It has been a nice autumn, pleasant and sunny for late November. But it will still be a long winter, and I had only been down to New Mexico once this year. Besides, long-time pal Tom, from a previous life in St. Paul, had been urging me to go. Those were reasons enough to toss some gear into my GMC and head out to meet him where he would be visiting his 100-year-old mother in the southwest corner of Minnesota.
On a cloudy morning with traces of snow on the ground, I head west across the Mississippi to Dubuque and onto U.S. 20 across central Iowa. It's an easy-to-drive four-lane highway, far less congested than I-80, which gets most of the truck traffic.
A few miles west of Dubuque, I reach Dyersville, setting of the classic baseball movie, "Field of Dreams." The sky begins to clear, and there is no snow on the ground. Typical of Iowa in early December, the corn is harvested and the fields are brownish gray with the broken corn stalks. This is typical Iowa farm country. Speaking of which, have you ever noticed that whenever there is a story or war movie with the "all-American" squad, the farm boy is inevitably "the Iowa farm boy"? It's as if there are no Minnesota, Wisconsin or Illinois farm boys. They are always from Iowa.
But that's OK, I guess. Iowa is a pretty good state, better than some give it credit for. Many on the political scene castigate it for being "too old, too white and too rural" to deserve being one of the first states to weigh in on presidential elections. I counter that with, "If it's too old, too white and too rural, how come it launched a young, urban, African-American to the presidency?"
Iowa, although historically Republican, has produced some prominent Democrats. But not lately.
Iowa has one public policy feature from which our own once-progressive state of Wisconsin could learn. Political scientists agree that Iowa has one of the nation's better non-partisan methods of conducting the decennial reapportionment of congressional and state legislative districts.
A non-partisan commission recommends district boundaries that take into account municipal and county boundary lines, minimizing snake-like districts, known as "gerrymandering," that serve no purpose other than to accommodate majority members already in power.
Yes, it's possible to eliminate, or at least minimize, gerrymandering. Iowa has done it.
On US 20, I roll past Manchester, Waterloo and eventually Fort Dodge, enjoying the blue skies and sunny December weather. This time of year, the late afternoon sun is at a sharp angle to the southwest, creating a special kind of light that imparts a rust-like hue to the brownish dry grass and corn stalks. Once past the intersection of US 20 and I-35 in central Iowa, the sun reaches the horizon. At this low angle, the rusty hue of dry grass and corn stalks becomes richer and fuller. The reddish glow on the horizon merges into the orange, and finally the blue of the sky. This Iowa scene may not strike people as a tourist attraction. But it is colorful and uplifting on what could have been just a drab day. The early December darkness sets in, and I soon turn north on US 59. In time, I reach Sibley in the northeast corner of Iowa and meet Tom where he has arrived from visiting his mother in Worthington, in the southwest corner of Minnesota.
Next morning, it's another sunny day, pleasant for December. We head southwest toward Sioux City. We pass Orange City, a rather typical Iowa small town. Orange City was featured in a lengthy article in a recent issue of the prestigious magazine, the "New Yorker." The city of about 6,200 faces issues typical of many Midwestern small towns, an aging population, struggling small businesses, maintaining the vitality and the character of its downtown business district, and attracting young citizens to the area.
Orange City has capitalized on the presence of a small college, and has emphasized its unique history and ethnic character, Dutch, in this case. In many ways, Orange City resembles our own Monroe and New Glarus with its emphasis on unique history, character, and ethnicity, Swiss, in our case.
The New Yorker magazine article on Orange City, Iowa, is surely worth reading by those interested in small town issues.
We soon pass through another small town, La Mars that as the manufacturer of Blue Bunny ice cream, bills itself as the nation's ice cream capital. Someday I will visit that place, but not today.
We reach Sioux City, cross the Sioux River into Nebraska and head straight west for a few miles. The sun is bright, the sky a bright blue and there is no trace of snow on the ground.
With the temperature already in the 50s, it's a nice day for winter travel. We soon turn south, then west to Hastings, then south again to the Kansas Border.
As we reach Kansas, the flat land with beef cattle grazing on the corn stalks is occasionally relieved by rolling hills more suited to rangeland. Incredibly, the temperature reaches the mid-60s, about twenty degrees above normal, according to the data on my phone.
We angle southwest on US 383, surely a road less traveled. We are probably the only tourists to hit this road for a long time - it doesn't lead to anywhere except to US 83 that is a major north-south route. The only problem with US 383 is that traveling southwest on a sunny December afternoon takes you directly into the sun setting at that angle.
We hit US 83 about sunset and head directly south, through Garden City, and finally to Liberal, on the Kansas-Oklahoma Panhandle border.
