IOWA !

Oh no. We are not Idaho or Ohio. We are the other brother to Wisconsin and Minnesota. Social change has brought us closer to those two. We have new developments and more tourist attractions. How about hundreds of RV camps, state parks, ponds, private lakes, and resevoirs We are getting more casinos and have numerous woods. The trees  are gathering more land. We have two major rivers that fill our shores. Of course, they are the Mississippi and Missouri. The universities are still ranked right up there. We are a filler date for numerous acts that travel between St. Louis to Minneapolis.

We have 6 or 7 cities that make mid size cities among the rolling hills of bushes, and prairie. Major interstates travel through our land. Laid back and no serious rush traffic is the usual description of us. Lots of hotels and motels are here. We have a few Disney-like parks. We are the middle of the country and for many year wes were purple in our politics.

Some large corporations are coming here and yet they are in the urban areas. When there is civil strife, we usually don’t have it. We are an upscale small town or village. Things don’t cost as much here. We are on television on Saturday afternoons. We are ones that wave to the kids in the hospital. We don’t kill each other as much here.

Please think Lake Okoboji, Lake McBride, Lake Rathbun, house boats on the Cedar River and many like Lake Delhi which was on the cover of a major magazine. Please remember, the Maharishi/ TM/ Vedic City, and the Amanas. We have some bad winds, but the City of Cedar Rapids fought back by planting more trees and so many homes have new siding. Museums, parks, restaurants, and some solid jobs are here. Remember the “Field of Dreams?” “Bridges of Madison County?”

There was a song about us on the charts years and years ago. We have a movie or two about us. We have corn fields too like most of our neighbor states.

So it’s “sky high by the fourth of July in Iowa.”