50 States - Iowa

In an earlier entry of the 50 States series, I pointed out that the tourism office for Nebraska had its work cut out for it. However, its neighbor Iowa is perhaps underachieving. For a state with a reputation as a boring cornfield, the region had a lot more to offer than I would have guessed.

We used Des Moines as our home base. Des Moines was a surprisingly cosmopolitan place with a delightful riverfront park and an incredible amount of public art.



  

One must-see for me was the Pomodoro sphere at a regional insurance company's headquarters building which also had a lobby full of avant garde works.

 

Des Moines is also the state capitol and the grounds of its state house are crowded with the usual kitsch like replica Liberty Bells and Statues of Liberty but they also have lots of oddly suggestive metaphorical statuary.

 

We took a day trip across the state and our first stop was at the Maytag Cheese dairy which makes restaurant grade bleu cheese. The dairy is owned by descendants of the founder of the appliance company with the same name but is not affiliated with the washer makers.

 

We ended up in another area not coincidentally named after an appliance manufacturer, the Amana colonies. These towns were the homes of a communitarian religious sect where there was no private property. Many of the former communal houses still exist and the common dining halls have been converted to homestyle German influenced restaurants.

 

But perhaps Iowa's biggest attraction even many years after the book and movie peaked are the Bridges of Madison County. There are seven of them and it is nearly a full day to hunt them all down. But they are worth the effort.



In addition to the bridges themselves, the town of Winterset is undeniably quaint. You can even sit at the same lunch counter stool Clint Eastwood sat on.

 

Iowa was a decidedly delightful destination, well worth a stop in one's travels.

50 States - Tennessee

Of the 50 states, our very first trip to Tennessee was a getaway vacation to the Pigeon Forge region of the Great Smokies. It was our last fling before the birth of our son. It would be over a decade before we made it back through again.

Long before I became a bourbon snob, I went to the Jack Daniels distillery, infamously in the dry county of Moore County, Tennessee. This was my first tour of a major distillery and it had a lot of folksy charm. You could see the wood palates being made into charcoal for the famous charcoal filtering. Said filtering being about the only substantial difference between a Tennessee whiskey and a bourbon, the former being technically a sub-class of the latter. 

 

This was in 2003 and I was accompanying my wife to a teacher conference in Nashville. Nashville itself is the country music capitol and noplace more so than along Broadway where over a dozen bars have up to four bands a night working mostly for tips. It's a music smorgasbord. Just a block off of Broadway is the historic Ryman Auditorium which looks like a church from the outside but was designed from the start as a music venue. Part of the fun of watching the TV show Nashville is spotting places in town I've seen.



Nashville also has some unique tourist attractions for specific definitions of 'unique'. The oddest is the full scale replica of the Parthenon in Greece. This building is a recreation of the ruins most people are familiar with down to the statues on the inside.

 

A few years later we passed through Tennessee again, this time stopping in Memphis which has a musical history of its own. And the most famous spot in Memphis is Graceland, the home of Elvis Presley. As perhaps the ultimate tacky tourist attraction, Graceland is so frozen in time as to be a historical document. It's tough to pick which room is the most over the top but my money goes on the media room with three TVs, one for each network.

 

And that only touches on the tip of all Tennessee has to offer. There is blues on Beale Street and the mountain getaways of Pigeon Forge. If you want good food, strong booze, or plentiful music, the state has something for everybody.

50 States - Kentucky

Of the 50 states, Kentucky has been featured twice already on this blog in my series of comparisons of bourbon distilleries. Here is Day One and here is Day Two.

The third day never quite got written up because it was just one distillery, Jim Beam. They were tasting Bookers and Red Stag, two brands I have bought on my own since then. The tour was very folksy, a trait I hope they haven't lost in the new visitor center they have built since we went there.

 

The second day of our stop in Louisville included a tour of Churchill Downs in full preparation for the Kentucky Derby. The place is very impressive and the tour included tons of areas such as the jockey lounge and the luxury boxes that you would never get to see on Derby Day.



  

In addition to the full Bourbon Trail which consists of the six distilleries we went to (but not Bufflao Trace which we also toured), there is the Urban Borubon Trail in Louisville. This is a long list of bars which serve bourbon and if you visit enough they will send you a tee shirt and a flask. Never one to ignore a challenge we managed to hit enough in two nights to qualify.

