(Spring)Break in Iowa (II)

Second part of my vacation in Iowa (first part here).

At the third day we took a journey to the east to go to the Amana colonies, a settlement by "radical Germans", calling themselves the "Community of True Inspiration" and living similar to the Amish in that they lived in a communal live. Today, it feels more like a tourist attraction than a strict way of living. Still, it's interesting to see.

Amana – A German Settlement

The first shop we entered, mainly a winery selling great fruit wines...

... and food with a German touch :)

For me, one of the highlights: The restaurant Ronneburg, named after a city close to where I grew up!

Not that you cannot find such trucks in many places in Iowa/the US, but this one just fitted great into the setting.

Iowa City

Next we went on to Iowa City, the former capital of the Iowa territory (1839 — 1857) and not a state yet. This is the capitol, a nice old building with an exhibition about the civil war and the city's history. For some reason, I do not have any more pictures of the downtown area, there really wasn't much to see...

For some reason we went to the University hospital (University of Iowa, not Iowa State University in Ames ;))...

... and found these remarkable pictures in the hallway: The German Reichstag covered in fabric in 1995, by Christo. I only hardly remember this from my childhood (I was 10 back then) and it was a surprise to find the pictures here.

About the Rides

Some words about the driving to and from Iowa: the way to Iowa was smooth, I made the 860 miles in roughly 14h with a few stops, including a larger one in St Louis (pictures on that later, hopefully). Out of curiosity, I looked how far that roughly would be in Europe and it turns out to be ride from Dresden to Marseille, France. Kinda scary...

A timelapse of parts of the drive, it should be roughly 5 hours starting somewhere between Knoxville and Nashville to a couple of miles before St Louis. I hope it gives an idea of how it looks like to go down the Interstate for hours and how flat the country gets once you go up north. Oh, and as you can see I could not make it without a couple of short stops.

I left Iowa on Sunday afternoon expecting a smooth 12h ride but also knowing that there might be some snow, I've read the forecast for some snowflakes in Knoxville. And I was even happy about it since I almost haven't had any snow this winter, somehow I managed to get around it in Knoxville, Germany, and Iowa. Oh, people should be careful with their wishes...

What I encountered was no fun anymore. A severe snowstorm hit Illinois, through which I went on my way back. A thick layer of ice built up on the Interstate, cars in the ditch about every mile, average speed of about 35 mph, and no end in sight. After I had to wait for more than 30 minutes for a truck blocking both lanes in my direction to be cleared around midnight I decided to take a hotel and stay overnight, hoping for better conditions the next morning. It was still snowing but the streets were much better. Still not easy to drive, but at least not dark and stormy. This is how it looked like:

Compared to Germany, this is not much. For Illinois, it was enough to bring down all traffic and cause severe disturbance. For me it was enough snow for this winter!

After a 24 hour journey I finally arrived in Knoxville. And yes, there were a couple of snowflakes coming down...