"I saw you took off Monday. You going anywhere?"
"Yeah, Mike and I are going through Iowa."
"Iowa? What's in Iowa?"
And that was the start of many conversations I had the week before our road trip. I would then start to list off roadside attractions we were stopping at to solidify that this trip would be fun and interesting and not just corn on top of corn. It did turn out to be a great trip! I even found some places I would love to visit again or that we drove by and we didn't have the time to fully appreciate. In 57 hours and 57 minutes, we had hit 30 (ish) attractions. So let's jump into the deets.
October 9th, 2021 we woke up early. Like, the city is silent early. We hit the road about 4:30 am, which on my watch was late. It turned out to be perfect timing to actually have sun at our first stop, The Field of Dreams Movie Site in Dysersville.
I had been to the Field of Dreams Movie Site many years ago when Netflix was doing movie showings at the movie filming sites. I got to see the baseball men and watch Kevin Costner play on stage. It is very hard for me to find evidence of this online but here is a video on Youtube someone thankfully uploaded. And one day I will add my photos when I find them.
Surprisingly, a team was already there prepping for the Saturday morning visitors. Mowing the field and grating the driveway. The field is open sunrise to sunset but the gift shop is not (as not expected to be). We were able to walk around both the baseball and corn fields.
As we hit the road, a father and son drove up and started playing catch. A great way to end our visit.
Field of Dreams Movie Site
28995 Lansing Rd, Dyersville, IA 52040
Next stop was the World's Largest Strawberry in Strawberry Point. I didn't expect this to be on the main road or so high up in the air. Here we literally parked, ran out, saw it, and ran back to the car.
World's Largest Strawberry
111 Commercial St, Strawberry Point, IA 52076
Ok. So the next stop...we drove through FOG and winding roads to get there. I saw it on roadsideamerica.com and thought it looked cool. And it was! But..didn't realize this was just literally on someone's lawn...with no place really to park or walk. So we parked in their driveway, snapped some photos and drove off. So this is my public apology for trespassing but also...this was such a cool stop! Squidward's House in Wadena.
Squidward's House
S. Mill St. Wadena, IA
Quickly, we were off to the Iowa's Largest Frying Pan in Brandon. We were pushing 10:00 AM when we arrived. This was a very different experience than Squidward's House, with a nice large parking lot to park in front of the frying pan and community center. This pan can hold 528 eggs!! For you Disney folk-it would take 11 Gastons to eat that many eggs.
Iowa's Largest Frying Pan
800-850 Main St, Brandon, IA 52210
I didn't have a pinpoint on where exactly our next stop was. I thought I did but it took us a second to find it. And on top of it, there was a parade going through town. Nonetheless, we made it to Nestle's Big Red Mug in Waverly. General consensus seems to be that it is filled with hot chocolate, not coffee. There was also a bright sign with Quiky on it so had to snap a few with him too.
Nestle Big Red Mug
We got to Clear Lake and almost had to do a double take to make sure we weren't just in Lake Geneva. It was definitely a tourist town and one I hope to return to for some camping and time on the lake. We grabbed some drinks from the Cabin Coffee there. I got the Blackberry Vanilla Dreamsicle Red Bull Infusion (quite the mouthful).
One of the spots I had saved to check out in Clear Lake was The Pyramid House. We didn't stop since someone was having a birthday party. Turns out, it is a popular Airbnb! So be sure to check it out if you are in to vacation rentals!
The Pyramid House
1102 N Shore Dr, Clear Lake, IA 50428
The only other stop I had planned for Clear Lake was a giant ice cream cone. It used to be a Twistee Treat but now is the South Shore Sweet Spot. They had wrapped up for the year so we couldn't grab any treats but it was still fun to see this American icon.
Also, peep this MASSIVE hat I got from Forever21.
South Shore Sweet Spot
5269 S Shore Dr, Clear Lake, IA 50428
The next stop was along another lake, Crystal Lake, which doesn't have a great reputation this time of year. We visited the World's Largest Bullhead. Across the road was a bit of a campground including an old train car built in 1849 which Mike had fun exploring. There was another campground just up the road I would very much like to camp at one day-Crystal Lake Park.