 

 

Just down the street from our rather large and gorgeous bed and breakfast was even a little dive bar nowhere near the Urban Bourbon Trail but still a good place for a late night drink.

 

Kentucky might be a great place to visit even if you aren't a bourbon fan, but if you are, it truly is the mother lode.

50 States - Utah

Even though we have been to all 50 states, that doesn't mean we've stopped traveling. One case in point is Utah. We first went through there in 2006 on our cross country trip where we spent one night in Salt Lake City and did the whole Church Of Latter Day Saints tour. Salt Lake City is one of the cleanest places I've ever been. Even the bums have a certain fresh-faced glow to them. And the LDS tour guides are preternaturally perky.

 

And the salt flat are the flatest place I've ever been and I used to drive across Florida once a month.

 

On a later tour of the Southwest, we went from Monument Valley up to Mexican Hat just touch base on the each of the four corners (Four Corners itself was closed but that is another story).

 


But we still felt we hadn't gotten the full Utah experience so this year's Spring trip was to hit all five of the national parks in Utah. Of the five, Zion was the most gorgeous and lush. Full of steep canyons and thick woods, it was a hiking paradise. The compact limited access park had a well run shuttle service and a simple but gorgeous lodge.

 

From there it was a fantastically scenic drive to Bryce Canyon. Unlike Zion which is at the bottom of the canyon, Bryce is usually viewed from the top. To see the inside of the canyon, we took one of the tourist mule rides down to the pine tree floor and then back up. Far easier than hiking it but I ended up sore anyways.



 

Going through Capitol Reef was a last minute audible and allowed us to check of perhaps the least known of the five Utah parks. Put it still had stunning views and marked the transition from semi-arid to deep desert.

 

Arches National Park in Moab is a big draw for the eponymous arches and they are impressive, both day and night. I particularly fell in love with Skyline Arch, perhaps one of the more under-rated ones.

 

Less than an hour from Arches is Canyonlands, a far more rugged park which literally does not have running water. We went to the Islands In The Sky section just because it was closest to Moab and were amazed by the views. Canyonlands also has its own arch, Mesa Arch which was the match of any of its cousins down the road.



 

Utah just has amazing scenery nearly everywhere you look.

50 States - Idaho

It was about this time last year that we visited the penultimate of our 50 states, Idaho. Idaho had lingered long on the list because it's hard to get to and there is not much to see if you are not a hardcore skier. But it turns out there is more to Idaho than meets the eye. Boise in particular is a delightful college town, home to the Boise State Broncos and their signature blue field.

 

As the capitol of the state, it has the requisite huge capitol building complete with a replica Liberty Bell.

 

Downtown Boise is rather quaint with old buildings, one of which houses a very prominent drag bar.

 

Just outside of Boise the Snake River, which seems to snake through most of the state, is home to grand overlooks and raptors.



 

But most of Idaho is rural at best. One area, the Craters of the Moon National Monument, is so foreboding as to be frightening.

 



 

Our last stop in Idaho was at Idaho Falls where a childhood friend of mine has been living for over thirty years.

 

The town of Idaho Falls had the requisite Mormon Temple as well as a bar that Harrison Ford hangs out in when he is in the area.

 

Idaho has charm and wonderful scenery but nothing can change how incredibly remote it is.

50 States - California - Los Angeles

When people think of California, they usually think of Los Angeles. This seems natural since the movie industry is based there and its images such as the Mann Chinese Theater and the Hollywood sign.

   

LA also has beautiful beaches and the funky side show that is Venice Beach about any time of day.

 

Even the streets are famous. On Rodeo Drive there is the Beverley Wilshire where Pretty Woman took place and the Whiskey on Sunset Strip where about everything has happened.

  

I can see why people love LA.

Update: I haven't been back to LA since that trip in 2003 but I've been to lots of other places in California since then. See my comment below for links ot other photos.

50 States - California - Bay Area

California has been described to me by a Californian as a really great country club with pretty steep initiation dues. Of the 50 states, California has the most variety to offer. Nowhere does this seem truer than in central California where there are beaches, mountains, and culture all withing easy purview. Nothing is more emblematic of the wealth of the west coast than San Simeon, the home of Randolph Hearst and the inspiration for Citizen Kane:

 

Between there and San Francisco, there is amazing natural beauty including elephant seals lolling on the beach and the zen-like beauty of the Lone Cyprus along the Seventeen Mile Drive in Monterey to the pristine vistas of Pebble Beach.

