During our adventure on the 18th annual barn tour offered by the Iowa Barn Foundation last weekend, we found some unadvertised sights including an old motel, cafe and vintage “service station” along Iowa’s stretch of the famous Lincoln Highway, the nation’s first transcontinental road for automobiles connecting the east and west coasts, opened in 1913. (Fun fact: it was also the first national memorial to President Abraham Lincoln, predating D.C.’s Washington Memorial by several years.)
The plain white Colo Motel looks pretty basic. Rooms run about $50 a night. The Niland’s Cafe looks like it has been restored or redone in a nostalgic vein, complete with a sign outside advertising “hot coffee and Kool cigarettes.” It was closed when we arrived (open until 2 p.m. on Sundays) but we peaked inside through the windows and it looks like a time capsule. Word has it the food is pretty good. I’d like to return.
The restored 1940’s era “service station” definitely is no longer functional. The pumps are vintage fire-engine red contraptions and the gas costs 17 and 8/10ths cents a gallon, including tax. One of the explanatory plaques placed around the crossroads let us know that Reed’s Standard Service Station operated from the 1930’s until 1967. It replaced an earlier station nearby opened in the late 1920’s. The station’s design includes a flared roof line, large canopy and other features linked to the Arts and Crafts design movement of the early 20th century.
We also happened upon a tiny pioneer cemetery on the edge of the road, near the town of Rhodes, surrounded by what appeared to be a fledgling Christmas tree farm. Some of the grey/white marble stones were so worn, we couldn’t make out the engraving. But several mentioned pioneers from the 1860’s, including one that read “1869 Still born dau”…which I presume was a still born daughter.
Kids played in the sand, small groups (black and white, although not mixed) sipped drinks at outdoor tables, two bands played an stages near muscle cars on display (a fraction of the vintage cars participating in the annual Dream Cruise further north on Woodward Avenue). Barbara forgot her purse at our table, walked back to it after a few minutes and there it was waiting for her, all items accounted for. Gives you hope for Detroit’s continued renaissance.
We also wandered into Moosejaws, a Detroit outdoors store, among several inviting cafes and shops nearby and more to come — a big Shopping Center is rising soon on the site of the famous old Hudson’s Department Store that I used to go to with my mom in the 1960s and 70s. We also dropped in at a famous old auction house across from RenCen and by far the best piece for sale was a piece by Glen Michaels, father of a high school friend.
We had good Indian food at Priya near Troy, including onion badjis (which the restaurant called onion pakora) and dosa, a southern Indian crepe, plus more traditional fare like saag and shrimp tikka masala. Then onto Rays ice cream in royal oak where the kiddie scoop I got was just as enormous as the regular scoop. Not complaining.
What did we do before Google and cellphones? (My mother, writing in her travel journal 25 years ago, asked “what did we do without faxes?”) We found this place, off a winding country road, past horse farms on the outskirts of Council Bluffs, after I googled to find a picnic spot with the best views of the river. It turned out to be a dramatic overlook with some 1930s’ poured concrete, possibly WPA reliefs, depicting the “council.” It seemed like a local secret. There were several well positioned picnic tables, although we could have used a little shade.
TakeBetsywithyou 