Iowa

Welcome to Iowa

Be Sure to Check Out My Previous Post: Around Missouri!

So as you may have expected, Iowa is not really the most exciting state. That is not to say that there wasn't anything to see here. Iowa is a very flat state, and full of farmland as far as the eye can see. And for those of you baseball fans out there, it is also the state where "Field of Dreams" was filmed. But besides that? There is not to many noteworthy items out there.

My first stop was in a small town called Corydon, with a population topping out at around 1,600. Here are some facts about Corydon:

Corydon's Theater!

-The Grocery store is no larger than a 7-eleven.
-You are 23 miles form the closest McDonald's.

How does this bridge work?

-The movie theater shows 1 movie a twice a week. Once on Friday and once on Saturday, however it is in RealD 3D!

However it was a neat feel, because everyone knew everyone. I enjoyed this little town quite a bit, but was ready to leave by the end of the day.

Old Water park

Now one of my favorite places to stop and photograph are old closed down water parks and theme parks. I think they way the land grows around them and how they look all dead and dormant is really cool! Just outside Des Moines, I passed a closed down mini-golf course and water park right off the side of the road, so I took a quick minute to check it out. Definitely worth the stop in my book. I think the wave pool water needed to be changed ;)

One of my other stops that day was in Pella, IA (City Slogan "A little touch of Holland"). This city was neat because of the building architecture here. I wasn't able to snap any photos, but feel free to Google it!

Lost Island Water Park

In Waterloo I went to a pretty cool water park called "Lost Island Water Park." Lost Island is themed to be, well you probably guessed it, a lost tropical island! This park was family run and had tons of awesome rides and theming to rival any corporate park! They also had what I now consider to be the gem of all water slides: a ProSlide Hydromagnetic water coaster! These rare slides are fairly new, and propel riders up hill by Linear Induction Motors! Pretty cool ehh??? Well if you don't know what that means, its basically a water slide that goes uphill and is propelled by magnets.

Hydromagnetic Water Slide

You get airtime on the hills and the acceleration is awesome! If you ever have the opportunity to ride one, don't miss out! It was the highlight of Iowa for me.

My last stop was in a town in the middle of nowhere, Osage. I had to be up pretty early for this place because it was a 1 hour drive to the nearest hotel. It was very pretty there, and I even took a nap in my car with the windows down because the light breeze and warm air felt amazing.While I was napping however, I was awoken by a man driving down the road on his mower. I was truly in the middle of nowhere.... or just the mid-west.

A man just cruising on his mower

Well that wraps up the first part of my summer! Pretty crazy huh? So far, we're at June 20th, or 1 month since I left Purdue. I hope you have enjoyed reading these as much as I have had fun writing them. In the next week you can look forward to my mini-vacation in Illinois and Indiana, along with a quick stop in at Purdue! After that will be coverage of my 3 day drive to California. There will also be 2 theme park trip reports tucked away nicely in there.

My Visit to Six Flags on my break

I also ask my readers that if you were one of my friends to receive a post-card from me during my travels, to please take your photo with it and send it to me! If you didn't receive one and wanted one, then send me a private message with your name and address and I will do my best to send one out to you in the near future.

Thank you to everyone for your support, and please if you have questions or comments about my travels, please comment!

Didn't get enough photos? Check out more photos in the #LyfInFocus-Iowa Album!