The hills

I spent today exploring the southern end of the Loess Hills Scenic Byway, a route that stretches over 200 miles through the Loess Hills along the western edge of Iowa. It's an interesting drive, winding through and along the edge of the bluffs that rise above the Missouri River valley. I discovered a couple of places that I am sure I will be revisiting at a later date.


For those interested in traveling the Byway, be advised. The route can be frustrating to follow with signage that seems to just disappear from time to time. To see the best parts of the Byway, there are several loops that require driving for many miles on gravel roads. The loops meander through the Loess Hills far more than the main route.

The top photograph is from the Waubonsie Cemetery in Mills County. The Waubonsie Church and Cemetery stand alone along a quiet country road along one of the Byway's loops. Below is a photograph from an old mural painted on a building in the town of Tabor.

I plan on traveling the northern section of the Byway in the coming weeks.

Also visited: Pony Creek, Pacific Junction, Thurman, Sidney, Waubonsie State Park and Hamburg, Iowa. Star School Hill Prairie and Rock Port, Missouri. Brownville and Peru, Nebraska.

Eastern Iowa, Day Two

There's just not too much to report from today. The highlight of the day was the classic Maid-Rite that I had along Interstate 80 near Amana. I always forget how good a loose-meat sandwich with all the fixings can be. Maid-Rite is pretty much exclusive to Iowa, dating back to the 1920's and small towns along the highways before the arrival of the interstate. Yesterday's entry mentioned my Great Grandmother's cafe, which also served Maid-Rites to the travelers along Highway 6 in Ladora.

Pictured is St. Michael's Church in a little bump in the road called Holbrook. The old stone church was built in 1867 and still stands today, albeit it has seen better days. I can't figure out why someone has begun patching the structure with common red bricks, as you can see in the photograph.

Also visited: Oxford, Kalona, Wellman and Lake Hawthorne.

Revisiting eastern Iowa

There are days where a person sets out to photograph, only to struggle to come up with anything that really catches the eye. Today definitely was one of those days. To make matters worse, the weather made things difficult, with fairly bright gray skies and very little sunshine to balance them out. Around six o'clock, it was dark enough that nightfall seemed imminent.

I revisited many of the places that my grandparents and I traveled to last summer, spending some more time exploring, hoping to find details I might have missed. There are a few promising photographs, and I'm sure I'll find more after I spend more time going over them in the coming weeks. Sometimes I'll look through a series of photographs a hundred times and still find something new.

The photograph above is of the Ladora Savings Bank building in Ladora. The building's history can be found here. On the same website, there are photographs of my Great Grandma Calvert and the 24-hour cafe she operated during the 1950's across the street from the Savings Bank.

Also visited: Malcom, Brooklyn, Carnforth, Victor, Marengo, West Amana, South Amana, Williamsburg, Parnell, North English, South English, Keswick, Thornburg and Barnes City.

Concert For Equality

"She said that musicians sound silly when they talk about politics. I'm certain that Woody Guthrie wasn't a silly man." - David Rawlings

In a past life, I spent quite a bit of time writing about music and politics on a couple of websites that I'm sure most have forgotten. Since the demise of the last site, somedaynever, I've maybe attended one live show a year and haven't spent near as much time spouting off political opinions. It would appear that politics have become even more polarizing over the last decade, but I'm sure the more things seem like they change, the more they stay the same.

Tonight was the Concert For Equality in the downtown Benson, one of the many neighborhoods that have been absorbed into Omaha over the last century. The show was a bit of a throwback to seven or eight years ago, back when Saddle Creek was just beginning to reach a wider audience and the label's roster played shows together on a regular basis. All proceeds from the concert went to the ACLU to aid in their lawsuit to prevent the city of Fremont from enforcing controversial immigration laws similar to what the state of Arizona is attempting to do. Counter-protesters promised to gather just outside the concert gates, but none were to be found when I arrived around 7 pm.

I was most impressed by the performance of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, pictured above with Conor Oberst and members of Bright Eyes on stage for their finale. Rawlings played a song of his own which wandered into a fiery rendition of some of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land," and was easily the highlight of the show. Bright Eyes sounded great, as did Cursive, and seeing Desaparecidos on stage for the first time in eight years felt good, if a bit like traveling back in time.

I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the hard work of everyone at Nebraska Appleseed. They tirelessly work to make Nebraska a better place for all of us who don't have the patience to deal with the frustration of making change happen in a stubborn world. I am incredibly grateful that such dedicated people exist.