Day 10: Sioux City, Iowa to Dubuque, Iowa

Yesterday night, I scanned through our itinerary to estimate our driving time for today. The itinerary said 218 miles. I knew it was right because I had calculated out the distances myself months ahead of time. Based on the speed we had made through Nebraska, we determined that this would take us between four and four and a half hours, an exceptionally easy day. With this in mind, we decided to take it easy. We slept in, checked out at 11, and enjoyed the Sunday buffet brunch, complete with omelet bar, at Kahill’s, the Marina Inn’s restaurant, until 12 when we finally got on the road.
We drove through the verdant farmland of Iowa, more rolling hills covered in patches of corduroy corn and (I think) soybeans. Rather than going directly through many of the towns as it had in Nebraska, Route 20 bypassed many of the small towns in Iowa. In some ways, this made the landscape more homogenous. It was mile after mile of fields punctuated by irrigation equipment and clusters of farm houses and barns. But the many similarities of these farms threw their individual differences into sharp relief. Each farm had its own character, a way to distinguish it from all the rest. Many reflected their individuality through their choice of color. The traditional red and white barns were very popular, but we also saw barns in blues and greens and a whole farm where all the buildings were painted white with purple roofs. Other barns, particularly those in western Iowa, were decorated with art I began calling “Barn Stars” painted squares in quilt-like geometric patterns in bold primary colors. For the moment, I have to confess my ignorance about these symbols, but if I had to guess (I know I don’t have to but I will anyway), I would say they looked German in origin. More info to come on the mysterious “Barn Stars” once I’ve done some research In any case, they are beautiful, intricate, and unique.
We also drove through the middle of a massive collection of graceful, white windmills generating electricity. We had intended to tour a wind farm in Ainsworth, Nebraska, but had not found any number to call for tours. Furthermore, it was Saturday, and the woman we asked at the Super 8 in Ainsworth wisely pointed out that no one was going to be working there on a Saturday. Days of the week become completely meaningless when you’re on vacation. So this was our second chance to get a close look at the development of alternative energy sources in the plains. The contrast between the land that had probably been raising corn for generations and the sleek modern windmills was interesting. We had seen smaller windmills used to operate water wells in fields and pastures all through the west, but the modern windpower mills seemed to be a wholly different animal. Where the water-pumping windmills had been modest in size and almost folksy in design, the newer windmills were soaring public investments in the future of the community. It was encouraging to see that this region had the ingenuity to move toward a new kind of economy without sacrificing its agricultural heritage.
Around one o’ clock, we went through the city of Fort Dodge. Thinking we had all the time in the world, we decided to stop into the Fort Museum. We pulled into the parking lot and entered into the main office and gift shop. We paid our $6 per adult and put our Fort Dodge admission stickers on our shirts. The clerk behind the counter gave us a map with a short description of each building and pointed us to the beginning of the tour. The first half of the tour was a collection of small wood-frame buildings, each representing one of the important institutions in a pioneer town. We first went into the house, a log structure with a living area in the downstairs and a collection of beds in the attic. The church was about the same size as the house, grayed from the weather, and filled with low, uncomfortable benches, a donated organ and a single stained glass window. The hospital was filled with various medical antiques and a smiling female mannequin, long retired from her career in the Sears storefront, in a white lace nurse’s outfit. The smell of medicine was pervasive, but it was not clear whether that smell was emanating from the antiques or whether it had been permanently imbued into the timbers of the building. The most interesting building was the school. It was filled with antique school benches, but more importantly a full collection of educational artifacts from the past hundred years.
After visiting the town, we went to the exhibits in the fort. We visited all the areas of the fort, I quickly skimming the collections and reading only the things I found most interesting, Aaron patiently, conscientiously reading every sign and placard. Among the most interesting rooms were the recently added World War One and Two room and the Cardiff Giant exhibit. The World War One and Two collection was housed in a small, humidity controlled room in the fort. It displayed many patches, medals, and photographs from that era, but the most interesting part was the collection of period uniforms modeled by the colleagues of the nurse mannequin in the town’s pharmacy. With their precipitous cheekbones, vacant eyes, and outdated hairstyles, it made the whole room just a little creepy. The Cardiff Giant display was just outside of the main fort in its own small building. The first thing we saw inside the building was Genesis 6:4 “There were Giants in the earth in those days.” As we turned the corner, we saw a massive sculpture of a man surrounded by a protective barrier. As we would read, we were in the presence of the “real” Cardiff Giant.
A 10-foot petrified giant was unearthed on the property of Stub Newell in Cardiff, New York on October 16, 1869. There was heated debate over what the finding might be. Some “petrofactionists” thought it was a petrified ancient giant like those that had been described in the Bible. Scientific minds believed that it was an ancient sculpture. Dr. John F. Boyton speculated that it had been carved by a Jesuit missionary in the late seventeenth century to impress the natives. In actually, the Cardiff Giant found on that farm had been nothing more than a hoax perpetrated by New York tobacconist, mocking Biblical literalists who believed that giants had actually roamed the earth thousands of years ago.
The limestone stone used to make this masterpiece had been mined in Fort Dodge, Iowa, and so the Fort Museum decided to carve a replica Cardiff Giant of its own. Then, as the story goes, when a young sculptor from the town began to carve the new giant from a piece of stone, his chisel reveal a toe of a petrified man who had been encased in the limestone. As he carefully removed the stone bit by bit, a fully preserved body was revealed, bearing a remarkable resemblance to George Hull’s fake giant. The placard finishes by telling visitors that before them is “the REAL Cardiff Giant and the one in New York is a fake!”
