May 07

#goals

Posted on Monday, May 7, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

It’s nice work if you can get it.

occupationprincess

(I can dream, can’t I?)

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May 04

Once again, never again

Posted on Friday, May 4, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

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October 11, 2015: US 12/20/41 run under the Chicago Skyway right at the Indiana/Illinois state line; 12/20 split a short distance later. If you think I plan to try following all of US 41 through Chicagoland, there’s going to be LSD involved.

In October 2015, I took on one of the larger challenges for a highway completionist outside of the Northeast — US 20 through the Chicago metro area — and it crushed expectations. Here’s an expansion of a blog post from 2015:

East Dubuque to I-39, part of which remains two-lane, was 100 miles done in two hours. The next segment took 45 minutes for 35 miles. But the last that I tried, IL 72 to IL 50, started in the middle of the afternoon and ended after rush hour, when I had to throw in the towel. It took 2 hours and 40 minutes to go 54 miles.

The return leg, to make up for what I missed, happened on a nice Sunday, making for probably the best conditions possible. It still took nearly an hour and a half to follow 20 from I-65’s north end at Gary to US 45 at Mannheim Road, with some overlap of the previous.

In sum, in two trips, it took four and a half hours of city driving to finish my 80-mile gap of US 20 between I-39 and I-65. Average speed: 24 mph.

US 14 in Illinois, which ends on the north side of Chicago, is 70 miles long. It took 1 hour and 50 minutes on a Sunday to cover the first 50 (average speed: 28 mph).

Last July, covering 20 through Toledo, Ohio, between I-75 and US 23 clocked in at 45 minutes for 13 miles (in the rain, not counting a food and photo stop).

Way way back, 20’s routing via Mannheim and 95th Street was a medium bypass of Chicago (US 30 was the outer one). Now it’s smack in the middle of things, and remains the middle for dozens of miles in both directions. But only the foolish, and the completionists, take the challenge today.

I’m glad I’m able to rack up the miles on US highways that pass through Iowa fairly easily, which gives me patience for some of the tough gaps. But man, there’s a reason we have the interstate system.

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May 03

Raising Cane’s coming to West Des Moines

Posted on Thursday, May 3, 2018, at 11:00 AM by Jeff

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October 20, 2016: Specialty marketing for this Raising Cane’s in downtown Baton Rouge had to improvise after LSU coach Les Miles was abruptly panic-fired in a Les-Miles-fashion loss to Auburn.

In my Big South Trip of fall 2016, I got some new experiences in both hotels and food. After getting stuck in a traffic jam in Baton Rouge, by the time I reached the hotel I was pretty tuckered out. The only (non-bar) place to eat within walking distance was a chain I’d barely heard about called Raising Cane’s. Its specialty is chicken fingers.

And hot diggity daffodil, it was delicious. The sauce made it even better.

But Cane’s is young and Southern-born, and so pretty much a regional chain, until recently. The chain expanded to Omaha at the beginning of 2013 and there are now six in the area including one in Council Bluffs.

Its second location in Iowa will open at the end of the month. It’s in West Des Moines between I-35 and the south Wal-Mart, i.e. on a section of Mills Civic Parkway that’s had more businesses open this millennium than many towns in Iowa have had any millennium.

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May 02

Holland school to be demolished

Posted on Wednesday, May 2, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

July 7, 2015: The brick and oversized window openings, if not the small playground, give away that this building in Holland was a school once. (Photo of the back, facing what clearly was a bad direction for the time of day.)

Four-fifths of the entire population of Holland, Iowa, could fit inside one of the larger lecture halls at Iowa State University, but this almost-suburb of Grundy Center once had its own school. That ended a long time ago, though, and now time has run out on the building itself. The town doesn’t have enough money for upkeep, and the building will be demolished, the Grundy Register reports.

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May 01

I-74 bridge construction on schedule

Posted on Tuesday, May 1, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

KWQC has an update for the beginning of construction season, along with a video that shows piers up and roadbed being laid on the Iowa side. In order for more piers to be put up, the US 67 exit will be reduced to one lane now, says QCOnline (Dispatch-Argus). That will be in effect until the new bridge opens.

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Apr 30

Important scientific discovery that deserves serious presentation

Posted on Monday, April 30, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

In case you missed it last week: Uranus smells like rotten eggs.

WHO’s Jannay Towne, in attempting to report the news, did exactly what anyone else would do.

A Grand Island Independent columnist did a short roundup of headlines.

