Not the Great River Road any more - Guttenberg to Sherrill

The guidebook shows the Great River Road continuing south from Guttenberg to Dubuque. We didn't follow that route. Instead, we got lost. We lost track of the river altogether and followed a series of thoroughly alternate routes as far as Balltown, where we gave up altogether and headed west for Des Moines.

The "lost" path in this part of the state was actually quite interesting and beautiful in its own way. Everything that I had heard about Iowa suggested that it would be flatter than a prepubescent bosom and 90% covered in cornfields. This part of Iowa along the Mississippi was none of those things. The road meandered through gently rolling hills that were green, bordering on Irish.

Cows grazed placidly in the fields and weathered barns were dotted prettily here and there.

We also had an opportunity to witness some of the extremes of Iowan lawn decoration. I get that a large number of US citizens like to put statues and other miscellaneous stuff out on their lawns. There are certainly an inordinately large number of them who insist on statues of frolicking deer that invariably cause me to leap on the brakes and screech to a near standstill before I realise that the statue isn't moving either. Although I do get the basic idea, I think this family may have taken it all a bit too far.

The funniest part of this story is the way I nonchalantly pulled over to the curb, stopped the car, grabbed the camera bag and strolled, whistling, across the street, as if I had absolutely no interest in this shrine to lawn art. Lurking behind a bush on the other side of the street I launched a guerrilla clicking campaign, then stashed the camera and strolled back to the car. I figured any house with this many fake animals in the yard is a house where a gun lives. I certainly didn't want to attract any attention.