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I have mentioned it here before but was worth mentioning again- the Spoon River rest area.

The rest area itself isn't much to speak of- located in a dull stretch between Galesberg and Peoria, Illinois.  It is secluded enough that it has a bit of a  creepy 'rest area' vibe to it, actually.

I like the thought of it though as I enjoyed reading Edgar Lee Masters's "Spoon River Anthology".  There is a lookout which otherwise is kind of random, but allows you to look over the area, and I think of Masters when I do this.

New Englanders settled here and it is an area rich with early American and French settlers and Native American history.  There is a feeling that I think is distinct from Southern Illinois, and that feeling is largely autumnal.

Anthology was published in 1915 and is a series of poems attributed to the dead citizens of the cemetery.  Masters wanted to "demystify rural and small town American life."  212 characters tell their tales, some with secrets, observations, histories, and fragments; occasionally with the revelation of a good country song.

Of course, this led to some controversy in the town of Lewistown where Masters was raised.  Sort of a "You're so Vain" of its day.  it was banned in Lewistown for 60 years, up until 1974.  Master's mother was on the school board and voted for the ban.  Local historian Kelvin Sampson notes that "Every family in Lewistown probably had a sheet of paper or a notebook hidden away with their copy of the Anthology, saying who was who in town.

In recent years, the town has started to embrace the legacy.  While reading about this, I ran across a Masters-themed tour of the Oak Hill Cemetery.  There are 40 markers that represent characters who show up in Anthology.  The cemetery also is nearby an area where Lincoln and Douglas debated and the courthouse they spoke at has burned down, but the pillars they stood on remain.

An addendum to the stop at the Hoover birthplace.  There is a travelling exhibit that was set up there- the Kaplan's collection "The Signature of Baseball".

Funny enough, I had run into this exhibit before, it was in Davenport when I was, though I didn't make it to it.

.It's kind of a strange collection.  Unique, though in a certain context  (or maybe because of a lack of context) odd.

Randy Kaplan works in governmental affairs and collects such things.  Long story short, he has had the World Leaders that he has met sign baseballs for him.

When I say World Leaders, I mean he leaves no one out.  Literally, all the Leaders of the Free World have provided Kaplan with signatures.  When I say Leaders, I mean the leaders of the US, Germany, Israel, France and Italy for the last 25 years, the leaders of Canada and Britian for the last 40 years, and just about every President, Premier or Prime Minister you can think of.

It means Thatcher, Bush, Obama, Clinton,the Dalai Lama, Havel, Walesa, Mandela, Karzai, Gorbachev, Schevrenadze, Trudeau, and a literal list of the most important men of the last quarter centruy.

It also means that you start looking for who's left out, and oddly, given the context, the most notable missing one is the biggest baseball fan of all- the guy who wanted to pitch for the Washington Senators- Fidel Castro.  Some obvious omissions as the leaders of North Korea, Putin, Mugabe, and various strong men and dictators of note.

But it is also weird in that at the end of the day, it's just  a bunch of signed baseballs.  180 or so. 

The Hoover exhibit (and maybe the exhibit in general) has a few other things thrown in the mix to share a history of Iowan baseball, such as a ball signed by Babe Ruth from his barnstorming days (when he visited Iowa) and a ball signed by Herbert Hoover and the Yankees of the era.

It's hard to recommend it on it's own (though I think Kaplan essentially does this as a non-profit venture, so no harm, no foul there), but certainly an interesting exhibit and worthwhile in some respects for its uniqueness.

From the KCRG website

I complete my series of southwestern Iowa activities with the only working Danish windmill in America.

Unlike the Dutch windmills, the Danish windmills were used for milling grain. This particular windmill was built in 1848, and bought and dissembled and then reassembled in Iowa in the 1970s.

It is next door to a danish restaurant that was quite good, and the town (home of the largest Danish population outside of Denmark and Chicago) is also home to a Danish immigration museum (which house Victor Borge's first piano)

Okay, I apologize in advance, but I can't resist.

We went on a day trip in southwestern Iowa, and not every site we took in was about the good people in Iowa being robbed.

It just seemed that way.

In Adair, Jesse James committed the first ever train robbery. In expectation of a train carrying $75,000, the James Gang picked a corner the train would be turning on, and removed the spikes from the rail. The Engine did plunge over the tracks, but was not carrying as much money as thought, and the Jameses took $3000.



The track itself is there as a historical marker.



I know it is an odd bit of roadside America, but it is amazing to see for me.

Just down the road in Stuart some 50 years later, Bonnie and Clyde robbed the bank.

It's a typical Iowa town, but the bank is memorialized for all to see.

This being 2013, it means the sign is currently over a salon, but like some Iowan towns, it doesn't take much imagination to figure how the town was late out in the 1930s.

It is odd of course to commemorate, but like James, Bonnie and Clyde have become American icons and it was worth going just to go.

Kearney, Missouri (near Kansas City) is the birthplace of Jesse James.

James (not Sandra's ex) still is one of history's most fascinating characters, which is why Brad Pitt plays him over 100 years later.  His hometown doesn't noticeably make him out to be the Robin Hood of folklore, but falls on the modern attitude that James was an ex-Confederate who continued to fight the Civil War.