World's Largest Bullhead
161-177 State St S, Crystal Lake, IA 50432
The most frustrating thing about any road trip is hitting a place at an inconvenient time. Do you sacrifice hours of your day to wait for one attraction to open? This trip was all about cramming a lot into a little so we couldn't wait the two hours for Emerald's Fine Food and Libations in Algona to open. What's at this fancy restaurant? The World's Largest Cheeto. I was a little disappointed with the timing because it was one of my big ticket items when I explained to people why we were going to Iowa. Oh well.
World's Largest Cheeto
1515 N McCoy St #1240, Algona, IA 50511
Some road trips, you expect something out of a place and receive something completely different. I had added Manson to our trip due to their welcome sign showing a meteorite crashing. To explain I'll add this info from Wikipedia:
"Manson is located near the site of the Manson crater, formed by a meteorite collision that happened 74 million years ago. The crater's existence was first discovered during an oil-drilling wildcatting expedition in the 1930s. At one time, it was thought to be the biggest impact by an object from outer space in North America, until subsequent studies revealed larger examples. The impact event was also once theorized to have led to the extinction of the dinosaurs, or contributed to it as a fragment of the Chicxulub meteor, until tests by the U.S. Geological Survey in 1991 and 1992 proved that it was too old by 9 million years.
"Not much remains due to glacial till which has filled in the crater and has made it undetectable at ground level. However, due to this infilling it is one of the best preserved impact sites on Earth.
"The impact crater measures approximately 24 miles (39 km) in diameter and the city of Manson is located near the center of the impact site." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manson,_Iowa]
Now, what didn't we expect? The heavy amounts of wind that almost tipped us completely over. We had seen a ton of windmills in Iowa, but didn't really know why. Our stop here showed us pretty quickly.
"Making an Impact" sign
215 8th St, Manson, IA 50563
Sometimes when you're on a road trip, you Google a place you know you are going to...but don't verify which one it exactly is. So instead of going to the Rainbow Bridge in Lake City we ended up at the Marsh Rainbow Arc Bridge in Beaver. We made the best of the visit.
The reason for visiting Rainbow Bridge was that it is known to be haunted-by a ghost who loves chocolate. So, if you go and visit bring a chocolate bar at midnight and lay it in the middle of the bridge. 5 minutes later, you can return to an empty wrapper.
The planned stop:
Rainbow Bridge
E Jackson St, Lake City, IA 51449
The next stop was at the head of the Raccoon River Valley Recreation Trail. It is a Giant Bicycle in Perry. I honestly don't have too much more to say then that. It was a cute town, I was getting cold, and there was a cool train "skeleton" across the street that caught my eye.
Giant Bicycle
1019 Willis Ave, Perry, IA 50220
Only 20 minutes down the road was the High Trestle Trail Bridge. I hope to return one day and walk or bike the whole trail. We go there at sunset which made the experience pretty magical. The sun had set when we started to leave, but they hadn't turned on the lights. Otherwise, the bridge is supposed to light up a bright blue at night.
High Trestle Bridge
2335 Qf Ln, Madrid, IA 50156
The sun had gone down, ending our adventures for the day. As much as I wanted to continue, it is a little hard with no light to see anything. One of the few problems traveling in October.
So we got a hotel in Urbandale and rushed over to Happy Joe's, a must on our "to eat" list. We used to have one in Onalaska, but it closed a few years ago, stripping us from Taco Pizzas.
Happy Joe's
8056 Douglas Ave, Urbandale, IA 50322
Another early morning hitting the road running. Our vacation tradition has somehow become eating at Ihop. The nearest one opened at 6:00AM so we were there right after opening. I had my traditional hot chocolate.
We quickly found out that not only does Iowa have a ton of corn fields, but they also have a ton of gas stations. It's not just the number of gas stations, but the number of different gas station companies! The classic Iowa gas station is Kum and Go, so of course we fueled up in one.
