Episode 044 - Grant Wood Byway – day ride

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Speaker 2: [00:00:00] Twisty roads and views to make Grant would drop his pitchfork.

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Bottom Line

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Speaker 2: The bottom line, Todd is the Grantwood byway is a really great day trip.

The Grant Wood Scenic Byway - Bellvue to Stone City Iowa

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Speaker 2: So we went and, uh, traveled a day trip here in October and kind of hoping to find, to find some leaves. We did find them. They just weren't very pretty. They were,

Speaker: they were very brown.

Speaker 2: ~Um, ~but, uh, if you're not from our area, Grantwood is an artist that's from Iowa,~ um,~ best known for American Gothic.

Speaker: Yeah, he, uh, grew up outside of, uh, Anamosa and moved to Cedar Rapids when he was, like, ten,~ um,~ went to college,~ um,~ up in Minnesota and in Chicago and, uh, taught junior high for about six years, but he's best known for all his rural paintings and, uh, artwork about the [00:01:00] Midwest and,~ um,~ American Gothic is, is the, the iconic one, yeah.

Speaker 2: And in Iowa,~ um,~ you know, he's well known here, but then they've dedicated some, some,~ um,~ basically they built the road kind of traversing the places that he,~ um,~ was part of his life. ~Um, ~so, so that's what, that's, we'll talk about kind of the way we went. ~Um, ~it was breezy as well that day. It wasn't cold. It was just windy.

Speaker 2: It was very windy. ~Um, ~so we leave almost always from Solon and we go up, we went up Highway 1 to Mount Vernon and then we took Highway 30 over to Loudoun. ~Um, ~just a lot of county roads that day. Uh, Y 24 took us up and then over to Goose Lake, Iowa, uh, to where we stopped at our first stop, which was kind of a cool place, like almost a relic of time, Ollie's Garage, which happened to be also a convenience store.

Speaker 2: But I think it's kind of a couple of things I guess I would say about it. ~Um, ~is. It was a cool old town, you know, kind of sad because [00:02:00] these older towns in these smaller areas are shrinking. So you could kind of tell it just kind of kept becoming more things like, I presume at one time it was simply a gas station and a repair shop.

Speaker 2: And now it turned into also a convenience store with food. And then I don't know if you noticed, but it was like, Oh, I didn't get an ice cream. You know, like, so yeah, I mean, what do you think? I mean, it's just kind of one of those things. Uh, they had, uh, great

Speaker: beef jerky there.

Speaker 2: They did, they

Speaker: really did. No, it was, it was a cool place.

Speaker: I had a, I know I had a breakfast sandwich there that was great. Like a homemade. Yeah,

Speaker 2: it was totally homemade, yeah. I think it's just, and then one of the cool things we found,~ um,~ was they'll pump your gas for you. Yeah, full service gas. fuel stop. It's crazy. You don't see those ever. And when we talked to the person that was kind of, ~um, ~working there that day, they're just like, yeah, there's a lot of old people in town.

Speaker 2: And what a great thing, I mean, to do, uh, cause you know, I mean, heck some of these pumps, I have a struggle to get my [00:03:00] card and accessed and like, I don't know, it's just a really cool thing.

Speaker: Yeah. It was neat. Uh, you know, and she said they only do it like certain days of the week, maybe on the weekends or something, but,~ um,~ a lot of people do.

Speaker: Drive over there just for the full service so they don't get out of their car and

Speaker 2: well That's nice. And I guess like I don't know. I feel it's like a perfect place that we ended up I mean we just kind of found it Yeah But it goes along with like Grant would just Iowa guy and doing Iowa things and painting Iowa sceneries And all these garages is the cool Iowa place.

Speaker 2: Definitely. Yeah. So if you find yourself accidentally in Preston, I would definitely I would definitely stop So then from from Preston we continued on a county road z34 which took us up to Bellevue and so Bellevue would be kind of one of the bigger towns in that area And that we've talked about I think that before ~Um ~But there's the really cool, uh, lock and dam at Bellevue, which is, it's another really cool thing that's the [00:04:00] Mississippi is kind of known for is their locks and dams.

Speaker 2: And, uh, it's just a pretty cool place. What else is in that area?

Speaker: Views. The views from Bellevue are fantastic, too, of the river.

