’s weather? It is one of the more substantial irritants here.
I love the cold so it wasn’t the worst for me, but it was -9 F when we got into the rental car at the airport.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I was born here, yet I still can’t stand or tolerate the cold. What’s extra crazy is it could’ve been 50 the day after the -9 and 80 the day after that. We have some insane temp swings.
It was -20F in Cleveland one morning while I lived there but it was sunny and dead calm, so other than my nose hairs freezing and making weird tinkling noises with every inhaled breath, it wasn’t that bad. -20F in Winnipeg during a blizzard was a different story.
I was in Iowa once. It was a pilgrimage to the site of the final Buddy Holly show and the site of his plane crash. I left after that.
So did Buddy.
The most boring month I ever spent in my life were the three nights I stayed in Omaha and Council Bluff. Nice people, though.
Without the boring times we would not truly appreciate the exciting times.
For years my employer would have me spend a week in Omaha/Council Bluffs every 4-5 weeks. It wasn’t as bad as other places I had to visit for work, but it sure ran out of things to do quickly.
Council Bluffs is essentially Nebraska Light. As boring as we all are, even we’d give Council Bluffs to Nebraska if they’d take it.
Also: The most boring month were those three nights; well played! I got a chuckle out of that!