In certain ways, it's hard not to have atl east some sympathy for James.  Part of a family that moved from Kentucky with many other families to form a region called Little Dixie- an area just across the way from the Jayhawkers in Kansas.  James was beaten up and lashed as a 14-year old by Federal troops who were looking for his brother (who had joined the Confederate army).. His family temporarily displaced by Federalist Missourians in the aftermath of the war.

There are a couple of places around here that 'celebrate' being robbed by James (the bank In Liberty Missouri, I am told has the bullet holes memorialized), and a couple of places that were his hideout.

The house was also where a neighbor had advised the Pinkertons that the James boys were staying in which led to an incident in which Pinkertons threw an explosive into the house causing the death of James's young brother and taking the arm off of James's mother- an event that sounds terrible in terms of overstepping certain boundaries in any context.

The house is a small mid-19th century cabin (later added to) and understandably for our time seems small.   At the end of the day like many historical attractions, the experience comes down to what is made of it.

That said, they make the most of it.  The staff was friendly and knowledgeable, and maybe this shouldn't be surprising, but has a lot of artifacts that will impress those interested in James- the boots James was wearing when he was shot, Jesse's saddle, and most interestingly to me (and sort of chillingly) that actual picture that Jesse was cleaning and straightening when he was shot dead.



Jesse was buried there with a grave that was stolen bit by bit and has been replaced with the inscription "murdered by a traitor and a coward whose name is not worthy to appear here" (a replica stands there now).  Jesse has since been moved to an otherwise not-particularly noteworthy grave in the downtown cemetery (a cemetery that is probably interesting nevertheless with Revolutionary War veterans).



After Jesse's death, Frank James surrendered himself to the Governor of Missouri, was tried and acquitted, and retired here as a farmer (and in later life, toured the country with Cole Younger).  Jesse James Jr, as a young man, was accused of a train robbery, and acquitted (although likely he did it), becoming a lawyer in Kansas City as an adult, and eventually losing his money in moving to Hollywood and trying to make a film career off of playing his father.

Overall, a very interesting little stop in the middle of the country that captures the spirit of one of American history's most interesting characters.

Speaking of Ducks, we come to The Rusty Duck in Dexter, Iowa.



I had heard of the Rusty Duck, a small town restaurant where you can get a steak for $20 that will give you three meals it's so big. So, it was already on the 'To Do' list, but when I heard it was voted "Best Burger in Iowa" in a very publicized contest, well it was on.

Dexter calls itself the 'original one horse town', but it does look something like this



Which is something that strikes me as a non-native Iowan. Iowan small towns all have a similar layout, as if they are spread ten to twenty miles away, each with a town square with a library, post office, and an American Legion hall.


Maybe the towns I grew up with were just like this (surely they were). Maybe towns in Florida or Virginia or Utah or wherever else are exactly the same. Still, it's hard to shake the image of the Iowan small town. I have spent quite a bit of time in these towns, and they have a similar feel with an unique flavor and history.

Dexter's history is a lot more interesting than you would expect from a town with population of about 600.

The White Pole Road went through it. Predating Interstate 80, this road built around 1910 would eventually become part of a road that connected Cape Cod to Long Beach.



Wikipedia adds a story about Harry S Truman:  On September 18, 1948, Dexter was the site of a national plowing match at which President Harry Truman delivered a speech attacking the 80th Congress for its record in regard to the American farmer. This speech is considered one of the most important of his 1948 Whistle Stop campaign that turned the tide of the election and returned him to the White House. 

Still, the story that usually grabs everyone's attention is Bonnie and Clyde, who were hiding out just north of Dexter when the law caught up to them, resulting in a shootout.  Bonnie and Clyde were both injured, but both escaped, but Clyde's brother Buck and his wife Blanche were captured.

Oh, and the Burger?

Well, Des Moines is home of the much loved B-Bops (the region's version of Rally's or Checker's) and in the last decade seen the arrival of gourmet burger chains like Red Robin and Fuddruckers.  Not to mention, Zombieburger, which arrived a couple of years' ago and is helmed by a five-star chef.

Still, everything I had heard about The Rusty Duck was true.  The portions were huge.  The prices were right.  The homemade salad dressing and homemade Onion Rings both worth a mention.

The burger?

Well, it really was amazing.  Is there a better burger in Iowa (and Iowa is the place to go for all things beef)?

Possibly.  I just can't imagine where it would be.  Viva le Duck!

We took a day trip to Omaha and visited the Strategic Air and Space Museum in nearby Ashland.

The museum features most of the great airplanes of World War 2 and the Cold War- B1 bomber, B52, the SR71 Blackbird, the Corvair Hustler, the F86 Sabre, and the U2 spy plane.







The weekend we went was the Nebraska Robotics Expo (which gets a lot of funding and help from Lego.  What can't Lego do?).  It wasn't really that exciting of a spectator sport unless you or or your child was competing, although it was certainly cool to see.

There was plenty of history which prominently featured Air Command's most famous resident Curtis LeMay.  LeMay was one of those bigger-than-life cold war figures, most known for the quote "bombing them to the stone age"..

Additionally, there was a very cool travelling exhibit called "Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow" which documented the years of 1945-1965 and the atomic threat.




That exhibit also featured art by Doug Waterfield with an atomic/nuclear theme.  I thought it was very cool.









Check out his site here.