> You're just jealous 'cause you hardly have anything that could even be
> called a hill. ;-)
Would you care to go bicycling with me?
There really isn't too much of Iowa that you'd consider "flat". It's
not mountainous, but other than the north-west part, it has ups and
downs. Enough so that using cruise control is bothersome. Where I-80
cuts across, it's gentle, but southern Iowa and the north-east corner
have plenty of rolling hills that have to be contour farmed. I-35,
north of Des Moines is pretty flat.
Where I now live is known as the "Hilakes" region. We're along the
highest point between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Much of the
area was marsh and had to be drained to be farmable. Part of the
process of drainage involved building artificial lakes. Within five
miles there are six lakes that I know of. It's kinda wierd that a
couple of them are near the tops of the hills. The water table is so
high that almost every basement in town has had problems at one point
or another. Where they built the grade school was almost swamp.
They've had settling problems the whole time. The tornado didn't help
matters any because when the roof got lifted, it came down in the
wrong place. Fixing it has been difficult because none of the walls
are where they were at the right height when it was built.
This reminds me of where I grew up. Much of the area is built on saw
dust. They used saw dust as fill along the shoreline and to fill in
the swamps and lowlands. The problem is that what isn't saw dust is
sand. In those areas, everything has really settled wierdly through
the years. And then there are the springs. Tons of springs. Sand, silt
and springs mean quicksand. I grew up learning about quicksand,
thinking that it existed everywhere and every elementary age kid
learned about it. Uh, no. It was a local thing. We basically
determined that the bugs were more dangerous, though.
It saddens me that Moose is so narrow-minded and against Iowa terrain.
Granted, Iowa doesn't have EVERYTHING like California has, but the
wierdness factor isn't as high either. Well, OK, maybe. We do have
Fairfield. I take it back. Iowa does have wierdness. Iowa City,
Fairfield--yeah, we have wierd.
See, Moose? You should fit right in.
AG
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