Speaker 2: Well, and just the hills alone. I mean, like. Just in the town there's

Speaker: elevation a lot of elevation changes. Uh, well Bellevue State Park. Oh, yeah Yeah, so there's a state park there and it has a like a butterfly sanctuary There that's it's pretty cool and in an enclosed nature center to

Speaker 2: admit that you can see those signs at the edge of town I remember seeing those when we were there, but it is there a restaurant there that we've hit

Speaker: I don't think we

Speaker 2: have.

Speaker 2: I've, I've ate the restaurant before. I'm not so sure that the one that in the past, maybe not there anymore. ~Um, ~but there's, there's a brewery in town. They're really trying hard to build up the Riverside part of it. And there's a nice place to walk there too. I know that when I've stayed stopped there before in the car, that it's just kind of an, it's got, you kind of sit up above the river and it's a really cool place to watch, watch the river.

Speaker: Yeah. [00:05:00] And like a lot of small towns, lots of churches there. Oh

Speaker 2: yeah. Lots of old churches. Yep. So if you leave Bellevue, then this kind of is where this whole thing starts. So that was getting ourselves there, but that's kind of Bellevue is pretty much where the Grantwood scenic byway starts. And, uh, you take 62 out of town, but right away.

Speaker 2: ~Um, ~we jumped on that Bellevue cascade road and that's how you kind of get on that. And that's where we stopped to try. I brought the drone along to hopefully get some good pictures, but we didn't see much, but a bunch of college students like doing some geo mining, taking some rock samples. Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 2: Yeah. But basically once you get on that, uh, Bellevue cascade road, you head over to a place called Cottonwood. And then he goes south and that was kind of when you look at this, there's actually a scene, a travel Iowa page just on this road, so you can check it out, but it kind of winds around I think just to hit the places that he did some of his best, you know, some of his work in.

Speaker 2: [00:06:00] And so that took us down to a town called Andrew, Iowa. And then Andrew kind of snakes us around on East 17 and around to Makoketa and Makoketa is a pretty established. Bigger town over in that area and it's kind of a neat town. It's got a river. There's a downtown. That's kind of cool And then there's some great things down downtown as well and around Makoka, isn't there?

Speaker: Yeah, I I've stayed twice at the Decker Hotel, which is listed on you know, the registry What do they call the National Registry of Historic Places

Speaker 2: and I think it's technically directly on Grant wood by way to it. I think we saw that. Yeah, it is.

Speaker: Yeah. It was built in like 1875. And if you go into the lobby, I mean, there's, there's antiques, you know, it's the old, real rich, large wood, you know, ~um, ~a great staircase.

Speaker: Oh, wow. The hotel is just, it's really unique. Uh, the owners are fantastic. They just, they've, uh, I think they just purchased a little over a year ago. And so they're, uh, you know, [00:07:00] doing some work on it. ~Um, ~I, also in, in Makoketa, uh, they have a state park. It's the Makoketa Caves State Park. And I think it's the most caves in Iowa.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 2: yeah. That's quite a play. I mean, you can kind of go for miles and miles and there's kind of two different phases. I mean, you can literally get inside the caves and go splunking, but there's also like kind of a trail that kind of. Skirts around the perimeters of the caves as well, which I've heard is a really cool walk.

Speaker: Yeah, I haven't done it yet, but I've heard it as well. I've not been in

Speaker 2: the caves, but I know that the trail I've seen is just, it's cool. Like, you're kind of like, Going around, you know, the perimeter of the caves and things like that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah,

Speaker: and one more thing I'd like to mention just because of that Decker hotel.

Speaker: It's just like a little Boutique hotel, but the reason we stayed there is there's a unique concert venue That you won't find Anywhere else it's called Codfish Hollow It's like a [00:08:00] Dutch style, a gothic style barn, I guess. It's just an arch, and it's long and narrow. So it's kind of like being in the belly of a whale.

Speaker: And it opened in like 2009. I mean the barn is much older than that, from the 40s or something. But they opened it as a concert venue. And they just have concerts there, you know, in the warm months. But they've had like, uh, Uh, Counting Crows, Nora Jones, John C. Reilly, I mean

Speaker 2: And you guys go see their I go

Speaker: see Here Come the Mummies.

Speaker: Right. Yeah, so I've been there a couple of different times. But, it's out, I mean, it's a gravel road to get there, and then there's a, like a cow pasture. Uh, there's cow pies in the cow pasture, but that's, that's where you park, you can camp there. And then it's like free camping free camping. I mean, there's no water.

Speaker: No electricity hookups. That's why it's free That's what you pay for. Yeah, that's right they've got uh, you know a couple of porta potties sitting out, but once you leave from the Parking lot you either walk to get back to the barn down a gravel road or [00:09:00] they've got a little shuttle bus I think they even have a little hayrider.

