Danni McCoy (left) and Mary Lichtenberg, both of Omaha, walk along the street in Amana recently. During tough economic times, attractions like the Amana Colonies are one option for a destination that is closer to home./Photo by Liz Martin, The Gazette

By Carla Keppler
The Gazette
 
Iowans may be strapped for cash, but plans to travel are still on summertime agendas.  Rather than cut warm-weather trips, many Eastern Iowans are compromising with close-to-home trips on a tighter budget.

Take Sherri Clemence, 42, of Iowa City. Instead of an annual weeklong fishing trip to Gordon, Wis., Clemence will break summer ventures into weekend trips.

The Clemences are planning a trip to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb. They also want to visit the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago and on another weekend, she hopes, take a day trip to Dubuque’s National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium.

“We figured now if we do just a couple weekend things, it might not hurt so bad” financially, says the first-grade teacher at Penn Elementary in North Liberty. “We’re going more for convenience and in the price range we can afford.”

The same goes for vacationers across the map, a recent Associated Press poll found. The study showed that 20 percent of Americans who plan summer excursions — a number that has dropped from 49 percent to 42 percent since 2005 — will stay closer to home because of economic worries.

Carrie Koelker, director of Eastern Iowa Tourism, says half of Iowans will travel at least 50 miles from their residences this summer, a number down slightly from past years. These trips, she says, can be especially enjoyable.
“There are a lot of tourism destinations in your own backyard,” Koelker said. “People are looking for value in price and in what they’re doing, and these are only a short drive away.”

Nancy Landess of the Iowa Tourism Office now focuses travel promotion on attractions in Iowa and surrounding states and offers gas cards and discounts as incentives for Iowans planning getaways this summer.

Another 23 percent of summer travelers, like Elizabeth Green, a 32-year-old University of Iowa student from Iowa City, are slashing costs by staying with family and friends rather than at hotels while on vacation, the poll showed.
Green and her husband will drive to California with their three daughters to visit family and will be penny-wise on their journey by dining in and skipping the shopping.

The Greens also travel locally when temperatures rise, visiting local festivals, pools and museums and — like some 400,000 others — the Amana Colonies.

As one of the state’s tourism hot spots, the Amanas are the perfect “day-cation,” says Joni Brezina, who plans events for the national historical landmark, which welcomes about 750,000 visitors annually. Food, art, breweries and festivals attract tourists, she says, noting the modest price of the “one-tank” trip for Midwesterners.

“Sometimes you forget what’s right next to you,” she says.

Green says, however, that with frugality comes a loss in spontaneity.

“When we were in a better financial position we would just get in the car and drive … stop and buy a toothbrush and stay,” she says. “With the way things are, we do less of that … and don’t always get to go as far or stay the night.”
Others, like teacher Clemence, look forward to a relaxing summer regardless of the destination.

“Taking time just to sit and talk and just relax and have fun doing the things you don’t have time for throughout the year makes it worth it,” she says.

2009 Gazette Communications

Watch speed, seat belts — police are out in force

Watch your speed and seatbelt use this Memorial Day weekend. More travelers will be on the road as will additional officers / Photo illustration by Jupiter Images.

The Gazette

If you’re hitting the road this weekend, expect to see a few more of your fellow Americans traveling than last Memorial Day — as well as law enforcement officers checking how fast you’re driving and if you’re wearing your seat belt.

Americans traveling 50 or more miles this weekend will increase 1.5 percent this year over 2008 to about 32.4 million, according to AAA.

“Last year, soaring gas prices and a deteriorating economy resulted in far fewer trips being taken than had been forecast,” said Randy Williams, president of AAA Minnesota/Iowa. “Sharply lower gasoline prices and plentiful travel bargains have Americans feeling better about taking a road trip this summer.”

Gas did go up to around $2.35 per gallon at most stations on Thursday, up from $2.10 to $2.20 last weekend but still much lower than last year’s range of $3.71 to $3.75 a gallon.

Law enforcement agencies throughout Eastern Iowa reported they would be increasing patrols to watch for people speeding, not using their seat belts or breaking other traffic laws.

