Crossing Iowa, part three – American Gothic.
This last and final Iowa post takes us from Belle Plaine (just west of Cedar Rapids) to the Mississippi River but without a stop in Clinton on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River.
Why did I skip Clinton (the last Lincoln Highway city in Iowa driving eastward)? On the east-to-west drive on the Lincoln in 2016, I had made it as far as the Clinton area. So no rerun this year. The 2016 post about Clinton is here.
In this set we will start out in Belle Plaine and visit another Lincoln Highway landmark, George Preston’s filling station on the path of the old Lincoln (at that site since 1921). Iowa has a fine collection of old gas stations, I must say. This is one of them.
Next, Cedar Rapids. That beauty of a Maid-Rite is there as is the Paramount (1928). The Quakers Oats mill operations in Iowa date back to 1873. The Memorial Window in the Veterans Memorial Building was designed in 1927 by the then relatively unknown Iowa artist Grant Wood. Yes, the Grant Wood of “American Gothic” fame. Wood lived and worked in Cedar Rapids, and you can see his studio in this set just after the three photos of the Memorial Window. The Brucemore Estate in Cedar Rapids is very impressive. Finally, some pix of the NewBo City Market in the New Bohemia District near downtown.
The set concludes with the drive from Cedar Rapids to DeWitt and a bit more onward. Mount Vernon was a fantastic stop. It’s a very handsome city. The first few shots of Mount Verson are of the lovely campus of Cornell College. The fellow with the scarf runs the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Visitor’s Center right by the college and was a fountain of local history and knowledge. We talked for quite a long time about the college, the city and the area.
Towards the end of the set you will see a number of truly classic portions of the Lincoln.
Our last two shots are fittingly of the final vintage motel of this long road trip, the Whistler Motel in DeWitt.
Here is the route of this final leg:
That’s it. The Epic US Road Trip is a wrap. After eastern Iowa I mostly took interstates for the final 1000 miles back to New York. Parts of it were back on the Lincoln when I was following US 30 again in Pennsylvania but mostly it was interstate. In fact, it was largely I-80 which is where I started the eastward drive in the SF Bay Area back in California. It took me another few days, and I did not get back to Brooklyn until around the 4th of April. A total of about two months on the road.
Well, I did it! I have driven two of the most historic and iconic highways in America: the length of Route 66 from Illinois to California (this year) and the Lincoln Highway stretching coast-to-coast (east-to-west from New York to Iowa in 2016 and west-to-east California to Iowa year). I can tick those boxes.
What a trip!
I will be back relatively soon with some different posts away from the Lincoln and Route 66. Maybe a fall 2016 first time visit to Detroit. Or, farther afield, perhaps the Cuba trip I did in late 2014. It will be a few weeks and could even be early next year. It’s time for a blogging break.
Thanks for joining me on the Epic Road Trip and to many of you thanks also for all of your emails and support.