Speaker: Hey, they'll run once in a while, but ~Um, ~you go back to this barn and it is There's like no wi fi out there. So don't there's not wi fi. There's no self service out there So, uh, you really kind of have to print your tickets out or they just have your name on a list I mean, it's it's really old school. It really is And a great place for concerts.

Speaker: They have a great sound system lighting and it's all in this really old You know archbarn. Yeah. Yeah. It's just oh, that's cool. It's really neat.

Speaker 2: Oh, wow You . So then from there,~ um,~ we went down a road, a count, another county road Y 36, and then we took 1 36 to Oxford Junction. And that's kind of how you get from that Kota to Anamosa.

Speaker 2: Mm-Hmm. , it's, it's mostly on that 1 36. And Anamosa also is kind of a historic town and it was part of Grant Wood's time.

Speaker: Yeah, uh, the Anamosa State [00:10:00] Penitentiary. I didn't realize he

Speaker 2: was in prison. Oh, that's all right. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I'm just talking about that.

Speaker: Yeah. Uh, that, uh, state penitentiary was like built in 1974.

Speaker: Uh, prisoners.

Speaker 2: 1874. Oh, sorry.

Speaker: 1874. Sorry. ~Um, ~prisoners built it. Stone from Stone City. Yeah. So

Speaker 2: Stone City is a big, uh, limestone quarry that like all that area, when you see most stone, it's all limestone. And from there, I think, yeah.

Speaker: And it just look at pictures online of the, the Anamos estate penitentiary.

Speaker: It's really,

Speaker 2: I've actually been in it unique. Oh yeah. And it is wild. I mean, it, You know, you can see how like the over the years they've modernized it like and continued but yeah you when you go in You go into basically a holding area So you go in they lock you in that make sure everything's kosher and then you get unlocked in the other side It's amazing like it's it's an old cool building

Speaker: Yeah, when I look at it reminds me of shawshank redemption, [00:11:00] you know, just like that old style prison.

Speaker: It's it's something else Yeah,

Speaker 2: and then we didn't actually finish the full scenic tour, but that does end in stone city Which is the place,~ um,~ where, I believe he, that Grant Wood had established an art colony, right? You're right,

Speaker: yeah, yeah, uh, 1932 actually. I looked that up.

Speaker 2: And Stone City is just a, it's a cool little place.

Speaker 2: They used to have a really neat bar and grill and I think it's now turning into an event center. ~Um, ~which probably makes more sense. Uh, they can probably do better business there, but. Overall, I, I really liked this ride. ~Um. ~I felt like if it would have been perfect colors, it would have been just amazing.

Speaker 2: ~Um, ~and I can see why they called this the Grantwood Scenic Byway, because if you're familiar with this picture, it's always rolling hills, like every time. And this is like the epitome of rolling hills. And I don't remember what part it was on, but I think it was on that, uh, it was on the Bellevue cascade road.

Speaker 2: We went down and we're kind of in a valley and [00:12:00] man, it was just a really neat road. And, and I think you'd mentioned when we were kind of discussing things, the roads were in really good shape.

Speaker: The roads were in great shape. Yeah. Yeah. ~Um, ~I was super impressed at Tulane the whole way. ~Um, ~the one thing I remember that,~ um,~ luckily you saw a couple of times is there's just signs, you know, that say.

Speaker: You know, Grantwood Scenic Byway, and then you really have to kind of follow the signs because we couldn't go to Google Maps and say take me on the Grantwood Scenic Byway. You had to really just follow the signs. Navigate it. Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah. That's what I was going to say too. It was really cool to do it, but it was a little more difficult to kind of navigate.

Speaker 2: Keep track of if we were on it or not. And then times we'd be like, I don't know if we're still on it. And then pretty soon a sign would pop up. ~Um, ~it's not the shortest route. It was definitely, it's definitely kind of a, a more snake it around. And cause you got to also,~ um,~ cross the Maquoketa river. And so to get, you got to get to a bridge a couple of times, but yeah, it's a, it was well worth [00:13:00] the ride and, uh, it, it was enjoyable for sure.

The Toolkit

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Speaker 2: For the toolkit today, we'll talk about the tool that we brought, but it didn't work. Well, it worked fine. It just didn't get anything worth a dart. It was a drone. I mean, we've taken the drone a few times now, and I think, I think in your mind, when you see these great drone videos of motorcycling, I think it's, it's cool, but it's also like very rehearsed.