 

This all eventually leads to San Francisco with the iconic Golden Gate Bridge and the chilling isolation of Alcatraz.

 

From Alacatraz you can see the great skyline of San Francisco itself. And San Francisco itself has the elegance of the Palace of Arts.

 

All the photos in this post and the accompanying Flickr set where scanned in from our trip in 2002 but I have been back to the San Francisco Bay area many times since and there is always something new to see or explore.

50 States - Washington

On the same trip in 2004 when we visited Oregon, we spent most of the trip in the state of Washington. Using Seattle as a home base, we took a big loop around the area. Seattle is home to a major coffee chain you may have heard of. In Seattle they use the original logo with mermaid hair not so strategically placed.

  

Their first store is right near the Pike Street Market which is also where they throw fish around.

  

From Seattle we headed down to Mount Ranier which is a truly majestic mountain.

  

From there it was down to Mount St. Helens which has still to recover from the catastrophic volcanic explosion. Downstream of the crater is a lake full of timber still floating waterlogged.

  

After a brief sojourn in Oregon, we headed back towards Seattle via the Olympic Peninsula. The Pacific Coast is rugged but beautiful.

 

We saw amazing wildlife from a giant slug on a redwood tree to a herd of elk in a river bed.

  

There were also brilliant fields of lavender.

  

The drive back to Seattle included a ferry right back with a great view of the city.

  

Seattle is home to plenty of things to see including the Experience Music Project and the troll under the bridge.

  

From there it was up the coast to the Orcas Islands which meant kayaking.

 

Back in the Seattle area, we took a boat tour which went past the mansions of the Microsoft millionaires.

  

Our final stop in Seattle was the cozy neighborhood of Pioneer Square which is the home of Elliott Bay Books which while no Powells, was a gorgeous well furnished bookstore.

 

Washington had a bit of everything, fantastic vistas, beautiful nature, and urban wonders.

50 States - Oregon

Of the 50 states, Oregon is another one that while it fit into our rule of one night and one meal, it kind of got short shrift. Our night was spent in Portland which is a delightful city which I fell in love with long before the show Portlandia started gently mocking it. The point of going to Portland was to visit Powell's Books, one of the contenders for the greatest bookstore on earth. Inexplicably, I have no photos of that Mecca, but on the way into town we stopped off at the Horsetails Falls area along the Columbia River. These are gorgeous waterfalls along a beautiful hiking trail.



I notice from the photos that I was wearing a tee shirt from The Strand, an enormous bookstore in New York City which is probably the only rival in size that Powell's has. I doubt this was a coincidence.

 

Oregon is on the return trip list because there is so much more to see, both in natural beauty and urban fun.

50 States - Nevada

In going to all 50 states, I never thought I was Las Vegas type of person until I realized you didn't have to gamble but could just wallow in the sheer excess of it. We had gone through Reno on our way west back in 2006 and stayed at the Peppermill Casino which was poor preparation for the vastness of Vegas a few days later. We has arrived late in the afternoon and only had one night there.  And because it was a weekend we stayed at the Excalibur which is one of the least expensive hotels on the strip. It's the same place I stayed just a few weeks ago when I was stranded during a busines trip on the west coast when Baltimore was blizzarded in. It's also across the street from the nearly equally garish New York New York.

  

We hit the Bellagio fountains and the Fremont Street Experience but the temperatures at midnight was still over 100 degrees.

  

It was last year that we really experienced the real Vegas when for a weekend getaway we stayed at the Mirage and saw the Cirque de Soliel Beatles show Love.

  

The Mirage is also home to Sigfried and Roy's Magic Garden where they keep their wild cats and dolphins.

  

The best part of Vegas is the fantastic food. About every celebrity chef has one or more restaurants. Pure competitive pressure keeps the quality of even the burger places high.

 

And there are always celebrities around somewhere if you know where to look. Penn and Teller sign autographs after their show and sometimes even a Kardasian is making a public appearance.

