Before my trip here I had no idea there were casinos in Iowa. Council Bluffs sits along the Missouri River directly across from Omaha, Nebraska, and the two cities almost feel like one metropolitan area divided by the state line. I didn’t spend a huge amount of time here and mostly passed through, but I did explore enough of the city to get a feel for it. Along the river I came across Harrah’s casino, while elsewhere in the city I found parks, fountains, and some of the historic areas of Council Bluffs.
I’m sure there is much more to Council Bluffs than I was able to see during my brief stop. While walking around I came across a war memorial honoring local servicemen who lost their lives, along with some of the streets and buildings around downtown. Council Bluffs has a long history tied to America’s westward expansion, and its location along the Missouri River made the area an important stopping point for people traveling farther west.
Another place I passed while walking around town was the Council Bluffs Public Library. I later ended up behind the building, where for some reason someone had left a copy of George Orwell’s 1984 sitting on the stairs by the back door. It was one of those completely random little things I came across while traveling that somehow seemed worth photographing.
Outside Iowa’s larger cities, the landscape quickly opens into extensive farmland and rural countryside. I missed a turn while driving and ended up taking some back roads to get where I needed to go. The detour turned out to be worthwhile, taking me past large barns, farm machinery, and seemingly endless fields. Iowa is one of the country’s great agricultural states, and corn is especially prominent across the landscape.
I wasn’t sure what was growing in these particular fields, but they were especially attractive in the evening light. Driving through rural Iowa gave me a much better appreciation for the state’s wide-open agricultural landscape, which ended up being a more memorable part of the trip than I had expected.