The average distance traveled this Memorial Day weekend is forecast to be approximately 620 miles, AAA reported, a slight decrease from 2008.

Average spending for weekend trips is estimated to be $1,052.

Nearly 60 percent of Americans will spend time with friends and relatives over the holiday, and traveling as a family will be the most popular way to go with 34 percent of travelers making a journey with kids or other family.

Click here for a list of fairs and festivals going on around the state this weekend.

2009 Gazette Communications

Text by Meredith Hines-Dochterman
Photos by Chris Mackler
The Gazette

BROOKLYN, Iowa — Audrey Carlson and Barb Cummings missed the Brooklyn exit on Highway 63.

“We were way on the other side of the freeway and had to turn back,” Carlson said.

The friends stopped in Brooklyn for its Community of Flags attraction.

Standing underneath the flags fluttering in the wind, the two said they’re happy they added Brooklyn to their list of Iowa sites to visit.

“It is so impressive,” Carlson said.

Brooklyn launched its Community of Flags identity in the early 1990s. What began as a welcome for RAGBRAI riders evolved into a year-round attraction that changed the way people see the community.

Carlson and Cummings are just two of many visitors who make their way to this Poweshiek County community of about 1,400 every year. The two have Brooklyn connections. Carlson lives in Brooklyn Park, Minn. Cummings is from nearby Brook Park, Minn. The day after their stop, another Brooklyn visitor swung through town.

He was from New York.

He wasn’t the first East Coast Brooklynite to pay tribute to the Midwest’s Brooklyn. The Community of Flags Store guest book lists many borough signatures. Gersh Kuntzman, editor of The Brooklyn Paper, spent several days in the community last year.

“He called and said he wanted to visit Brooklyn’s sister city for the caucuses and we said, ‘OK,’” Mayor Loren Rickard said.

Brooklyn doesn’t have a hotel, so Kuntzman stayed with Rickard and his wife, Jodi. Making the trip with Kuntzman was a proclamation signed by Brooklyn President Marty Markowitz, calling Iowa’s Brooklyn “The official Brooklyn of the Midwest.”

The community receives a fair share of comments regarding its sister city. You can’t tell a Brooklyn Bridge joke that hasn’t been heard a million times. Still, people take the kidding in stride because they know their Brooklyn is special.

“We’re a very friendly community with a can-do attitude,” Rickard said. “If people see a need, they open their checkbooks and help.”

The Brooklyn Museum/William Manatt House is one example. The house is home to the Brooklyn Historical Society, but once was the town library. When the library moved out, society members were given one month to raise $50,000 to cover renovation costs and launch the museum.

“We raised $52,000,” said Mary Jo Thompson, vice president of the Brooklyn Historical Society.

The Michael J. Manatt Community Center is another example. The idea began with Michael J. Manatt, but the support of the community made it a reality. The community center opened in April 2008. In one year, it has hosted 42 events with more than 7,700 guests.

“It’s a facility that’s not only outstanding for the community, but also for the county,” said Lorraine Willett, city clerk.

Archie Kuntz of Brooklyn Raceway credits his hometown’s can-do attitude for making his dream of owning a raceway a reality.

“It’s been real nice for me, being local and knowing the people,” Kuntz said.

The races draw a mix of locals and out-of-town visitors. Kuntz tries to offer something for everyone.

“I like to tell people you come for the race and it turns into an event,” he said.

You could say the same thing about Brooklyn itself.

2009 The Gazette

Sarah Horgen, education coordinator for the University of Iowa Museum of Natural History, cleans mud from a bone of a giant sloth. The museum is located in Macbride Hall on the UI campus in Iowa City. The bones were recently excavated from the Tarkio Valley Sloth Project in southwest Iowa / Photo by Brian Ray, The Gazette

IOWA CITY — The University of Iowa Museum of Natural History’s Tarkio Valley Sloth Project has identified a bone from a type of giant ice age sloth never before recorded in Iowa, called Paramylodon harlani.

