Beefcake at the Top of Iowa

I've lived on the Plains for 5 years, which means that I've crossed "The Top of Iowa" about 12 times. It is becoming a place of pleasant memories, but I was my pleasant memories are due to traveling through twice a year, and then going somewhere else.  Are permanent residents .  Are real residents overcome by poverty and ennui?  Or worse, homophobia and Islamophobia?

1. Enter Iowa on the I-35 just south of Albert Lea, Minnesota.

2. Stop at the big red barn rest stop next to the Diamond Jo Casino.    It has a gift shop with tacky "I'm in Iowa!" knicknacks, and an ice cream store upstairs and a lot of sculpted grounds, where you can see some of the cutest guys on Earth.

Northwood, Iowa, population 2,000, features a park on the Shell Rock River, some brew pubs, the Rock-a-Billies Bar, and the Northwood-Kensit Junior-Senior High.

Searching for wrestling or swimming team photos proved fruitless, but I did find a track player.

So far, rather disappointing.

3. Turn onto State Route 3, go east and south to Iowa Falls: an art center displaying local artists, a huge antique store, a restaurant serving old fashioned phosphates, a Chinese restaurant, and more of the cutest guys on Earth.

Oddly, Iowa Falls has a college, Ellsworth Community College, with a wrestling team, but no high school.

For beefcake photos, I had to do a search for a local, then check out his Facebook friends.

Not great.  Craggy, tattooed, scary-looking guys smoking cigars and drinking out of coconuts.

And the memes.  One of the scary guys had memes saying:
 "Kneel for America!"
"When the time comes, I will give my life to defend America from Islam!"
"One nation under God, not Allah!"

I can only imagine his opinion of LGBT people.

Ok, I don't need to imagine with this hottie:
"Male and female.  The end."

Brr.  Let's move on.

4. Go south from Iowa Falls, then east on Highway 20, a long stretch with no rest stops except for The Mill, a windmill-shaped travel store with weird tacky gifts, a Godfather's Pizza, and a Subway.  More cute guys.  Its address is Holland, Iowa, a small town about 5 miles away, but the nearest town is actually Dike.

Dike, Iowa, has no dike, or any large body of water nearby; it was named for the railroad engineer Thomas Dike.  But it does have a high school, a public library, a restaurant called Slice, two churches, and a town motto: "A Slice of Iowa."  It features Watermelon Days in August and a "Razzle Dazzle" festival just after Thanksgiving.

The only photo from Dike that even started to display a physique was this one from a professional photographer, depicting a redheaded cross-country runner.

5. Continue on Highway 20 to Waterloo, then south to Cedar Rapids, 100 miles north of Rock Island, the farthest edge of my world when I was a kid.  From here it's all intimately familiar. 

I guess the cutest guys in the world are just passing through.