Trip to Iowa - part II for sure

So here we are back in Iowa, where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average," ok maybe that's Minnesota but whatever.

Ok so really one of my favorite things about visiting is the food.  Happy Joe's Pizza has the ultimate, best, wonderful Taco Pizza.  honestly, I could eat the whole thing by myself. 

Love Maid Rite, which are loose meat sandwiches and soooo yummy.  I take mine with cheese, but seriously they are good.  There was a little "shack/lunch place" in Gainesville in the student ghetto that served "Iowa loose meat" sandwiches.  Super good and something you can only really get there.  Mom and Elizabeth were more into the chocolate shake, I think that was the size after they split it and gave me half!

Well darn I don't have a picture of the huge pastries this place sells but the Machine Shed has some enormous size dishes that are Iowa farmer size, mmmmm so good.  Sadly, all I have is pictures of Elizabeth crawling on the huge tractor outside.

The other part I really love...the homes.  I'm not trying to be a historian by any means but just a small snippet of history of the old neighborhood of which I am in love with the old homes.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia :)

The Village of East Davenport (known locally as The Village) is a neighborhood that dates back to the 1850s and was originally known as "Stubb's Eddy". The Village was established in 1851 to service the logging industry, and was annexed by the city in 1857. It experienced three stages of growth: the period following the American Civil War, when many residential buildings were built; from 1890 to 1915, when construction of large mansions on the bluffs (allowing views of the Mississippi River) began; and the turn of the twentieth century, at the far east end of the neighborhood and the city. The houses in The Village were built along the curves of the topography, not in the grid fashion that was used in the rest of the city. Prospect Park was developed from 1895 to 1910, and is one of many Davenport neighborhoods built at the turn of the century to focus around a park. Houses in Prospect Park are very large and are set on spacious lots. They are built in the late Queen Anne, Neoclassical, and Tudor Revival styles.

My favorite part of the history is: In 1856, the first railroad bridge to span the Mississippi River was built between Rock Island and a spot on the Iowa side directly south of The Village. It was of the utmost importance in getting lumber from sawmills to the frontier as far west as Denver. However, when the Effie Afton riverboat hit the bridge, it became the subject of a historic lawsuit between riverboat and railroad, in which a young Illinois lawyer named Abraham Lincoln successfully defended railroad interests. Today, the log trestle still stands as the last tangible remnant of the first railroad west.

So just some of the homes I enjoy in the area:

(this is cheating, this is our old house, part of Prospect Park neighborhood)

I'm guessing there are hundreds of very cool, unique homes in the area and I wish I could actually go up to each one and take a proper picture but you get what my mom would allow with a slow drive by!  If I had it all to do over again I probably should have an architectural history degree and write books.  Big sigh...I'll see you again one day pretty houses.