As a couple of you might know, Iowa wasn't my idea of the most ideal place
in the world to live. It has neither oceans nor mountains but plenty of
corn and soybeans. It can be depressing for someone like me who grew up in
a really cool area to be surrounded by millions of acres of agriculture.
Rumor had it that there are remnents of the state that contain a few trees.
Joel Wilcox took me to one grove at the Palisades State Park. Well, I've
gotten those 12 trees photographed and I found another dozen about 20 miles
south of me. As far as I knew, combined with one tree in my own yard, that
pretty well summed up the trees in the entire state. Hills? Unless you
are on a bicycle you probably wouldn't find anything too exciting either.
Western part of the state has these really long rollers that go up or down
for several miles at a time, but the tall corn really cuts the visibility
down. Northeast corner is supposed to have a couple hills that even
contain a couple trees. I must check that out.
Imagine my surprise when my wife and I went and drove around Boone, Iowa.
This is just west of Ames (the OTHER university, Joel). I was shocked to
find that the Des Moines river valley is quite the photogenic spot. There
is this one really long and high train tresle that is rather photogenic.
Numerous old road bridges in various states of delapidation litter the
countryside. Karen almost broke my arm when I drove us over one rickity
old structure that swayed. I figured that our minivan weighed less than
the 3 ton limit. Probably should have made a pitstop first--just to make
sure.
I took a neet late evening picture of one bridge with the deep indigo
post-sunset sky behind it. (Minus-2, auto mode, tripod, F4). The next
day, there were storm clouds a brewing and we found an Elk farm (yes, elk),
interesting barns, etc. Ledges State Park is well worth the visit and I
look forward to spending a lot of quality time there this fall. Yes, I
found three more trees.
Between Boone and Ledges S.P. I found this old barn (I think) that was
nothing more than a skeleton, but inside were two extremely old school
buses. (one was so old that it didn't have the lights). They hauntingly
looked out from the weeds. Yup, I blew some film there. I turned around
and headed back to the van and on the other side of the road was an
abondanded farm house with wildflowers all around. I was running out of
time, but managed to fry the rest of the roll on that.
Well, I guess Iowa isn't totally depressing after all.
Ken Norton
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