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Apr 27

Gladbrook school, pool sunk

Posted on Friday, April 27, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Almost completely unrelated to yesterday’s blog post, but definitely tied to one from last week, is some sad news from Gladbrook. The entire school complex is likely to be torn down, says the Grundy Register. That includes the swimming pool, built in 1968. Adding insult to injury (should it be the case), on a financial and morale standpoint, is losing the half-million-dollar, decade-old fitness center.

Oof. Just, ouch.

(Side question: Yes, the lights are off at the Northern Sun-Print, caught up in the move to Tama along with the Star-Clipper, but does that mean no one’s home, either? Nothing’s happened on the paper’s website for a year.)

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Apr 26

New Traer pool to open when summer starts

Posted on Thursday, April 26, 2018, at 10:02 AM by Jeff

A completely new pool will open in Traer on Memorial Day weekend, the Star-Clipper reports. This replaces the pool that opened in the late 1970s.

On an unrelated note, the Star-Clipper has a new editor, who is three years out of school.

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Apr 25

Lost (in) Younkers

Posted on Wednesday, April 25, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

IFApril 2, 2018: The Younkers at Westdale Mall in Cedar Rapids remained after all the interior of the mall was demolished. That’s when the “Open During Construction” banner was put up. Off camera, across Williams Boulevard, is a Toys “R” Us that is also closing.

We all thought Sears would be the first major mall anchor to fall into history (or at least I did), but it’s another chain, carrying what once was an Iowa nameplate, taken out first.

This week, and this week only, both Cedar Rapids Younkers stores are open and going out of business; Westdale was on an earlier list. There are 18 Younkers in Iowa, at every major and minor mall, along with 12 in Wisconsin, nine in Michigan, four in Nebraska, two in Minnesota, and one each in Illinois and South Dakota. (And one misplaced Herberger’s in Ottumwa.) It was the last surviving anchor in Fort Dodge (after it lost the Penney’s) and the second-to-last in others (Southridge is down to Target). The Sears-J.C. Penney-Younkers triad was common across Iowa malls.

Cedar Rapids’ Lindale Mall is the victim of a double whammy; its Sears closure announcement came barely a week before Bon-Ton (Younkers’ owner) was sold off to its creditors. Von Maur will be the only anchor there come Labor Day. On the other side of the city, J.C. Penney will remain at Westdale, which isn’t a true mall anymore but a redeveloped retail center (as you can see at top).

Many Iowans’ memories of Younkers are connected with the downtown Des Moines store that closed in 2005, which was the headquarters of the company for decades. The history cross-pollinates with the girls’ basketball tournament, because it made for a “big city” trip to shop for prom dresses. That extended to Merle Hay Mall, which had the second Younkers location in Iowa.

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Apr 24

Highway 20. This year. Seriously. We mean it.

Posted on Tuesday, April 24, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAJune 25, 2006: For more than half a century, the 1½ mile fraction of a four-lane US 20, mostly with US 59, stood alone surrounded by two-lane roads. I put a photo of the other end of this segment with a blog post in 2015 announcing the first five-year plan to include all of 20.

After a three-week delay, the detour for US 20 between Galva and Early finally took effect Monday. It’s part of the last stage of upgrading 20 to four lanes across Iowa. As late as September 2014, the four-lane 20 had no estimated completion. It took the Legislature increasing the state’s gas tax to allow for enough funding. For more about the history of advocacy and the current work, see this Spencer Daily Reporter story.

Last year, as part of the construction, one of the last remaining roadbeds of original 20 in Iowa was pulled out. New 20 between Eagle and Carriage avenues west of Holstein is a shade south of the section line. The “corridor” remains the same, which is more than can be said of the rest of 20 in Iowa. The original pavement east of L22 was taken out too.

By the end of this project, the only place that current US 20 and 1958 US 20 in Iowa directly co-exist outside of Dubuque is for one mile west of IA 140 and two miles east of Moville. The latter is where the first rural four-lane segment of 20 in Iowa opened, at the end of that year. (If someone doesn’t bring a 1958-model car to show or drive at the ribbon-cutting this year, it’s a huge missed opportunity.) That segment just made the cut for original inclusion in 1926, as old maps show that IA 23 in 1920 went through Moville instead of skirting the south side.

Of course, I would be remiss not to plug the Historic Route 20 Association, where a detailed map of US 20’s 1926 alignment has been created (through assists from me and Jason Hancock’s website). Iowa’s U.S. 20 Corridor Association posts periodic updates on construction.

It’s going to be a great day this fall for a ribbon-cutting 60 years in the making.

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