Having lived in Iowa all of my life, I never really appreciated the beauty of the land until I took up photography a few years ago. In Iowa history class back in elementary school we were taught that Iowa is a native american word meaning "Beautiful Land". Whether that's true or not I don't know, but I once had a conversation with a nephew of mine about how if you want to take landscape photos in this part of the country, one needs to be creative, as we have no mountains, few large bodies of water, etc. I'm smack in the middle of the state and drive the backroads often in search of photo opportunities. Here are just a few of the photos I've taken in the last week which I believe show that the state was aptly named.

Walt