Big 10 Football Tour

Let me start off by saying that there is a lot of great sites in Iowa City.  We saw many of them, but unfortunately the camera battery wasn't cooperating at the time.  Regardless, we got some great material.  We imagine that many Iowa City residents have not even seen many of these sites, so we'd recommend you get out and check them out right away.

Okay, so this isn't necessarily Iowa City, but it's a stone's throw away in Riverside, IA (10 minute drive).   They call it "a town with a future."  Why?  Well, because it is the FUTURE birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk.  For those of you who don't watch a lot of Star Trek, he was the guy played by William Shatner.

Apparently Riverside wanted to get a bust of Captain Kirk, but Paramont wanted some ungodly amount of money.  So they made a replica of the USS Enterprise and called it the USS Riverside.

As you drive into town, you'll first frind the Riverside History Center which has the ships and the Trek Shop.  You'll have to drive a bit further into town to find the stone shown in the photo below.

Got Milk?  Well if you have a big-ass cow the answer is probably yes.  A stop at Robert's Dairy will bring you face-to-face with a large cow.  It's no old, lead-poisoned paint chip cow either - this thing is crisp and brand-new looking.  

Our next stop took us to the graveyard.  It was in the Oakland Cemetary.  Yes, it was a little creepy but we had to see it.  The Black Angel.  It was supposed to be a bronze statue.  But it turned Black!  Why?  There are many legends surronding this angel.  One being that the person buried below it was evil and the black color is a constant reminder of her sins.  Unlike most angel sculptures, this head is looking downwards and the wings are not uplifted.  Another story is that it is the angel of infidelity in that the person below promised to remain faithful to her husband and that his death angel would turn black if she ever cheated on him.  Yet another claims that the angel turned black because the woman murdered her son and buried him beneath the angel and the color black is a constant reminder of her shame.

Today's legend says that anyone who kisses the black angel will die within 7 years.  Guess who puckered up?

Our next site had us asking ... Why?  Regardless, we made some time to stop by the world's largest Wooden Nickel.  It's a bit over 16 feet in diameter and weighs over 4,000 pounds.  This breaks the previous record-Nickel housed in San Antonio (13 feet).  Upon further research, we found that the nickel was to act as a metaphor in a protest of local residents against county supervisor's saying the supervisor's efforts are not worth a nickel.   The nickel is protected by an electric fence and Drew just didn't feel like pushing it at 8 AM in the morning.

Near our hotel was a McDonald's.  Big surprise huh?  This McDonald's slightly differed in that it had a Ronald McDonald out front.  An extremely creepy Ronny Mac.  Okay, all Ronalds are creepy, but this one takes the cake.  It was carved from a large tree trunk and like the rest of us, shows age lines on his face.  But cartoon characters rarely age - can't someone do some maintenance on this thing before kids start having nightmares?!?!

Not sure why we included this stop, but we checked in at the Mormon Handcart Historical Marker. It's doubtful that any Mormons follow our blog, but just in case - here's our salute to Mormons!  Apparently the railroad stopped in Iowa, so the Mormons used handcarts to transport everything to their final destination of Salt Lake City (awesome destination of Drew's NBA tour).

The Iowa Athletics Hall of Fame isn't too difficult to find since they put the bronze Hawkeye out front.  Unfortunately at the early hour that Wes and Drew were awake, the place was closed.  However, with the many glass windows surronding the building, we were able to take a peek inside.  Most notable are the surronding settings with both sports fields and actual wheat fields all around.

Part-time tour member Dan Lawrence was adamant that we try the Hamburg Inn.  That's why he's part-time; unaware of how difficult it can be to keep everyone on a schedule.  So Wes & Drew tried to stop by, but there was a line out the door and they still needed to get back to the hotel and get Jeff out of bed, so there was little time to wait.  They had a cup of the complementary coffee outside and were on their way.  It's a damn shame because they really wanted to try a pie-shake.  Well, there's always next year!

Another food stop mentioned by Dan Lawrence was Pizza on Dubuque.  After the bars, we stopped in for a slice or 5.  A clever illustration was out front and the inside was nice as well.  On the Drew Pizza Rating System, it probably receives a 6.5 of 10 on taste and texture.  It is rediculously overpriced at $4.00 per slice.

We spent the later portion of the nights on the Ped Mall, which we're assuming stands for Pedestrian Mall.  It's clean, free of motor vehicles, has lots of food vendors, and a variety of bars to choose from.  Two things we noticed here - 1) a lot of PDA (public displays of affection) & 2) a lot of "meatheads."  It seems that many of these cornfed boys are out to fight one another on a nightly basis.  Is the "cornfed" cliche a little overused?  Corn doesn't have all that much protein does it?

Iowa City is home to the old Capitol building for the state of Iowa.  Set right downtown among most else that is going on, it might be the best site to see while visiting Iowa.  Now a museum, this building sits in the middle of what they call the Pentacrest, one of five buildings at the center of campus.