Hawkeye in a hurry: State No. 45, Iowa
After getting turned around several times while in search of The Spirit of Nebraska Wilderness statues in downtown Omaha, I was left confused, navigating surface streets not traversed enough to rate a line on the Omaha street map sheet gathered from the helpful clerks at the rent-a-car
desk at Eppley Field several hours earlier.
I finally found my way out to the highway circling the city and set out for Council Bluffs, Iowa, tantalizingly close, just across the mighty Missouri River.
Not that close, however.
After a while I got hip to the fact that I was going in the wrong direction, away from the Bluffs. The sky was cloud-covered and the compass was in my carry-on in the trunk so I couldn't get a read on what direction I was heading. I pulled off an exit and asked a fellow in the next car at the light for aid and he turned me around once again, pointing me in the right direction. Going to dig out that compass next stop.
Iowa had been a longstanding conundrum for the 50-State Strategy. When Triple-A describes the state, the three words "Corn and Cattle" constitutes the first paragraph. This is farm country, agriculture is king here and, as a fan of food, I appreciate and applaud that. However, there's not much to do in southwestern Iowa.
Again I must take us back to the rent-a-car counter in Omaha. I asked the woman there about sights to see across the river in Iowa and she frowned, saying "Hmmmm...Not much. You a gambler?... There's casinos."
The Hawkeye State is home to a kickass State Fair and the first in the nation political caucus (a quadrennial circus given outsized attention despite its easy leveraging thus dubious true value) as well as the birthplace of Buffalo Bill Cody, Johnny Carson, Herbert Hoover, John Wayne and The Beave, Jerry Mathers.
Fishing, camping, hiking and hunting are encouraged here, the latter two hopefully not in proximity.
"American Gothic" was painted hereabouts and the first digital computer was put together at State U. Within the state's borders are middle- to small-sized metro areas such as Des Moines, Waterloo, Sioux City, Davenport and Cedar Rapids. Even with these cities, it has just 52 people per square mile (Massachusetts, in comparison, has 820 people per square mile). At just over 56,000 square miles, this "Middle" state ranks 25th out of 50 in total area, but its southwestern corner ranks a little lower on the excitement scale.
I had researched Council Bluffs, a huge railroad crossroads in its own right, looking for a gem and came up with two possibilities:
The Pottawattamie County Jail a/k/a the "Squirrel Cage": This revolving drum of a building would turn, closing off two of the three sections, allowing guards to deal only a third of the prisoners at a time. Used from 1885 until 1969, it sounds like a barrelful of monkeys. Alas, no tours on Mondays.
The General Dodge House: Grenville Dodge was born in Danvers, Mass, just up the road. After wandering with his family, he became a Union general then Civil War hero, got shot in the head during Sherman's Siege of Atlanta, lived to conquer some Indians, build the Transcontinental Railroad, serve as a U.S. Congressman and bankroll the buildup of his adopted hometown, Council Bluffs. No stranger to behind-enemy-lines hijinks during the war, Dodge is rumored to be the inspiration for a famous early Three Stooges short, "Uncivil Warriors", where the boys masquerade as Confederate officers - Lieutenant Duck, Captain Dodge and Major Hyde. While making party pastry from potholders, Curly says "I quit that job in the bakery. Oh, I got sick of the dough and thought I'd go on the loaf." Nyuk! Nearby Fort Dodge is named for the general but, again, alas, his house is also shuttered Mondays.
At the airport earlier in the day, I picked up a flyer for the Western Historic Trails Center. With my two intended targets unavailable and the next logical choice, the state capital of Des Moines, a two-hour drive east, the center was now my Iowa target.
During the 1800s, Council Bluffs was the confluence of four pioneer trails, The Lewis & Clark Trail, The Oregon Trail, The Mormon Pioneer Trail and The California Trial. Flanked the whole way by cowboys and Indians, card sharps and missionaries, barrooms and bawdy houses, pioneer families - the catalysts of our nation's expansion and a bane to all natives, hostile or otherwise - all passed through here as they spread westward.
Lewis & Clark pitched camp here near by where the center now lies in late July 1804, tagging it forever "Camp White Catfish." The group rested, repaired their gear and replenished their rations. While waiting for a council with a local tribe which was postponed due to a hunting party, the pair recognized that President Thomas Jefferson had given them a pretty tough task, exploring the Louisiana Purchase. Running out of navigable rivers heading due west, they would soon scrap the boats they had traveled in thus far and take to horse and wagon.
Each July they hold a Lewis & Clark celebration here that includes many lectures and exhibits but the major feature is a reenactment put on by thousands of the faithful. There's an interpretive monument at the center which is also surrounded by walking trails. The center itself contains some interesting exhibits and dioramas but, really, it's a glorified gift shop.
The Trail Center is featured at this link: CLICK HERE
Iowa? Check.
(Having been to Harper's Ferry, W. Va., where Lewis & Clark geared up and actually began their journey and having traveled along and at other times cris-crossed the well-marked L&C trail at numerous points out west, by adding in Council Bluffs I believe I can truthfully say: Lewis & Clark? Check.)
I got back in the car, heading south, bound for "Kansas City. Kansas City, here I come." Oh, and I passed a couple of casinos before I got to the highway.
I had about a two and one-half hour drive south to KC and, as dusk creeped in along the way, I noticed two things: The road kill, everywhere, one after another, all shapes and sizes, from moles and raccoons to 8-point bucks and also the many clouds of starlings.
Huge black swarms, thousands of birds in each, were flitting up and down and sometimes across the highway, landing and taking off somehow in formation and unison. It's like a ballet. Beautiful, but distracting.
According to my research, 100 European starlings were released in Central Park in NYC in the early 1890s. Now they have the run of the continent, millions, probably billions of 'em, especially here in "The Middle."
Running at times next to the Missouri River as the border loomed, I passed farms and ranches and your occasional huge factory, all served by the many, many 200-plus car trains chugging along parallel to the highway. Western Iowa? Flat, fertile and unpredictable...
Next stop, Missouri.
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