Sloth expert Greg McDonald, senior curator of natural history for the National Park Service’s Park Museum Management Program and a consultant on the Tarkio Valley project, identified the 5-inch-long bone as the animal’s fifth metacarpal, which once connected its wrist to its little finger, during a visit to the museum last week.

Southwestern Iowa property owner Bob Athen found the metacarpal nearly two years ago just downstream from the project’s current riverbed excavation site near Shenandoah. It was mistakenly identified as part of a Megalonyx jeffersonii sloth, three of which have been uncovered at the site.

Both Paramylodon and Megalonyx were nearly elephant-sized mammals that became extinct about 12,000 years ago.

The new sloth identification comes on the heels of the discovery April 25 of three more major Megalonyx bones, the first in nearly three years for the project, which began in 2001.

2009 Gazette Communications

By Charlotte Eby
Des Moines Bureau

DES MOINES — Jen and Dawn BarbouRoske of Iowa City are planning a summer wedding after the Iowa Supreme Court cleared the way last month for same-sex couples to marry in Iowa.

Dawn and Jen BarbouRoske of Iowa City listen as they wait to speak in December 2005 at a press conference in downtown Cedar Rapids. Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit on behalf of the pair and five other same-sex couples from across Iowa, winning them the right to marry when an Iowa Supreme Court ruling last month legalized same-sex marriage. Photo by Cliff Jette.

The two women, who’ve been together more than 18 years, were plaintiffs in the landmark case legalizing same-sex marriage in Iowa. The BarbouRoskes and other same-sex couples are finding, however, that their Iowa marriage won’t guarantee them recognition by the federal government or other states.

For that reason, Lambda Legal, an organization that filed the lawsuit seeking marriage rights for same-sex couples in Iowa, is encouraging couples to take extra legal steps to protect their rights. They are advising married same-sex couples to draw up health-care powers of attorney, wills and guardianships, and to carry copies with them when they leave the state.

The BarbouRoskes have durable health-care powers of attorney, adoption papers for their children and a living will. They plan to take their legal documents with them when they travel outside Iowa.

“We will continue to keep it with us,” Jen BarbouRoske said. “It’s nothing we’re ever willing to gamble” on.

Camilla Taylor, a senior staff attorney for Lambda Legal, points to the case of a lesbian couple from Washington who were vacationing with their children in Florida. A complaint alleges that after one of the women fell ill, hospital staff prevented her partner and the children from being by her side as she lay dying, even though she and her partner had durable powers of attorney.

“It’s just a really tragic case, so it illustrates that even if you take all of the legal protections that you can take, you still can’t be guaranteed fair treatment at the times when you need it most,” Taylor said.

Same-sex couples with children also face potential legal hurdles, even though Iowa children born to married, same-sex couples will have both as legal parents, Taylor said.

Lambda Legal still strongly encourages same-sex couples to go through with a legal adoption for the second parent, even though the process might cost thousands of dollars and be intrusive into the family’s privacy.

“Adoption decrees are ironclad protection and must be respected in other states,” Taylor said.

The BarbouRoskes have done that, too.

The federal government’s refusal to recognize same-sex marriages brings another set of issues. Social Security benefits and federal employee benefits, such as health insurance, aren’t extended to same-sex spouses. The ability to sponsor a partner for immigration also is denied.

Gay and lesbian members of the military, including the National Guard, who marry their same-sex partner can be disqualified from service for violating the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

The federal government’s stance also applies to taxes.

For the BarbouRoskes, that will mean filing a joint state income-tax return but separate federal returns.

“After 18 1/2 years, you should not have to mark ‘single,’ ” Jen BarbouRoske said.

Couples from out of state who travel to Iowa to marry may have difficulty getting a divorce, too.

Their home states might night recognize a same-sex marriage from Iowa, and those who believe they can travel back to Iowa for a quick divorce would be mistaken. Iowa has a 12-month residency requirement.

Legal advice

Lambda Legal’s Midwest Regional Office help desk, (312)663-4413, can assist callers with discrimination based on sexual orientation and other legal matters. Hours are 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. weekdays. 

© Gazette Communications 2009

By Kaye Ross
The Gazette

CEDAR RAPIDS — I had an epiphany near Roosevelt Middle School on Saturday that had been gestating for about 45 years.

