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Sandy and Dan's Burlington, Iowa Trip
When we think of travel it seems that our first thought is of a great deal of miles and many days away from home. The other thought that comes to mind is exotic locals, you know tropical islands, foreign countries, and far flung corners of your country. Well this travel opportunity did not involve any of these things. In fact it was very much opposite. The entire trip was 2 days, we traveled a little over 250 miles from home, and we never left the state of Iowa. Yes, we know that all sounds like terribly middle aged fun.
The entire purpose of the trip began as a business meeting for Dan at the GE Industrial plant in Burlington. Since the meeting was fairly early in the day we decided to make the major portion of the drive late on a Monday afternoon. We stayed in Cedar Rapids on Monday night and then drove to Burlington on Tuesday morning. We had seen pictures of The Great River Bridge on the Burlington Web site but found it to be even more impressive than we had anticipated. The image above was taken from Front Street, near the River Boat Casino. We crossed the bridge and took this picture of a railroad bridge.
Sandy found her way around town and managed to find a teddy bear or two while Dan attended his meeting. Following the meeting there was still time for looking around this very interesting Mississippi River town. The image below shows the River Boat Casino that spends the winter months here. We managed to avoid this form of entertainment since our time here was so limited.
The weather was warm with a brisk wind and we were determined to see the biggest site in town. You guessed it, we were looking for Snake Alley. You've never heard of Snake Alley, well we hadn't either. But the guide book and the GE Engineers said it was a must for any visitor to Burlington. We were also told that it is listed in the Ripley's Believe It or Not Book as the crookedest street in the world, consisting of 5 half curves and 2 quarter curves dropping 58 feet in a distance of 275 feet. It was constructed in 1894 and is paved with brick pavers. Once we found it we had had to snap a picture even though it was early evening and the light was not what it should have been.
Dinner on Tuesday was at an old train depot right on the river. The place is called "Big Muddy's" and turned out to be a great place for dinner and conversation. We also got to see the high water mark from the flood of 1993. Now don't tell us that we didn't have a big night out.
What better way to wind up this trip then to view this beautiful bridge at night. Unfortunately we forgot to bring the "real camera" so these digital shots will have to do. It took a bit playing around with the digital camera to come up with this shot, but it was worth all the work, don't you think?
