December 14, 2004: The new truck stop is on the left side of this picture.
The double-left-turn lane built on US 63 to Waterloo Greyhound Park (pictured above) became a minor tragicomic symbol of the expectations of the dog track that closed nine years and nine months after it opened. The major symbol is the site itself, since abandoned, all the windows broken, attractive only to vandals and urban explorers. (Here is a super-informative long video tying it to Cattle Congress and Iowa casino history, and a short video of the site today.)
Now, in the racetrack’s shadow, is a Love’s truck stop that opened around the beginning of the month and will put those lanes to use. Stories: KCRG, FleetOwner (a trucking industry publication). The truck stop includes a Wendy’s, which is the first restaurant built directly at a US 20 interchange west of the McDonald’s at Elk Run Heights. (A Fazoli’s between San Marnan Drive and 20 was not accessible from IA 21 and didn’t make it.) It’s also the first fast-food burger place an eastbound driver will encounter after the McDonald’s in Webster City. (The IA 14 exit has a Godfather’s in the truck stop.)
FleetOwner mentions this is the eighth Love’s in Iowa after the seventh opened in Mills County a week earlier. The Glenwood Opinion-Tribune notes that the intersection for the truck stop, on new US 34 just west of I-29, has the first stoplight outside Glenwood . I’ll note that it becomes the third stoplight on post-new-bridge 34 in the entire distance between the east edge of Lincoln NE and IA 25 in Creston. (The other two are at Avenue B and NE 66 on the west side of Plattsmouth.)