As we were leaving the tour, we went back into the gift shop to ask for lunch recommendations and sign the guest book. We had a short, fruitless discussion with the store clerk about restaurant options in the area. We were looking for loose meat sandwiches, a local specialty recommended to us by the innkeeper at the Morton Mansion in Douglas, Wyoming. The clerk couldn’t think of any place that still served them, mentioning that those were mostly served in southern Iowa. We listened patiently as she helpfully mentioned every fast food and chain restaurant under the sun, and then decided that we had best just move on.
The rolling hills and open landscape eventually lulled me to sleep. After about half an hour, Aaron nudged me and asked, “how much further is it till Des Moines?”
Tired of answering questions about a place we weren’t going to visit, I responded sleepily “Dubuque. We are not going to Des Moines. We are going… to Dubuque.” I sat up and pulled the now tattered road almanac into my lap, flipped the pages to Iowa, counted up the miles remaining. “We probably have about a hundred miles left.”
“How is that possible? We’ve been on the road for hours.”
“Maybe you’ve been driving slower.”
“I’m going 70.”
I consulted the mileage chart at the top of the page. It said that Dubuque was not 218 miles from Sioux City, as my itinerary had confidently recited, but 325 miles. I paused to swallow my pride. “It seems there has been a clerical error.”
“A clerical error?”
“Seems Dubuque is 325 miles from Sioux City.”
“You said it was two hundred.”
“I told you 218. I lied.”
“So we still have an hour and a half?”
“Yeah, just about.” I later figured out what must have happened. In putting together the itinerary, I must have originally scheduled us to stop somewhere else in Iowa, west of Dubuque. When I changed the stop to Dubuque, I must not have changed the mileage, leading to the clerical error. We had originally planned to stop at the Field of Dreams Movie Site in Dyersville, Iowa, about 50 miles west of Dubuque. But because of our side trip to the Fort Dodge Museum, we weren’t going to be able to make it to the Field of Dreams site before it closed at 6. So, the next time you’re in the greater Dyersville area, go to the Field of Dreams Movie Site and take a picture for us.
We got to Dubuque around 6:30 and pulled out our GoogleMaps directions to get to the Hancock House, our B&B resting stop for the night. The instructed us to take the Bryant/N Hill St. exit, to turn onto N Hill St. and to then take a left onto University Ave. We obediently took the right exit and moved slowly along N. Hill St., scanning the signs for University Ave. We passed a half dozen signs and finally N. Hill St. dead ended into a divided street. We turned right because left turns were forbidden and found ourselves on W. 9th St. We worked our way back on to N. Hill street and followed it all the way back, across Route 20, and then onto Bryant St. Still no University Ave. We went back to N. Hill St. and pulled off to an intersection in town. Frustrated, I whipped out my cell phone and called the Hancock House. I reached Chuck, one of the innkeepers, and asked him for directions. I explained to him the way we had come in, and he instantly recognized the route.
“Oh, you’re using the computer directions.”
“Right.”
“That’s bad.”
“Oh.”
He directed us to take Locust St. and then to go up a hill and make a series of turns to avoid the road blockage and find the back entry to the house. I jotted down all the instructions, and told Aaron to go back to Locust St. Aaron turned the car around in a U-turn to try to get back to N. Hill St., and we came face-to-face with a car full of stunned locals. “Oops. One way.” He pulled the car into another U turn, bringing us 360 degrees around. After another few minutes of attempting to find Locust, we called Chuck again, clarified a few points, and began to make some progress. We climbed the steep bluff and navigated the tight turns until we found the Hancock House, a gorgeous Grand Dame Victorian home perched on the bluff overlooking the city.
We dragged our bags onto the wrap-around porch and rang the bell. Susan, a smiling middle-aged woman answered the door “Oh, you made it!” She greeted us with the effusive friendliness and singing Scandinavian-inflected accent that I had associated with Minnesota. We went out to move the car because “you can’t block this driveway because you’ll block in our neighbors, but not over by the yellow house because she doesn’t like to have cars in front of her house.”
After we had moved the car, we went back in the house, but Susan was making a reservation with another couple, so we waited to be checked. Out of a doorway, came a middle aged man with wavy gray hair and glasses. “You’re here!” I instantly recognized the voice as Chuck. “Well, I can get you set up if you don’t mind being checked in by a dirty person. I was over at a friend’s house helping him with the wiring in his house. His wife said now they don’t have to clean the basement because we took all the dirt out on our clothes.” He checked us in and showed us around the house, which was filled with antiques, games, and reading material. He also showed us the guest pantry that had a soda machine, a refrigerator with beer and wine, and a staggering assortment of teas. “Feel free to try anything you like, and be creative.” He gestured toward a sink in the corner “If you don’t like something, that’s what it’s there for. Try again.”
We moved our things into Mrs. Hancock’s Room. The room itself is immense and well furnished with a queen sized bed, a sitting area, a fireplace, and a small television. The bathroom had mosaic floors, a clawfoot tub, an old fashioned toilet with the watertank at the ceiling and chain to flush, and, in a back room, a Jacuzzi tub complete with rubber ducky.
On Chuck’s recommendation, we walked down the bluff (we did not feel like trying to drive again) and through town to the Blackwater Grill at the Bricktown Brewery for dinner. The menu consisted of tasty pub food and, although their beer selection was a little limited that night (it was a Sunday), I had a Vanilla Crème Lager that was really pretty tasty and not overly sweet at all. Coming back from the restroom, Aaron said “One of the staff told me that Jamie Kennedy from Comedy Central is performing upstairs.”
I tried to place the name “Who?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said.” Apologies to Jamie Kennedy.
After dinner, we walked back to the Hancock House and took a long relaxing soak in the giant Jacuzzi tub. We had to ask ourselves “Is this heaven?” “No, it’s Iowa.”