Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

Believe it or not, these exist. However, they all have something in common: They were not constructed as Casey’s gas stations.

I have now run across two of them. One is a former HandiMart at the I-80 US 151 exit. It’s a small building built in the Amana German style. The other is a former Holiday station in Spencer that is across the street from another Casey’s.

The Holiday gas chain exited the Iowa and Nebraska markets with the sale of 10 stores to Casey’s in 2010. If you go to the Holiday website state-by-state list now, there is still an option to select Iowa and Nebraska, but the store list is blank. Every state except those two has a map image without them (e.g. here).

One of the other Holiday stations is at the end of I-380 at Mitchell Avenue in Waterloo.

Between Des Moines and Iowa City on Friday morning, after Wednesday night’s snow and Thursday’s wind, I counted the following in the ditch: 17 semis (including three at the Colfax exit), 15 passenger vehicles (including one that skidded at a rest area entrance), one pickup pulling a trailer, one RV, and one U-Haul trailer.

UPDATE: The Sears at Coral Ridge Mall, on the west end, is now closed and the markings removed.

A longtime component of everybody’s schooling in Iowa changed last year. They’re no longer the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills or the Iowa Tests of Educational Development. They are now the “Iowa Assessments.” The change happened last school year, and the old scores won’t be comparable, according to the Waterloo school district.

The kids here and across the country will still be taking the “Iowa tests,” but they won’t be taking “Basic Skills.” Since the ITBS name was in use since 1935, I suspect many teachers and parents will have trouble letting go of that. (Plus, “Basic Skills” is easier for elementary students to grasp than “Assessments”.) The name had historical weight, but I guess the restructured program needed a new designation.