Thursday, July 28th 5 sites for Silos and Smokestacks, plus the Kernels

Brandon clearly decided he was sleeping in today, so Bette and I left the campground at about 1030, and headed up the road to Cedar Rapids. 

First stop was the Veterans Memorial Field, home of the Cedar Rapids Kernels, the A team for the Angels of Aniheim...  The team was out of town, but the gift shop was open, got 2 balls, one logo ball for the team, and one "road to the show" ball, which has the logos of each of the farm teams for the Angels...  Beautiful stadium, and they had a nice little museum of the team. 

Then, we headed up towards downtown Cedar Rapids..  I quickly discovered that a lot of the city is under construction, and then learned that the downtown area was pretty much wiped out in 2008 by severe flooding:

A couple of the sites I visited were in temporary places, and had stripes on the wall that indicated how high the water was, in one site, it was 12 feet high!

First stop was the Cedar Rapids Art museum, but wasn't open yet.  Then, we got totally defeated by one way streets, construction, and a bad address problem with the GPS-  Cedar Rapids is quite confusing- there are two sets of streets, like in Washington DC, and they are designated SW, E, NW and NE, with dual numbers.   So, in a word, we got misplaced lots of tries. 

We did find the Carl & Mary Koehler History Center, a very well done museum of Iowa History...  got a Silos Stamp there.

Next, we went back to the Cedar Rapids Art Museum, which is downtown, and got in, its in a beautiful old Carnegie building, and has a lot of the work of the American Artist Grant Woods.  Got a Silo stamp there.

Next, we tried to visit the Grant Wood Studio building, and after a false start with a bad address, found our way to it, only to learn that it is only open on the weekends...  A bust for that stamp.

Then we made our way to the National Czech and Slovak museum, another site for a silo stamp, only to learn it had been flooded out in 2008.  We asked a local, and discovered it was located in a temporary building down the street, so we got in and collected a Silo stamp there....They are hoping to have the new building open soon, it was relocated and raised 11 feet, above hopefully what was a 500 year flood in 2008. 

Lastly, we headed out to something called the Indian Creek Nature Center, which was out of town a bit, and got our Silo stamp there.  This is a 200 acre recreation of an old Indian settlement....the Center is located in an 80 year old old milk barn, right along the river. 

We stopped at a Subway for lunch, then headed back, opting not to visit the Amana Colonies- we'll get them next time. 

Tomorrow is a very short ride, about 25 miles over to the Herbert Hoover National Historical Site, in West Branch, and then over to the Davenport Iowa area for three nights.  There, we have a couple of Silo sites, and up to 3 baseball games....  then we are off to Chicago for a week.  Almost time for Brandon to head home....