WE LOVE IOWA part 1 of 3

Iowa is one of those places that every American should visit. It is the heartland, where people work hard - really hard, farming the land they love. It is beautiful, especially if you like corn stalks.

I think we saw more corn in 4 days than I have seen in 40 years. More on that to come...
Only an hour over the border from South Dakota into Iowa and Wyatt said, "When they said Iowa is for corn, they were serious. There is corn everywhere you look, every second."


We stayed on a farm in Knoxville Iowa (50 minutes south of Des Moines in the middle of nowhere according to our standards) for 3 nights, but before we got there, we had 2 important stops in Iowa.

Spencer and Mason City.

We visited the Spencer Public Library. Home of Dewey from the true story Dewey the Small Town Library Cat who Touched the World. On one of the coldest mornings in January 1988, Vicki Myron, the librarian at the Spencer Library found a kitten in the drop box inside the library. He was half frozen and in shock. She saved him and he ended up being the library cat and most loved citizen of the town of 10,000. He died 16 years later in 2006 and Vicki retired to write a book about Dewey and all of his funny antics as well as how he made such a difference in so many people's lives.

Joy, who is mentioned in the book began working at the library when Dewey was a year old. She was there, still working the day we visited. She treated us to a behind the scenes tour. We saw where Dewey was found, where he slept, ate, and heard funny stories. The other patrons in the library must be used to people coming in to pay tribute to Dewey because Joy spoke enthusiastically, not using her library voice and laughed heartily as she reminisced and took us through the library.

Joy let Wyatt get in the drop box where Dewey was found.

Dewey buried outside the library.

The second stop was Mason City - Meredith Willson's home town. Meredith Willson is the man who brought us the Music Man. His boyhood home is still there, we got to go inside and see the house as it was over a hundred years ago when he was born in 1902. An older gentleman, an Iowa native was chock full of info. Next door to the house they built a fun place to visit called Music Man Square - built like the main street in River City Iowa - the fictional town based on Willson's own Mason City. If you are a fan of The Music Man - this is a must see!

Ya got Trouble, right here in River City...with a capital 'T' and that rhymes with 'P' And that stands for Pool!

(By the way... sad fact, Mason City Municipal Airport is the airport Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens took off from the night their plane crashed)

Happy Observation: We saw winter formal couples come into Ruby Tuesday - the most upscale restaurant in Mason City. There were no Limos- imagine that. And one of the guys had a cowboy hat on with his suit. They all looked beautiful and happy. Way to keep it real Iowa!

Stay tuned, I think I finally figured out how to get video onto my blog. Also, coming soon, a book review from Sally, Mom's Voice from the farm, and... a lesson in corn 101.

Right now, I have to go - Matt flew in at midnight last night to Kansas City. Today is his birthday and we are going to eat some bar-b-q!