My Iowa Commute
 

The point of this thread is to dispel the misconception that Iowa is flat and nothing but corn and bean fields. Parts of Iowa are actually very beautiful. By far, the most pretty is the eastern border, along the Mississippi. I decided to take some pictures along my commute from Iowa City to Cedar Rapids last night, to show you guys where I live.
If you thought driving and talking on the cell phone was dangerous...you'd better appreciate the risks I took for these shots!:eek: (I just put the camera on the steering wheel and kept pressing the button, so actually, it wasn't that bad.)

.

These were taken in Cedar Rapids:

We may not have majestic mountains to look at every day, but we do get some great meteorological shows nonetheless. Here is the backside of a thunderstorm that I took a couple pics of on my way home from Minneapolis this past weekend. They were taken just north of Marion/Cedar Rapids. I was hoping to get a lighteneing strike, since they were occasionally hapening, but no such luck.

Well, that's my little part of the world, what's yours like??

Always with the backsides, eh? :lol2:

Nice shots... maybe I'll document my commute one of these days.

Nice looking place. I love this time of year. Everything is so green.

Lovely place.... looks a little flat though. ;)

(Relocated to Cities and Travel at LabRat's request.)

LR, I hope you weren't sensitized by my comment in the Bikes! thread ("I didn't know Iowa had a hill."). But thanks for sharing. It's really quite nice.

I've been considering making a little video of the first 4.5 miles of my ride to work. I want to attach a video camera to the front fender of my motorcycle, or to the top of my helmet. Unfortunately I don't have a video camera.

Maybe I'll try to take some photos.

G'wan, that's flat. Maybe a little wrinkled from the rain, and not as flat as Kansas. but flat as NJ.
When you don't see anything above the trees, it's flat.

Kansas and eastern CO is the flattest I've ever seen. I swear we drove towards a radio tower out there for hours. Creepy. Got a great picture of an entire rainbow though.

I've been keeping a camera in my car, trying to get some shots of the hot air balloons we often see being launched in Eagle. No luck today but Jim took a few pics of my "commute".

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL162.../257952699.jpg

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL162.../257957865.jpg

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL162.../257952740.jpg

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL162.../257952733.jpg

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL162.../257952721.jpg


http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL162.../257952712.jpg

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL162.../257952706.jpg

jinx, it looks like you have a nice commute.

Is that two dead in the last picture?

Looks like a dangerous road. Two lane country roads with heavy traffic like that last picture are statistically the most dangerous per mile driven.

edit: but to end on a positive note, it's beautiful countryside though.

The driveway on the left was probably a factor.