Inside Iowa #41

As we followed our enthusiasm for barn quilts we found out that another nearby county had many quilts too, so off we went to Humbolt County. (Sac County? Humbolt County? Are we still in Iowa? Somebody pinch me!) Actually we found some pretty good barns and quilts here, too.

Card Trick

Goose Tracks

As soon as had we started photographing Humbolt quilts we found out about Grundy County quilts. This is the county that actually started the whole thing in Iowa. Well, need I say more? Grundy County quilts are very cool and they are really keeping the thing alive with all kinds of marketing tools and gift items like notepads, calendars, t-shirts, etc. It is all a great idea to encourage tourism and barn preservation. I can guarantee that my two Gals will stay enthused and will definitely be looking forward to finding this project in other states. So don’t get overwhelmed – there will probably be more in the future.

Crossed Canoes

DeVries Alpaca Farm-Northwind

See? I told you so! We found out there is one more county with the quilted barn thing. Hey, don’t get me wrong, I love all this driving around, finding roads and sniffing out each farm! I get to ‘read’ whole new novels of sights, smells and critters. Just look at these beauties we found at the DeVries Alpaca Farm outside of Dike. These baby-faced sweeties have the most incredibly soft fleece. Karen DeVries weaves and creates gorgeous hats, shawls and scarves from her flock’s wool. I had never seen these little guys before and their protective Mamas sorta made me nervous!










Like I said we found out that Greene County had some quilted barns too. Well it goes without saying that we just couldn’t pass that up! So it was westward again to Greene County and more photos.

Cross and Crown

Starry Path

Kae decided she had had enough of corn, soy and flat and needed some change in topography. So it was westward even further to a continuation of the Loess Hills Scenic Byway. These hills are a rather dramatic geological feature in western Iowa caused by glacial action. “During warm spells at the end of the last Ice Age about 18,000 years ago, the waterway that became the Missouri River was a torrent of glacial runoff. However, as each winter set in, the waters diminished, leaving behind soils that had been ground as fine as flour by the glaciers. Prevailing winds blew the lightweight particles, called loess and pronounced “luss”, to the eastern riverbank, forming dunes as the process repeated itself over thousands of years. Eventually topsoils evolved and a unique natural community developed. Although deposits of loess are found around the world, nowhere else but China are they as high as here –more than 200 feet tall.” (National Scenic Byway booklet). The farmers have developed a unique method of terracing these hills in an effort to contain this powdery soil and keep it from eroding away, thus making the fields works of art in their own right. We wound our way through these hills, taking detours and side roads around the damage caused by the flooding a few weeks back. We can feel fall beginning to settle in as the crops take on the golden and brownish hues of autumn.






We are still on our way to Kansas City and Lake Ozark, MO, then perhaps Arkansas and Texas. I love that we can choose to stop anytime our whimsy wants to smell the flowers or whatever they are!




It’s hard to say where the weather and our whims may lead us next but then isn’t that precisely the reasons we are out here Roadtreking?