Scenic Iowa by Ruth Paget
One of the most scenic spots my family drove through on the way to Wisconsin from California this summer was Dubuque, Iowa. Dubuque sits on the Mississippi River and has a bridge you cross over to arrive in Wisconsin. There is an island in the middle of the river, which makes the Mississippi seem not so wide. The river serves as a border between Iowa and Wisconsin.
The bridge leads you past Dubuque’s small forest of red brick and white washed church spires. The Dubuque County Courthouse is slightly taller than the church spires and topped off with a gold dome.
Dubuque is named after Julien Dubuque (1762 – 1810), who came from Quebec, Canada. He was one of the first European settlers in the Dubuque area. He was granted rights by the local Native American tribe to mine lead in 1788.
Nationally, Iowa is more famous as independent farm country. One of Iowa’s most famous products is tangy, Maytag blue cheese, which seeks to compete with the famous blue cheeses of France (Roquefort) and Italy (Gorgonzola).
I wish Iowa had regional product stores along the highway like the French do to promote French products. I think items that might sell include: Maytag blue cheese, honey, country breads, summer sausage, cupcakes, herbal teas, metal and tile hot dish holders for the table, hot pads, jams and jellies, and various pickles.
We took a few detours through business districts in small town Iowa. I played a housing game I did as a child when I did road trips through the Midwest with my mom. I tried to guess the kind of professions people had and where they lived by the kind of house they lived:
-red brick houses = Main Street businesses = town business owners
-white clapboard houses = country dwellers = people who make money on agriculture
-stone houses = town dwellers = lawyers, doctors, professors, and city hall people = afternoon tea drinkers
Country dwellers in Iowa are famous for their artistic barns with barn art above their barn doors showing a four-part design with blue, green, and red hearts in each quadrant and yellow lines separating the quadrants.
When we traveled, the corn surrounding these barns was 12 inches high. There were also many fallow fields left untilled to naturally regenerate soil nutrients.
When we passed Iowa City, we did an “All Hail University of Iowa Writing Program” for producing great American writers like Jane Smiley, who lives in Monterey County California.
We passed the Amana Colonies, which were a self-sustaining and communal religious colony set up by German immigrants in the 19th century. The colony ended when the Depression began in the 1930s. The Amana Colony is a tourist center today and might interest anthropologists and economists alike.
Driving though Iowa was nostalgic and future-oriented at the same time. Farming has become easier with technology. As a sign of prosperity, farmers lined up their neatly rolled hay in plastic-covered rows by the side of the highway along with their farm implements. They had already gotten a lot of work done in June as we rolled by.
By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
