One of my more recent goals during traveling is to photograph the sign at all of the major U.S. colleges and universities. That is around 200 of them. To get all of them in a 300-mile radius of Kansas City, several weekend trips were taken. This is to record the results of those weekend trips with the colleges in Iowa.

Iowa has one college in the western half of the state, three in the center and two in the eastern half. One weekend trip got the former four. A second weekend trip (along with Illinois) got the other two.

Of the six, I know someone who attended four of them. In the mid 1920's my grandmother went to Morningside College in Sioux City. A good friend who now lives in Washington state graduated from the Iowa State veterinary school. Another good friend g=got a masters in dance from Iowa Univ. And another friend, now retired, graduated from Northern Iowa. Seems like long ago I met someone who graduated from Drake but cannot recall now who that was. Ditto Grinnell College.

During my trip in October it rained on me almost the entire tree days I was east of the Mississippi River. Thankfully, Iowa was just cloudy. I had noticed that the fall colors in Kansas City were pretty dull looking this year. However, as I got north of US Highway 36 and got east of the Mississippi River, the colors were fabulous. Too bad it was cloudy, and usually raining, most of the time while I was in these states. Otherwise, I would have taken photos. Some unusual colors this year of several types of plants (weeds?) that grow wild along the highways.