A tour bus stops Saturday in front of the flood-damaged City Hall on May’s Island. City Hall, formerly Veterans Memorial Coliseum, was built on fill land. Cedar Rapids is one of one or two places in the world with its government on an island. Photo by Cliff Jette.

My grandparents Mart and Edna Hockemeyer made many trips here from Indiana when I was a kid to visit us. Grandpa loved to tease me, and was barely out of the driver’s seat when he’d start in on the name Cedar Rapids.

“We came to See the Rabbits,” he said. “Where are those rabbits? Kaye, you go get the salt and we’ll get us some rabbits. You have to put salt on his tail — that’s how you catch a rabbit.”

On Saturday, local historian Mark Stoffer Hunter was talking about historic areas in flooded parts of town on a Cedar Rapids Area Convention & Visitors Bureau bus tour when the bus slowed down near Roosevelt at 300 13th St. NW.

Roosevelt was one of four junior high schools built in the 1920s to relieve overcrowding in the town’s old elementary schools, which at the time included students through eighth grade, he said. The school, of course, sits on an enormous hill that drops down to a flat grassy spot now called Hill Park.

Did we know, Hunter said, that the park was the site of Cedar Rapids’ first ballpark? There were no Kernels then, he said. The team was called The Bunnies — because Cedar Rapids sounds like Cedar Rabbits.

Grandpa!

I am sure that every one of the 155 other people who took one of the four tours with Hunter had his or her eureka moment just as I did.

And I think Hunter may have been secretly hoping that would happen, because as he noted places where buildings from the past no longer stand, he made the point over and over that we should think about the decisions being made today on what to keep and what to tear down after the great June flood. Similar judgments made by our forebears meant the loss of Union Station on Greene Square and ornate homes on Mansion Hill.

Can we avoid creating future generations’ own great regret, their Union Station?

See a list of historic sites in Cedar Rapids

© Gazette Communications 2009

By Diane Heldt
The Gazette

IOWA CITY — The giant sloth is sort of the unofficial mascot at the University of Iowa Museum of Natural History.

Sarah Horgen, education coordinator for the University of Iowa Museum of Natural History, cleans mud from a bone of a giant sloth at the museum in Macbride Hall on the UI campus in Iowa City. The bones were recently excavated from the Tarkio Valley Sloth Project in southwest Iowa. Photo by Brian Ray.

“We’ve had people get married in front of the sloth,” Pam White, director of UI Pentacrest Museums, said. “The sloth, it’s mostly beloved, although there are some kids that it scares to death.”

The museum’s sloth display — and the ongoing Tarkio Valley Sloth Project excavation in southwest Iowa led by UI researchers and students — continues to be an important draw and topic of research.

But as the Museum of Natural History kicks off its 150th anniversary celebration, officials say in a collection that numbers more than 100,000 items, the treasures extend far beyond the mysterious ice age mammal.

“I hear a lot of people say ‘it’s incredible Iowa has something like this,’” Sarah Horgen, the museum’s education coordinator, said. “Some people say they never knew this existed.”

The Museum of Natural History started in 1858, housed in the Senate chambers of the Old Capitol. It moved to its current home in Macbride Hall in 1907, and it’s the second-oldest museum west of the Mississippi River. About 30,000 visitors, many of them elementary students, passed through the exhibit halls last year.

The museum was launched as a teaching and research tool in the natural sciences. Early expeditions by UI faculty and students to New Zealand, Hawaii, the Fiji Islands and Manitoba helped build the collection of specimens.

“It was very common to bring back specimens so people could learn about these animals and birds and insects and leaves that were so far away,” Shalla Wilson, assistant director of UI Pentacrest Museums, said.

That research and teaching mission is still an important part of the museum, officials said. UI students in biology, archaeology and anthropology use the collection. And the sloth excavation, where the skeletons of one adult and two juvenile sloths have been found near Shenandoah, is a major project.

