While continuing to neglect this little online corner of Iowa to focus on other stuff, I’m always looking for stories about interesting people doing interesting things.

Suggestions are welcome, as are comments about your own favorite Iowa places, whether real, virtually real or wholly imaginary.

Bridge on an Iowa trail

Somewhere in Iowa. Recognize this spot?

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Mystery masks

When you’re strolling along rather than driving, you have more time to look around and sometimes be surprised by what you’ve been missing. I had probably driven by this spot several dozen times before finally noticing the faces. If you know where they are, you probably also know where to find that menacing frog.

Update (5/17/09): I forgot to mention those aren’t the only faces you’ll see. For another picture, click here.

We seem to have an irresistible urge to write on our old bridges and landmarks, or carve our names and initials in them, to leave our mark like Angelique did in January.

This picture could have been taken lots of places. Let’s see if you can identify the actual town where the bridge is located.

Hint: Where it sits now is not where it was built.

Another hint: Click here.

OK, one final hint: Another picture.

Identify all five* Iowa places in the Iowa Places Challenge and you’ll earn a free cup of coffee (or a soft drink if you don’t drink coffee) when you’re in Cedar Rapids. (Maybe a real prize, too.*)

To enter: Email your answers to bj@bjsmith.us after you figure out Challenge #5.

Have fun!

* Development of Parts 2 through 5 of the Iowa Places Challenge is on hold.

One big amphibian

Updated 4/23: A friend who saw this picture seems to have taken it as a personal challenge to find the frog. Be the first to identify its location by leaving a comment here, naming the nearest intersection, and you get a free coffee, soft drink or beer, on me. (Mrs. Smith is not eligible.)

Contest remains open until someone provides the correct answer. Your first (and only) hint is in that headline. Much more difficult challenges will follow. Maybe there will even be a real prize someday!

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Just in case you might wonder why I like this scene from my neighborhood…

The Cellar Door

The building has been around a while and it isn’t in a strip mall. Look carefully for the date and the address. Good place for just wandering around.

We’ve got some great river towns here in Iowa, as you already know if you’ve spent much time along the Missouri or the Mississippi. One of my favorites is actually two river towns because they’re so close together on the Great River Road: McGregor and Marquette.

Pinky

They’re close enough to share a website, a hyphen and a chamber of commerce, and close enough that it can be difficult to remember just which one of the two towns has the Pink Elephant (Marquette).

The Pink Elephant has been around here since the early ’60s. She was the symbol of the old Pink Elephant Motel and Supper Club. Yes, pink buildings.

Now Pinky is a mascot of sorts for the Lady Luck Casino. (She must have been quite a sight water skiing on the Mississippi River to entertain Jimmy Carter back in ‘78.)

The old gal came to mind recently during some online research for this little portrait of Clayton County.

I just couldn’t figure out how to fit her in there.

Updated again after being in more Iowa libraries.

On a recruiting mission lately, looking for census takers, I’ve seen a pretty sizeable chunk of Eastern Iowa and held meetings in lots of interesting places:

Flutterby Cove

A church hall with a choir overhead singing “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” A room above a sanctuary where an organist was warming up to audition. A dingy basement and a chilly basement. I spent two days in a noisy mall disappointing little children.

And I’ve spent a lot of time in libraries. We have really nice libraries.

In many cases, nice is probably not a strong enough word.

Take the Independence Public Library. Its colorful Flutterby Cove with the butterflies overhead and the crazily angled windows and doorways (one big enough to let an adult inside) will make you want to be a kid again.

Maybe you can take a kid along as an excuse to get in there.

Some other terrific libraries I’ve visited lately, in no particular order:

Marion Public Library

Washington Public Library

Fairfax Public Library

Ely Public Library

Victor Public Library

Marengo Public Library

Waterloo Public Library

As they say, these are more than just places to check out books.

Thank you all for letting me use your space.

Judging by the looks on the little kids’ faces when they see it is no longer there, the Disney Store at NorthPark Mall in Davenport must have been one heckuva fun place.

Even though it has been gone since mid-2008, child after child who visited the mall Friday and Saturday seemed distressed to find it empty except for some Census Bureau recruiters and people applying for part-time census-taking jobs.

Magic carpet lives on

The kids didn’t know what all that meant, of course.

“Awwwwwww, it’s gone!”

I lost count of how many times I heard that over the course of two long days.

Except for the empty shelves, some colorful carpeting and the children’s magical memories, not much remains.

No more Mickey.

This could be lots of places, but it’s only in Iowa.

It is one of those places that can make you stop along a lonesome highway and get out of your car on a cold, blustery February day and just look at the place and wonder.

From the east, it could be sleeping with one eye open.

From the west, it might have been painted on the land or drawn in charcoal, just under the tree.

Highway 92, Washington County.

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