October 24, 2009

You really ought to give Iowa a high

Traveling Companion: None
Vehicle: My 2009 Toyota Rav-4

Leg 1: Highest point in Iowa

Hawkeye Point
1,670 Feet

Oh, there's nothing halfway
About the Iowa way to treat you,
When we treat you,
Which we may not do at all.
--Meredith Wilson, The Music Man

Hawkeye Point is just about two or three miles into Iowa when you enter on MN-60 from Worthington, MN. I then drove about 15 miles west to Rock Rapids and then ducked back into Minnesota without having been treated by an Iowan. It seems Wilson may have been right.

Hawkeye Point is on what was the farm of the Sterlers, but when Mr. Sterler died, his wife donated the part containing the highest point to Oceola County, and the plan is to turn the surrounding area into a park. The point is essentially in their backyard next to their silo. The house is now the Oceola County Extension Office of Iowa State University. I wonder if they bristle at calling it Hawkeye Point and not Cyclone Point. This seems like a perfect thing to be decided annually by the winner of the Cy-Hawk Trophy.

Here are a couple of pics.

Leg 2: Lowest Point in South Dakota

Big Stone Lake on the Minnesota border
966 Feet

In Wilmington, NC, you can tour the USS North Carolina. In Mobile, AL, you can tour the USS Alabama. But what do you do with your state's battleship when your state is landlocked? South Dakota faced just such a challenge. The USS South Dakota, a.k.a., "Battleship X" was the most decorated battleship in World War II, and so it should be honored, but it was just not feasible to bring the entire ship to South Dakota. So, some important parts were removed when the ship was decommissioned and brought to Sioux Falls where they were placed inside a concrete outline of the deck of the ship. I like it. It has a minimalist feel that appeals to me, and it's a ship with a deck made out of grass.

The USS SD is in a city park, where it sits beside some little league baseball fields. I'm sure there's a couple of sixth graders who have hit a home run into a World War II battleship.

However, I could not stay long in Sioux Falls because I needed to head up I-29 to Big Stone City to commune with the state's lowest point before dark. The WPA in 1937 dammed the Minnesota River on the South Dakota-Minnesota border and created Big Stone Lake. On the South Dakota side, the shore is the lowest point. I stopped at a small park just behind the dam.

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