  

But there is more to Nevada than Las Vegas. On our most recent trip for our fiftieth birthday, we took a day trip to Death Valley which is technically in California, but on the way, we stopped off at combination tourist trap and brothel as well as a ghost town.

  



Between eating, drinking, seeing shows, and touring the desert there is enough to keep even the determined non-gambler busy in Nevada.

50 States - South Dakota

I f you read my fairly snide 50 States post snarking about North Dakota, you might think I will be equally dismissive about South Dakota. Nothing could be further from the truth. South Dakota has some literally monumental attractions, most famously that display of chutzpah carved under the impression that mountains are more spectacular when turned into sculptures of dead politicians.



In the defense of Gutzon Borglum and his son, Lincoln Borglum, they had to have been a bit right as otherwise why would thousands of people travel to the middle of nowhere to look at rocks. More pristine beauty can be found in the Badlands.



But South Dakota has lots and lots of interesting smaller attractions. The most bizarre is perhaps the Corn Palace which has to be seen to be believed.

  

And driving anywhere in South Dakota will expose you to billboards shilling for Wall Drugs. More than just a drugstore, Wall Drugs is a tourist emporium of epic scale. It seems to swallow the entire town of Wall.

 

Speaking of swallowing, one of Wall Drug's gimmicks is that it offers free water to anybody that wants some. And it's very good water.

     

Perhaps the most overlooked destination in South Dakota is the town of DeSmet. Its claim to fame is that it was the home on the prairie to Laura Ingalls Wilder during The Long Winter. They have replicas of cabins of that era and even a one-room schoolhouse.

  

In celebration, the town puts on a nightly pageant on a huge outdoor stage depicting those events.

 



So get to DeSmet and see all that South Dakota has to offer.

50 States - North Dakota

In the continuing coverage of the drive-thru members of the 50 states, perhaps none are less memorable than North Dakota. One internet running joke is that the state doesn't really exist and the case for that is really tough to dispute. I dare you to name one must-see tourist attraction in North Dakota. Wrong, South Dakota. Nope, Wyoming. Again, South Dakota.

But what is there? In our nearly day long drive across the state, we did make two stops before ending for a night in Fargo. Lunch was at Meriwether's Landing in Bismark overlooking the Missouri River. Alas, the internetz tell me this restaurant is now out of business.

  

Hitherto unknown to me, North Dakota does have one named after none other than rough rider Theodore Roosevelt. The park covers part of the Badlands which aren't quite as vast and picturesque as the ones in South Dakota, but they are pretty impressive.

  

What this park does have is easily accessible wildlife. It's very hard not to spot some deer or buffalo.

 

But the most fascinating fauna were the wild horses which wandered freely.

 

So if you ever do inexplicably find yourself in North Dakota if only to verify its existence, be sure to visit Theodore Roosevelt National Park where you might even see a prairie dog.

50 State: South Carolina - Upstate

As I mentioned in the last post about the low country, when going to the 50 states, South Carolina is one of those states that I have always spent more time going through than doing things in. One particularly well-rutted strip is the portion of I-85 between Atlanta and Charlotte. There was rarely ever any reason to stop. But while my son was at Georgia Tech I kept wanting to stop at one place in particular, the BMW plant between Greenville and Spartanburg.



The factory tours fill up well in advance but one year I had the forethought to book early. In addition to the tour which does not allow photography to the point of confiscating cell phones, they have a museum with lots of great vintage BMWs.



While passing through Greenville, we went to their quaint downtown and found a distillery right in the middle of town.



Also in Upstate South Carolina is Clemson, Georgia Tech's closest ACC rival with their ubiquitous tiger paws and the stadium ominously known as Death Valley.



But the most prominent feature of the upstate area is the Peachoid, aka The Big Peach, a major landmark just off the interstate in Gaffney, South Carolina. This town is now famous as the home of fictional House of Cards congressman Francis Underwood. But for many years, it was my sign to take the next exit for Gardner-Webb University where my future wife was going to college.



It always let me know I was in familiar territory even if I was only passing through.

50 States - South Carolina: The Low Country

 Since I am covering the states in the 50 states I drove through more than stopped in, South Carolina also tends to fit that bill. When our son was little, we would send him down to his grandparents in Florida and then a week or two later leisurely drive down to pick him up or vice versa, drive him down and drop him off for a few weeks. This was a great way to combine both a family vacation and getaway kidless trip.

