Southeast Iowa in a week's time . . .

Here we are at the end of the first week and the start of our second week of walking.  (Photos unless otherwise marked are from Google Maps Satellite images.) The first week took us through Keokuk.  The hardest incline was from the river to the top of the bluff, then the streets are fairly even and flat through town.   We walked up the Main Street of Keokuk, passing the local shopping mall in sad decline and the two-story 19^th century style business buildings that were at one time the heart of town.  A turn at 7^th and Main to the right would have taken us into the north side residential district where Janet grew up, but we don’t have that kind of time today.  Most of the shopping district has moved into strip malls and big box style buildings farther away from the river, including the local Farm and Home store/County Market Grocery and the main city water tower.    

Even though we don’t have time to sight see on this trip a right turn just past the stores would have taken us to the high school and then onto Rand Park and a nice overlook of the Mississippi River.  In Rand Park, the statue of Chief Keokuk marks the supposed burial place of Chief Keokuk, a Sauk chief of some note. (photo from http://www.greatriverroad.com/quincy/keokukmonument.htm)

 On the edge of town, past the HyVee and Walmart (ubiquitous in Iowa) are several factories, including a rubber weather stripping factory and a box factory.  Keokuk is actually much more of a factory town than a farming town. 
Main Street becomes the business routes of Highways 61/218. As we head out of town, it’s about a mile to where the street becomes divided highway and gentle rolling hills.  Now we are out into Lee County and see the farms and more rural landscape.  There are many small un-incorporated villages in south Lee County and a turn on a county road just outside of Keokuk would take you to what official maps label as Mooar or Mooar  Station, I believe after an original settler there.  Locals used to call it Powdertown. My mom had told me that it at one time had a gunpowder factory, but that story maybe my own family’s fabrication  If you went the exact 6.5 miles we had intended to walk in the first week, we’ve walked up the highway past several used car dealers  and are at the junction of the highways and Sandusky Road. 

  In the immediate distance is the tiny settlement of trailers and houses known as Summitville.

 
   A turn to the right on Sandusky Road would have taken us to the Keokuk Municipal Airport, a very small air strip and storage hangers and then the few houses that are the little village of Sandusky.  Following that road east and just north along the river you would come to the little village of Galland, site of the very first formal schoolhouse in Iowa built in 1830.  A replica of the building is on the site.

(Photo from  http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~montrose/Montrose18/gallandschool.htm)

          So where are we now? Lucy, Mike and I had all logged miles in the Google doc spread sheet when I blogged tonight.  I was just past the 6.5 mile mark at 8 miles. Lucy made it to 10 miles So we have walked through Summitville and are in the farmland just past it. 

  Our next milestone will be the intersection where Highway 61 continues down the hill towards Fort Madison and Highway 218 heads  a bit west and north towards Iowa City.  We are taking 218 north to Mount Pleasant. Mike has walked on ahead past this point, don’t worry we’ll catch him.  He’s overachieving this week after a Doctor’s appointment worth of motivation.  Mike has continued up Highway 218.   The rest of us will be hitting this point more or less at the end of this week.  Since Mike is moving ahead, the road takes him onward towards Donnellson.  And so at the end of the week, he is here.

 

We'll see if he sits down to wait for us or moves on.  There's a nice little Casey's gas in Donnellson.  He could go in and buy us a pizza. There used to be an Ice Cream place just down the street from the Casey's. Not sure if its still there or not.  Mike could go look for us once he gets there.