Road trip wonders: Iowa

Thursday June 15, 2006

An American road trip provides opportunities galore for seeing sights you might normally not seek, like the covered bridges of Madison County in Iowa (where we ran into some Swedish backpackers on holiday). If you've got to cross the country, driving through Iowa, which is also a destination unto itself, is the way to go.

Stop in Iowa City, where the University of Iowa, named by the Princeton Review as a 2006 top ten party school, revs up the little town's nightlife. Detour off 1-80 to see some covered bridges near Des Moines and eat some down home cookin' in

Winterset; head south toward Kalona from Iowa City to check out Amish farmers clip clopping along the road in bugggies pulled by gorgeous retired racehorses.

And, with luck, you may see something astonishing and very American, like the Great Eastern Iowa Tractor Ride, a parade of 450 tractors in which we unsuspectingly but delightedly got entangled near the National Historic Landmark community of Amana during our recent drive across the Hawkeye state. You just never know what a road trip in these United States might turn up.

Road Trip Wonders: West Virginia ^{Photos: © Kathleen Crislip}