Back in 1998 on one of those trips, we stopped for a few nights in Charleston, South Carolina, which is definitely a city for romantic couples without kids. The horse drawn carriage is the only real way to see the city.

  

It is a city of old churches and gourmet restaurants. It seems that Poogan's Porch, the restaurant seen below, is still in business although they have painted the building since we were there.

    

In fact, it is the brightly colored Victorian era pastel "painted ladies" on Rainbow Row which are the signature feature of Charleston, although Forth Sumter is the draw fro Civil War buffs.

  

Fans of military history are drawn to The Citadel which has trained generations of southern gentleman.

   

Speaking of the Civil War, antebellum mansions like the one at Magnolia Plantation with its picturesque bridge is another tourist attraction.

  

Charleston and the South Carolina Low Country have a certain timeless charm which deserves revisiting.

50 States - Connecticut

Like Delaware, Connecticut is an easy one of the 50 states to pass through rather than stop in. But in 1999 on our way up to Maine we did make the qualifying night's stay in Connecticut. Our destination was Mystic Seaport, a destination I only knew about because of the Julia Roberts movie. And sure enough there really is a Mystic Pizza. And a shipyard.

  

The Seaport is devoted to big sailing ships and they have plenty of them. The museum has active shipbuilding done the old fashioned way for movies and museums.

  

The other town we stopped in was New Haven which is home to the college with the biggest inferiority complex in the universe. I'm not sure why because the campus is gorgeous with architecture that has both colonial and gothic themes.

     

We spent a lot of time in the 1990s and early 2000s visiting college campuses as part of a subliminal propaganda campaign aimed at our son. College campuses often show off an area at its best. They have beautiful buildings and lush lawns. A partial list of campuses we spent time at with him in addition to Yale, include Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Duke, Wake Forest, Maryland, Virginia, Virginia Tech,Tennessee, and of course, his future alma mater, Georgia Tech. Here he is at Yale and wearing a Yale shirt.

 

Connecticut is an interesting state full of disparities. The areas just outside of New York are enclaves of privilege but the neighborhoods surrounding Yale in New Haven are desperate slums. But it is definitely worth stopping for sometimes instead of just passing through.

50 States: Delaware

Despite being first, Delaware is one of the easiest of the 50 states to overlook, especially if you are not beach people, like we are not. Nonetheless, in the mid-90s we found reasons to go to Delaware. In particular, Delaware is chock full of mansions either directly or peripherally associated with the DuPont de Nemours family. Winterthur is a grand estate loaded with examples of the decorative arts. And the Rockwood Park and Museum hosts a delightful ice cream festival every year with great food and all sorts of Victoriana.

Unfortunately, a thorough scouring of the my film photography archives has no evidence of my having been to these places. However, there is a place in Delaware that we have been to many, many times which features a large airy lobby and a great variety of dining experiences. That is the Delaware Welcome Center.



Located roughly  in the middle of the section of I-95 that runs through Delaware, the rest area is a near perfectly placed stop for when we are headed to New York or points beyond.

 

For dining choices, it is almost a embarrassment of riches with cuisines from all over the world. Italian, French, Mexican, you name it. And if you don't need a full meal, the centrally situated Starbucks nearly always has a line for those wanted to refuel with caffeine.






But the building also serves as a billboard for Delaware with murals of all its attractions and display cases showing off its history.

  

You might think this post is in jest and it is partly tongue-in-cheek, but the Delaware rest area is really about the best rest stop in the entire northeastern corridor. Much nicer than any of the claustrophobic New Jersey Turnpike areas.

The Delaware Welcome Center was such a huge success that Maryland immediately decided they needed to up their game with its two decrepit highway rest areas. A mere six years later the first of these is finally open. The newly opened Maryland House just north of Bel Air has aped many of the the Delaware Welcome Center's features including tall ceilings, a food court, and lots of greenery.

And while it tries hard, it just doesn't catch the certain je ne sais quoi that Delaware has captured. For one thing, it has Dunkin Donuts for coffee instead of Starbucks and that right there is a deal killer. So if you ever do find yourself literally passing through Delaware, take a break and enjoy a warm welcome before heading off into the sunset. Or sunrise for that matter.