Speaker 2: Like anytime you see, you see that it's pretty darn rehearsed. Like, you and I have talked about, man, it would be great to have a drone on all of our trips, and we could get these beautiful pictures of us riding motorcycles, and I think we've come to the conclusion that if you want that kind of shot, it's going to take an extra set of team, maybe, to be with you.

Speaker 2: But, That being said man, is it cool to get the shots that the drones can get and these drones are [00:14:00] fairly reasonably priced I mean you see what they do. I mean they they go to like a hundred and seventy meters in the air They are just unbelievable shots cameras 4k cameras video You can take pictures.

Speaker 2: ~Um, ~man, it's just been really interesting when we've done that. ~Um, ~you know, I mean, we've talked a lot about the cameras attached to the motorcycles and,~ um,~ you know, it becomes very difficult when you kind of take Trying to build some videos for these things because you just create hours and hours of video to get little short clips The kind of cool thing about the drone is is everything you're kind of shooting is a really good clip

Speaker: Yeah,

Speaker 2: you know and in 4k and I don't know I mean it will follow you but like it only goes 30 miles an hour So I just always know when we see those highly produced shots It's a little bit of not quite what you think it is Oh

Speaker: Yeah, I think we'll, we'll get better at it with practice, you know, we'll send the drone ahead [00:15:00] Maybe a half a mile or so and set it bring it down low and then ride to it, you know That's a

Speaker 2: great idea and we could have done you know, what are the good shot actually where the kids were all digging for?

Speaker 2: That's what I would have been a really cool thing right in that really nice curve. It had a limestone wall against it Yeah, that's a good idea. We'll have to work hard Work harder than that. I know we've got a suggestion to get more pictures of our bikes And so maybe hitting one of the uh, one of our state parks Well, we can't really do that.

Speaker 2: We'd have to that's true. You can't fly drones in the state park But uh, no, I mean do check your local Regulations, it's they don't let you fly drones over everywhere ~um ~But I think now some of the dgi Controversy is kind of squelched itself a little bit for a while. They're talking about banning those drones It is really and then I think one thing I'm always amazed at every time I pack it up is how small they are Yeah, the drone itself is not any bigger than your hand.

Speaker 2: Mm hmm And then the controller and if you do get a drone, I would highly recommend [00:16:00] getting the dedicated controller DJI has that and it ~um ~instead of your phone. Yeah. Okay. It just ~um, ~You It's so much better. It's basically running Android on a phone in the controller, and it just makes life really, really much easier.

Speaker 2: You turn it on, it's good to go. And then the battery life on these things are getting pretty good too. I mean, you can fly for 20 minutes.~ Um, ~which gives you enough time to set up a shot like you were talking about,~ um,~ seasonality and times are good times, you know, dusk and dawn are the best times they get better shots that the light is just creating more shadows.

Speaker 2: ~Um, ~so just be thinking about those things. I think when you, uh, look to do like drone shots themselves, I was

Speaker: super impressed with that.~ Um, ~because it was a windy day when we were there. It was windy. And the drone did well. I mean, it, it warned us a couple of times. There was a

Speaker 2: couple of times where we must have got into a jet stream that it was not liking.

Speaker 2: But we dropped it down 20, 30 feet. Yeah. But it was still windy. And that thing held and held

Speaker: and stable. Yeah. I was super impressed with it.

Speaker 2: And [00:17:00] now they've come, you know, they, they know exactly where they took off. So you can just push a button and it comes back to you. Yeah. And it'll, it, the avoids objects.

Speaker 2: ~Um, ~now they have like, I think it's cameras. Mm-Hmm. . It's not radar, but it's, it's cameras that are on there. Just 'cause the very first drone that I had, I ran it right into a tree the very first time I flew it. So . Yeah. So I mean. You do have to kind of practice and get good at it. Cause you know, I mean, a lot of things like when you're running remote control cars, when the drones flipped around, now everything's backwards, you know, just getting a mindset on how to use it, but what beautiful pictures and, and at, you know, cash, it just, it looks so cool.

Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, 300, 400 feet in the air. You're just like, this is cool. It really, I mean, it just looks neat. Yeah. If you liked the podcast today, please like and subscribe, or sign up for our BMR rider alerts.

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Speaker: Keep the spirit of adventure alive, and remember, bikes, friends, and endless roads, the [00:18:00] stories ride forever. Take care.