The "I" States

There are four states that start with the letter “I”. Three of them, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa are sandwiched right between Ohio and Nebraska. So, we have visited all three of these in the last 2 days. (I guess Idaho will have to wait for another trip. We had lunch in Indiana, dinner and an overnight in Illinois and now we are spending the night in Iowa. We have not seen much of any of the states, just what you can see from I80 west. But, the landscape has changed. At the eastern end of these 3 states, it looked a lot like home – the east coast. Perhaps, the crops were different, and the topology a bit different, but it seemed the same as we see all the time.

But Iowa is still different. The farms, with rolling hills of plowed and planted fields that are green, from the darkest green to the lightest yellow-green, look so manicured and well kept. The corn is planted in rows, but some of the rows seem to have arcs and not all the rows go in the same direction. It looks like a patchwork quilt of planted fields. And always, there is a farm house and some building nestled into the landscape. All quite beautiful to look at and quite different from home.

The picture is of a sculpture that is at one of the rest areas off I80. I believe each pillar represents an industry in the state of Iowa. But, I could not find any explanation of it. But, it was unique and “pretty” so I took a picture of it!