50 States: Alabama

When reviewing Pennsylvania as part of my tour of the 50 states, I compared the central part of the state to Alabama. Perhaps unfairly. To Alabama. But first let's go over the similarities. Both states worship football and have built huge stadia to house their teams. Here is the one in Tuscaloosa but I bet its counterpart in Auburn is just as massive.

  

 Inexplicably, Alabama also has a replica Liberty Bell in front of it's capitol building.

  

The capitol is also across the street from the Confederate White House from when Montgomery was the capitol of the breakaway states.
 

This is only one of many places where you can still see a Confederate flag fly. Heck, even the official state flag bears a certain uncanny resemblance.

  


In Alabama, we visited three cities, Mobile, Montgomery, and Birmingham. Mobile has a certain Gothic charm mixed with a modern vigor having an old fort right in downtown.

 

Our bed and breakfast was a charming antebellum mansion and our innkeeper regaled us with the tale of all the Confederate era letters and records she found in boxes in the attic when she bought the house. Said breakfast of pecan French toast is perhaps one of the best B&B meals I have ever had and my photo of it got featured in a Yahoo slide show.

 


The elegance of that meal was in contrast to the homespun grub of the barbecue shack we found in a convenience store parking lot just outside of  Montgomery. BBQ doesn't get any more authentic than that.

  

In Montgomery, they had Old Alabama Town which is a collection of 19th century buildings such as drug stores and schools and houses restored to show how life was lived in the early days.

  

  

However, modern Montgomery wasn't quite as happening as it seems to think it is. It was clear that the city had tried really hard to create a Downtown Drinking District complete with a steamboat along the waterfront but it just didn't seem to be happening.

   


Where we ended up for dinner was further up the river at a marina/seafood restaurant that had a delightful mix of all strata. There were people there for fancy Easter Saturday dinners in seersucker and cotton and other groups in jeans and grubby tee shirts. What united them was that the food was excellent.

 


We flew in and out of Birmingham which has plants for Hyundai and Mercedes in the general area which kept with its heritage as the industrial center of the Old South. One hill overlooking the city has an enormous cast iron statue of Vulcan sans pants striking his anvil, so to speak.

   


Birmingham also had a quaint artsy district with perplexing galleries and cutting edge restaurants. So while there is a lot of rural flavor in Alabama, there is also a lot of history and culture to take in as well.

50 States: Pennsylvania - ...And Alabama In The Middle

Pennsylvania is a big state and the parts between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are largely rural.  Some if it is farmland, including vast swaths of Amish Country, but a lot is woodlands and wilderness.

Once on a whim we decided to take a weekend getaway to north central Pennsylvania. On the way we went through State College, the unimaginatively named home of Penn State. I've worked with a lot of Penn State alumni and everywhere they have tchotkes with the Nittany Lion symbol on it. Alumni and fans come from miles around to pose their families in front of it.

 

The big draw for me was the Creamery, the campus ice cream parlor which sells flavors made on campus. This is the school which Ben and Jerry took a correspondence course from. The Creamery is huge and was especially crowded as this was the day of the annual Spring intramural scrimmage. That is how serious Penn State fans are, they fill the stadium for a scrimmage.

 

From there we headed up to Wellsboro, a sleepy small town with a couple of cute bed and breakfasts and shops.

 

Pine Creek Gorge bills itself as the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania which is hyperbolic even by the standards of civic pride. Not that it isn't picturesque, it just isn't quite all that grand.

 



The valley has a wonderful bicycle trail that goes through it over bridges and past great fishing spots.

   

  

After I was bike riding we decided to take the scenic route home only our GPS took us to a road that was underwater. Rather than plow through the rapid stream, we turned around and took a 20 minute detour, not that other drivers weren't more daring.

  

Native Pennsylvanians sometimes take umbrage when I call their fair state Pennsyltucky but I always use as my defense the existence of rednecks as banjo-theme-songed as anything out of Deliverance.

  

And when you are north of the Mason Dixon line and feel the need to fly the Confederate battle flag on you canoe, it's not your Southern Heritage you are celebrating. But that takes nothing away from the natural beauty and kind people in that vast swath of land between Paoli and Penn Hills. For after all, it was above a field in central Pennsylvania that a group of Americans thwarted part of the biggest terrorist attack on America in history.

 

  

And that is something all Americans can be proud of.