August 8, 2016: Now entering Yetter, fourth from the bottom in the Iowa alphabet. Now exiting Yetter.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa — A drive on Iowa’s newest highway and to five unvisited towns scattered across three counties finished off a vacation that couldn’t have gone much better. (Even if I should have waited for that semi before turning left.)
Route: IA 175, E16, L51 to Ricketts and back, E16, N20, US 71, US 20, IA 471, IA 175, gravel, D53, IA 175, N47, old IA 286 (E26 to Lidderdale and back), US 30, X Ave (Napier), E57, US 69, US 30
Ricketts really calls itself “Middle of Nowhere” and it is.
I had seen a story on the Council Bluffs Nonpareil‘s website about a 1945 Crawford County bow bridge being damaged. I was going to go right past it so I had to get pictures before its potential demolition. Then I went to Schleswig to see if the old school had been torn down yet; it had. From there it was a straight shot to Breda, where I managed to miss the exact location of IA 217’s last endpoint.
Bowstring bridge, B Avenue north of E16, Crawford County. The county had a handful of these built during World War II when steel was in short supply, resurrecting an old design.
New 71 is all signed with good concrete, and pictures aplenty are on the updated IA 196 page. Stopped at Casey’s in Early for pit stop, gas, and biggest slices of pizza I’ve seen. Then I went down IA 471, clinching the state’s newest highway as signed in the field.
From what now is the US 71/IA 175 split, I drove east to Yetter. The railroad crossing was closed for loading a long train at the elevator, but I just had to go back to N28 and down a mile and then used a gravel connector to Lake City.
After Lake City I hit two other L towns — Lanesboro and Lidderdale — and then took US 30 all the way back except for a dip down to Napier and Kelley.
I finished the seven-day trip in early evening, with plenty of pictures, a lot more experience with the Plains, and a deeper kinship with the travelers of America’s past.
