Things to See and Do in Iowa
Did you know that Iowa is known for having lots of tourist attractions and sights? There are many different types of places to go too. From museums to 15 foot tall statues. Iowa has a quite a few “strange” places to go, but it is still a cool place to go. A few examples are the Pink Elephant, Strawberry Point, and the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. Those are all places in Iowa that you can visit.
One place to visit in Iowa is the Pink Elephant. The Pink Elephant was a restaurant until Virginia Ries (the owner) died. Now the Elephant outside the restaurant (Pinky) still stands as a state treasure. The Pink Elephant restaurant was opened in 1963. Pinky and the restaurant were both made by Bob Ries. In August of 1978 Pinky the Elephant’s greatest moment came. In 1978 Bob Reis somehow made Pinky water-ski on the Mississippi River to honor a visiting President Carter. That is one place to visit.
Another place to visit is Strawberry Point. Strawberry Point is a town in Clayton County, Iowa. However something towers over the town… a 15 foot tall fiberglass strawberry statue! The town had a population of 1,236 in 2015. Strawberry Point is 2.11 sq miles or 5.46 km. The statue was designed by a local ad agency, and it was dedicated in the late 1960s. It’s address is 111 Commercial Street, Strawberry, Point, Iowa. It is a great place to visit in Iowa.
Although Pinky and Strawberry Point are great places to go, the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art is amazing as well. It has a bunch of great exhibits such as 21 Roman portrait busts donated by Tom and Nan Riley in 1996. One of the more popular portrait busts are of Emperor Caracalla. They also donated 29 other items from coins to glass vessels to ceramic lamps to marble sculptures. Many people consider it a great museum because the artwork shows 600 years of art. The latest pieces in the collection date to 1st century BC, the fall of the roman empire. There are lots of other things outside the collection. The museum has many paintings by Mauricio Lasansky, Jun Kaneko, Malvina Hoffman, Marvin Cone, Bertha Jaques, James Swann and Grant Wood. Also the museum calendar is filled with events such as Art Bites and Guided Meditation among many others. Some new exhibits that are coming to the museum are Tara Moorman: Letters to my Ancestors and Malvina Hoffman’s: A sculptor's journey. That is my final place to visit.
Iowa has many attractions. Some are normal like museums, others you can’t find anywhere else, like weird 15 foot tall statues. As Roadside America said, “Iowa is filled with tourist attractions.” After I gave you all this information, are you going to Iowa this summer?