I hadn't planned on stopping at a rest stop so early in the drive, but I had remembered that I saw a fun little quirk about the West-Bound Adair Rest Stop-a giant windmill blade in front of the building! And when I say giant, I guess it was giant to us, but that is a real blade used in the windmills we saw up and down the highway.
The inside of the building was pretty neat too. Tons of wind energy facts attached to the walls and a Pac Man themed warning to avoid falling asleep while driving was the attention grabbers.
Rest Stop Number 2 (Westbound)
I-80
Adair, IA
Out of all the Iowa roadside attractions, Albert the Bull is probably the most famous.
We pulled in pretty early still and a group had started to form with "Make Albert Great Again" shirts. I was instantly drawn to the Yogi Bear see saw. If you're a camper, keep in mind the campground right next to Albert!
Albert the Bull
115 Circle Dr, Audubon, IA 50025
Our next stop was at the Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid and Sculpture Garden in Kimballton. The main focus of the park is the Little Mermaid fountain. Surrounding the fountain are various mini statues of Hans Christian Anderson characters. I learned about a few that I had never heard about before! The statues each had a phone number underneath to hear the story it represented. One of the few we listened to was "The Tinder Box". Crazy story.
Little Mermaid Statue
100 Esbeck St, Kimballton, IA 51543
I grew up in small town America. Definitely not the smallest town but not the biggest either. Portsmouth calls itself the "Biggest Little Town in the U.S.". I just felt the need to stop here for their cute sign. I honestly can't find why it is called this, their population or land size or what, but it was still a neat find and fun to just drive through.
Portsmouth, IA
A 76 foot tall cornstalk should be easy to find right? Apparently not. We drove around Shelby for quite some time looking for it. I couldn't find an exact address so figured it's tall enough, we'll see it. After driving circles for about 10 minutes, we started towards I-80 hoping to see the town from a new perspective, and there it was! 76 feet is also not as high as I expected either. It stands in the Agri-Symbol Park next to a Shell Quik Pik and The Cornstalk Cafe.
Agri-Symbol Park
12 East St, Shelby, IA 51570
Ok remember when I said that Albert the Bull is one of the top roadside attractions? Well, the Volkswagen Beetle Spider is definitely up on that list. It was so much smaller than I had expected. BUT I found out that this was made by a few kids! So the size quickly didn't matter as that was super impressive to me. As we pulled up, we looked to the right and someone was burning a large pile of brush. We looked to the left and someone was carving into a log, so you could hear a loud knife scraping most of the visit. Chaotic, just as a visit to the Volkswagen Beetle Spider should be.
Someone also gave the VW a few new friends, a dragon and T-rex. Terrifiyng thinking that if this is to scale, no one would have a chance at the Volkswagen Beetle Spider. (thinking War of the Worlds sized creature)
Volkswagen Beetle Spider
649 S Chestnut St, Avoca, IA 51521
Nothing is more American West than train robberies. Or so I've heard...are we even West? We are just in Iowa, I mean Nebraska is even debatably "West" and that's more West than Iowa! ANYWAY. Jesse James and his gang committed the world's first moving train robbery near Adair on July 21, 1873. Full story provided here. A locomotive wheel was set up in 1954 to commemorate the event. We had a great time at the Jesse James Historical Site, we met a cute little moth who had been riding in the car with us, it was super windy, we balanced on the railroad tracks, and mycountyparks set up a selfie stand for us to try out!
Find the difference between these two photos:
Jesse James Historical Site
1156 Anita-Adair Road, Adair, Iowa
Adair also hosts a smiley face water tower! I don't know why every city doesn't do this.
Smiley Face Water Tower
Hillcrest St, Adair, IA 50002
The First National Bank in Stuart is known to have been robbed by Bonnie and Clyde (and Henry) in 1934. It is now a salon. Next door was a cute Kindness Rock Garden.
First National Bank-Bonnie and Clyde Robbery Site</