Iowa Refresher
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Day 2: June 14, 2019 Iowa Refresher Comment via blog |
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While I'm not on a mission to drive the Lincoln Highway, neither am I on a
mission not to drive it. Let the fun begin with some gravel near Grand
Mound, Iowa. Recent rains made things wet enough to scare me off of both
of these unpaved sections when I first saw them in 2009 although I did get
a picture.
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Three bridges exist on a section of old Lincoln Highway just east of
Wheatland. Today only the center bridge is open. The easternmost bridge,
over Calamus Creek, was closed before I ever got here. I did cross the
westernmost bridge at least once but it's now been closed for several
years. I entered the section east of the middle bridge, drove across it,
then grabbed a picture of the old pavement. The last two pictures or of
the closed western bridge. It and the middle bridge are over branches of
the Wapsipinicon River.
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These LH banded poles are in Wheatland. I'll return to them in a bit.
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I'd been looking for a suitable breakfast spot ever since leaving the
motel with a cup of coffee. There had been a couple of near misses but no
hits. By noon, I was getting kind of hungry. Being in Iowa, my thoughts
naturally turned to pork tenderloins. I recently joined a Facebook group
named Pursuing Pork Tenderloin Sandwiches and took advantage
of the ability to search through the posts there while getting gas. A
couple of positive mentions turned up for
Bo Mac's so
that's where I went and that's why I had no interest in dinner at day's
end.
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This is at the turnoff from US-30 to Belle Plaine. I've noticed the nice
picture on the silo before but today stopped for a picture. I even got out
of the car so I could line up the signs. The Lincoln Highway is now marked
quite well with these great looking Heritage Byway signs. It wasn't always
that way. I first noted the signs on the 2013 LH centennial drive, and
when I posted the 2009 picture of the unpaved road in today's first panel,
I noted that Illinois was better signed than Iowa, and said that what
markings Iowa had were mostly striped poles like in today's third panel.
That comment is
here.
The other pictures were taken in Belle Plaine. The first two are of the Herring Hotel where there is evidence of some work but not a lot. The last picture shows George Preston's iconic gas station. |
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Between Belle Plaine and Tama some pretty heavy work is taking place that
appears to be well on the way to making this stretch of US-30 a divided
four-lane.
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The bridge in Tama is showing its age but it's still a great shout out for
the Lincoln Highway. The plaque can be read
here.
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State Center shows that wooden poles aren't the only way to mark a road.
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There's only one place in the world that legitimately has a pole like
this. It's Colo, Iowa, where the Jefferson and Lincoln Highway run
together for several miles. I'm spending the night here at the Colo Hotel
but not posting an interior picture since the rooms remain unchanged from
last year. And that's a
good thing.
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Scott Berka and I may or may not have tipped a couple of beers here while
catching up on the last year's happenings.
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