It's time to call it a day after this zig-zag route across the Great Plains on roads less traveled.
- John Waelti of Monroe can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Fridays in
The Monroe Times.
On a cloudy morning with traces of snow on the ground, I head west across the Mississippi to Dubuque and onto U.S. 20 across central Iowa. It's an easy-to-drive four-lane highway, far less congested than I-80, which gets most of the truck traffic.
A few miles west of Dubuque, I reach Dyersville, setting of the classic baseball movie, "Field of Dreams." The sky begins to clear, and there is no snow on the ground. Typical of Iowa in early December, the corn is harvested and the fields are brownish gray with the broken corn stalks. This is typical Iowa farm country. Speaking of which, have you ever noticed that whenever there is a story or war movie with the "all-American" squad, the farm boy is inevitably "the Iowa farm boy"? It's as if there are no Minnesota, Wisconsin or Illinois farm boys. They are always from Iowa.
But that's OK, I guess. Iowa is a pretty good state, better than some give it credit for. Many on the political scene castigate it for being "too old, too white and too rural" to deserve being one of the first states to weigh in on presidential elections. I counter that with, "If it's too old, too white and too rural, how come it launched a young, urban, African-American to the presidency?"
Iowa, although historically Republican, has produced some prominent Democrats. But not lately.
Iowa has one public policy feature from which our own once-progressive state of Wisconsin could learn. Political scientists agree that Iowa has one of the nation's better non-partisan methods of conducting the decennial reapportionment of congressional and state legislative districts.
A non-partisan commission recommends district boundaries that take into account municipal and county boundary lines, minimizing snake-like districts, known as "gerrymandering," that serve no purpose other than to accommodate majority members already in power.
Yes, it's possible to eliminate, or at least minimize, gerrymandering. Iowa has done it.
On US 20, I roll past Manchester, Waterloo and eventually Fort Dodge, enjoying the blue skies and sunny December weather. This time of year, the late afternoon sun is at a sharp angle to the southwest, creating a special kind of light that imparts a rust-like hue to the brownish dry grass and corn stalks. Once past the intersection of US 20 and I-35 in central Iowa, the sun reaches the horizon. At this low angle, the rusty hue of dry grass and corn stalks becomes richer and fuller. The reddish glow on the horizon merges into the orange, and finally the blue of the sky. This Iowa scene may not strike people as a tourist attraction. But it is colorful and uplifting on what could have been just a drab day. The early December darkness sets in, and I soon turn north on US 59. In time, I reach Sibley in the northeast corner of Iowa and meet Tom where he has arrived from visiting his mother in Worthington, in the southwest corner of Minnesota.
Next morning, it's another sunny day, pleasant for December. We head southwest toward Sioux City. We pass Orange City, a rather typical Iowa small town. Orange City was featured in a lengthy article in a recent issue of the prestigious magazine, the "New Yorker." The city of about 6,200 faces issues typical of many Midwestern small towns, an aging population, struggling small businesses, maintaining the vitality and the character of its downtown business district, and attracting young citizens to the area.
Orange City has capitalized on the presence of a small college, and has emphasized its unique history and ethnic character, Dutch, in this case. In many ways, Orange City resembles our own Monroe and New Glarus with its emphasis on unique history, character, and ethnicity, Swiss, in our case.
The New Yorker magazine article on Orange City, Iowa, is surely worth reading by those interested in small town issues.
We soon pass through another small town, La Mars that as the manufacturer of Blue Bunny ice cream, bills itself as the nation's ice cream capital. Someday I will visit that place, but not today.
We reach Sioux City, cross the Sioux River into Nebraska and head straight west for a few miles. The sun is bright, the sky a bright blue and there is no trace of snow on the ground.
With the temperature already in the 50s, it's a nice day for winter travel. We soon turn south, then west to Hastings, then south again to the Kansas Border.
As we reach Kansas, the flat land with beef cattle grazing on the corn stalks is occasionally relieved by rolling hills more suited to rangeland. Incredibly, the temperature reaches the mid-60s, about twenty degrees above normal, according to the data on my phone.
We angle southwest on US 383, surely a road less traveled. We are probably the only tourists to hit this road for a long time - it doesn't lead to anywhere except to US 83 that is a major north-south route. The only problem with US 383 is that traveling southwest on a sunny December afternoon takes you directly into the sun setting at that angle.
We hit US 83 about sunset and head directly south, through Garden City, and finally to Liberal, on the Kansas-Oklahoma Panhandle border.
It's time to call it a day after this zig-zag route across the Great Plains on roads less traveled.
- John Waelti of Monroe can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Fridays in
The Monroe Times.
