I went to Iowa, a state that only Iowans know about except when the Iowa caucus comes around. It’s in the heart of the Midwest, squeezed in between Illinois and Nebraska, and took me six hours to get to from Chicago. I went to Iowa’s capital, Des Moines, and ended up on a tour of the state capitol building with a bunch of teenagers, four of whom asked me – genuinely baffled – why in God’s name had I come to Iowa? I just let on I was passing through but the truth was that so many people told me there was nothing there and I wanted to see for myself and prove them wrong (there isn’t and I didn’t). It’s farming country there; thousands of flat acres of corn and soy. Iowa’s capital, Des Moines, is a city like so many others in America – very little going on downtown because out-of-town malls and conglomerates sucked the life out of it. It is however buzzing at the moment as the caucus looms, and has the finest of the eight state capitol buildings I’ve seen so far.
I’m a bit sensitive to the term ‘flyover state’ because if Ireland was much, much, much bigger, Roscommon would be first for relegation to ‘flyover county’ status. In the Midwest, the ‘flyover’ label refers to the endless sameness of the landscape; it’s flat, houses are often a kilometre apart, and because it’s corn and soy country there’s not an animal to be seen. But even in the nothingness of the Midwest landscape in January, everything’s a novelty to me and the houses are exactly as we’d expect them to be from movies like Field of Dreams, and Bridges of Madison County. They’re two-storey farmhouses with wraparound porches and clapboard exteriors, all painted various shades of cream, duck blue and soft green with mature trees as partition between the front garden and endless corn. Picture-perfect red barns with massive white-trim doors stand tall around the houses for storing of machinery. On the journey to Des Moines and back, a heavy blanket of untrodden and untouched snow lay on the cornfields. With the sky low and white, there was no telling where sky ended and ground began and for flashes of moments I would think I was in a dream. One exciting thing was that I did cross the Mississippi, which is a damned big river because I last saw it in New Orleans, almost a thousand miles away.
Okay I lie!
Two exciting things happened; I crossed the Mississippi and I saw the world’s largest truck stop! However, other than the life-defining experience of passing the world’s largest truck stops, my six hours through Illinois and Iowa yielded little in the line of scenery. It was cool for the first while to witness again the expanse of the Midwest but honestly there’s little more along the way other than flat fields, truck stops and signs advertising lawyers who think you might be entitled to compensation.
It’s six hours and a bit to Des Moines, a city that presumes you’re only there on the way to somewhere else. No matter how many small cities I visit, I remain amazed at the neglect and emptiness of the downtown areas, and Des Moines is but another example. I was trying to pinpoint what it was that made Des Moines feel so safe, and a colleague reckoned that criminals need footfall and people just as bars and shops do, and Des Moines has little of either. She wasn’t messing, or wrong really. On the city’s periphery there are Walmarts the size of Irish shopping centers, but downtown there’s just office blocks and multi-storey carparks. The main street was identifiable as the ‘main street’ simply because it was bigger, not because it had shops, cafes, bars or stores. However, the aspirations of past generations are writ large across the city; Des Moines’ state capitol building is majestic, there’s a county courthouse that looks like it belongs in early-twentieth century Paris and a police department building that rivals the Four Courts. In particular, for a state as unassuming as Iowa, its State Capitol is phenomenal; its dome is covered in twenty-three carat gold, each room has been meticulously restored to its original splendor, twenty-nine types of imported and domestic marble were used in the interior and it’s the tallest building in Iowa. And though it looks over a city center that has the bang of a ghost-town about it, there’s a real effort to revive downtown Des Moines. There’s public art and sculpture dotted throughout the city, eye-popping murals that brighten up concrete edifices and the East Village is a student-y kind of an area with antiques shops and a t-shirt shop that had a t-shirt for every (apparently-unoriginal) opinion I have. Midwestern people are famously lovely; my Airbnb host and I hung out, the bus drivers all checked to see if I knew where I was going (I didn’t, so that worked out well) and the workers in cafes and bars were great for the chats. So yeah, I’ve another state capital ticked off (I’m up to eight) and just saved you a trip to Des Moines that really, none of us needed to make.
I think what unconsciously put the notion of Iowa in my head was all the talk of the caucus that’s happening next Monday. Iowa is the first-in-the-nation state (and proud, very proud of it) to cast a vote for their preferred candidate in either the Republican or Democrat nomination races (the Republicans already have their candidate). Instead of voting with a ballot paper in a booth, Iowa Democrats gather in town halls, school gyms and even people’s sitting rooms to declare their support for candidates publicly. Their candidate has to reach 15% to be plausible and if he/she doesn’t then they go stand with the group of their second preference and if that person doesn’t hit 15% then their third preference etc. Iowa sets the tone of the rest of the campaign because it’s always one of the top four that goes on to get the nomination and that makes people sit up and take the candidate seriously (Obama’s campaign only really got going when he won Iowa). There’s a really good illustrated guide to how it works here. Because Iowa sets the tone, candidates effectively decamp there for months beforehand, trying to create buzz for themselves. I’m not the only one drawn to Iowa at this time; plenty of websites had suggested itineraries for politico-tourists and Des Moines had signage down welcoming caucus-goers. Throughout Des Moines people wore the t-shirts or badges of their candidate, had yard signs in front of their houses, there was political advertising all over the place and insiders strategized in cafes as the city gently buzzed with an excited energy.
I’m coming near the end! America will be throwing me out soon! For the moment though, Des Moines is ticked off my list – and yours too. After travelling the length and breadth of Illinois, and visiting Indiana and Missouri, I think I’ve had enough of midwestern ‘scenery’ to do me a couple of years. As always, I’m glad I went and had a look around. Next travels will be to the Pacific coast but in the meantime, I’ve a caucus to get ready for!
doireann.ie 