Museum info:

Location: Macbride Hall on the University of Iowa campus, at the corner of Clinton and Jefferson streets.
Regular hours: Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Thursday and Saturday: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday: 1 to 5 p.m. Summer hours (June and July): open until 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Closed Mondays and national holidays.
Admission: free
Contact: (319) 335-0480

© Gazette Communications 2009

Fishing, Effigy Mounds draw visitors

Pretty walking trails and other scenic vistas are part of the charm of Allamakee County / Photos courtesy Allamakee County

By  B.J. Smith
Iowa.com

If you find yourself trout fishing in Iowa or simply enjoying the quiet beauty of a chilly Iowa trout stream, chances are good you’re in Allamakee County in the far northeast corner of the state. That’s especially true if majestic bluffs loom along the Mississippi River not far away and you followed a winding trail to find your secluded spot.

This area may be best known for the Effigy Mounds National Monument,  where ancient burial mounds in the shape of bears and birds commemorate long ago Native American lives. Other mounds can be found here, too, at the Fish Farm Mounds State Preserve a few miles south of New Albin.

The county is dotted with other historical sites, as well. Many of them are on the National Register of Historic Places.  One good place to start a tour is the Allamakee County Historical Center and Old Courthouse Museum  in Waukon.

Lansing,  Postville,  Waterville and other communities here offer their own fascinating stories and places to explore. Postville, for example, isn’t just a recent tale of broken immigration rules and a big meat processing plant.  It was once the home of John R. Mott, who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1946,  and it is one of Iowa’s most culturally diverse communities. The Old Stone School in Lansing  was in continuous use for 108 years and is one of many buildings in the area dating back to the mid-1800s.

While quiet parks and campgrounds, the Mississippi and the Yellow River State Forest offer lots of opportunities to relax and enjoy the outdoors, Allamakee County also offers comfortable bed and breakfasts and a variety of unique specialty shops.

Allamakee County’s largest employers include AgriProcessors,  the Allamakee Community School District, engineering firm Norplex and Quillin’s Foods in Waukon.

Source: Allamakee County Economic Development.

Cities in Allamakee County

Harpers Ferry pop. 330
Lansing pop. 1012
New Albin pop. 527
Postville pop. 2273
Waterville pop. 145
Waukon pop. 4131

Source: Iowa League of Cities

DeSoto offers mix of riverboat artifacts, wildlife

By Dean Knudsen
Museum Curator
DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge

MISSOURI VALLEY – DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge is located near Missouri Valley, Iowa, and serves as part of a network of refuges devoted to preserving and restoring habitat for migratory waterfowl and other wildlife. Each year, DeSoto hosts hundreds of thousands of birds during their fall and spring migrations, and the Visitor Center offers a cozy place from which to observe geese, ducks, white-tail deer, bald eagles and a wide range of songbirds.

Boyer Chute National Wildlife Refuge is located four miles east of Fort Calhoun, Neb. Boyer Chute was established in 1992 to recover and protect fish and wildlife habitat in and along the Missouri River.

In addition to wildlife, environmental education and hiking, DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge offers a unique insight into life on the Missouri River during the 19^th century. On April 1, 1865, the steamboat Bertrand struck a sunken log, in what was then called the DeSoto Bend, and sank within a few minutes. Fortunately, no lives were lost, but virtually the entire cargo of tools and supplies bound for the silver mines of Montana Territory went down with the boat.

One hundred years after she sank, the wreck of the Bertrand was discovered within the boundaries of the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge, and over a period of two years, archeologists were able to recover thousands of artifacts. After being cleaned and treated, these objects have been placed in open storage in the DeSoto Visitor Center.

Open storage means that the objects are stored in temperature- and humidity-controlled rooms, but with plexiglass walls that allow visitors to look in and see the objects. We have many objects displayed near the glass for ease of viewing, and the balance is further back in the room but still visible.

Visitors will be surprised by the type and variety of objects that survived after a century under river sand and silt. Iron tools such as shovels, hammers, plows and axes were found among crates of canned tomatoes, bottles of champagne, leather boots and candles. Even personal objects that belonged to the passengers aboard the Bertrand came to light and are now displayed for people to see.

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