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| From Move2008 |
Bettendorf is one of the "Quad Cities" (that include Davenport IA, Moline IL, and Rock Island, IL) that sit on either side of the Mississippi River. For those of you who, like me, were not aware -- John Deere World Headquarters is located in Moline. Also, jazz musician Bix Beiderbecke
is from Davenport.
It turns out that Iowa is not so flat (as I had assumed). The landscape is rolling and pastoral -- and kind of pretty despite its empty fields and monochromatic earth tones. One of the most impressive sights we saw was a huge wind farm off of I-80 near Council Bluffs (the last town before you get to Nebraska).
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| From Move2008 |
This whole windmill idea is not a new one to the people of Elk Horn, IA (the largest Dutch settlement in the U.S.) -- who cleverly tricked the nation of Denmark into selling one of its old broken down windmills to them as a way to celebrate the U.S. Bicentennial.
Other notable communities in this part of Iowa are the Amana Colonies and Coralville -- "where some 1300 Mormon immigrants stopped to make camp in their migration of 1856 after having traveled west by rail to Iowa City, which was the westernmost rail terminus at the time. They built handcarts out of native woods during their encampment so that an adult could haul a 600-700 pound load and cover about 15 miles per day on foot in their continuing trek to Salt Lake City."
And, as we made our own trek across Iowa today -- I thought about those first pioneers and sincerely thanked God for U-Pack ReLoCubes.
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| From Move2008 |
1 comment:
I have to quibble with your "revisionist histotry," (so typical of liberals!). Elk Horn is a large Danish settlement, as they are from Denmark. The folks from the Netherlands (the Dutch) get royally pissed off when people make this mistake and will shove a wooden shoe up your ass (or wait...is it the Danes with the wooden shoes?). Here's how you can tell the difference - the Danes, from Denmark, make good pastries. The Dutch, from the Netherlands, have great marijuana (grown primarily at some place mysteriously called "The Hague," which is Dutch for "dude, I'm stoned") and will gladly have sex with you for money under the glow of red lights. However if you are broke and still desire sex (the theme of my life story), you can give them tulips, as they are suckers for this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
Did you take on any more spouses in Coralville?
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