Keeping the speedometer at or below Richard Nixon's limit of fifty-five allowed for a physical and mental down shift from my normal Chicago tollway bob and weaves. My slow motion instant play of a day wound through both paved and gravel paths cutting hundreds of thousand of nearly harvest ready countryside. After my stop and chat with the retired Ohio couple near the tree in the road I headed forty-five miles south to the Pizza Ranch server's recommendation of the Vallisca Axe Murder House.
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| A delightful little pig welcomed me into what was a medium village with a creepy vibe that I couldn't put my sausage finger on. When I created the Max Allan Collins Film Expo in Waterloo, IA a swell team of filmmakers entered a documentary to be screened about a ninety-five year unsolved axe murder. |
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| On 9 June, 1912 eight people were bludgeoned to death in their beds with the family axe. Several men were accused, one was acquitted and none were found guilty - leaving the case unsolved. The garage is a three dimensional guestbook for visitors who take the day and overnight tours are available through the official Vallisca Axe Murder website. The image above is a rendering of the home as it was that bloody night along with disturbing portraits of the victims. |
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| Since my first mile into Operation Decompression I promised myself that no admission fees would be paid, all experiences were to be free as the pollen filled air running through my wheezy lungs. Sadly the axe house tours were $10, so I ended up circling the house and garage with an overwhelming sense dark weight on my shoulders. Yeah, yeah, I know that it sounds ridiculous, but this place was just that fucking creepy. |
After punching the ATM's pedal to the fifty-five mile per hour metal I got the hell out of Vallisca to meet Leo at Atlantic's Mexican restaurant, the one with free WiFi and hot wings. While I was scarfing deep fried chimichangas drowned in queso, Patrick Kolts texted me about joining him and his friends Casey, Molly and Carolyne for a bonfire and tour of 400 sq ft tree house perched thirty feet above a lake. Before my treetop experience Leo and I skipped the fried ice cream and decided to search for the world's largest bicycle in Lewis, IA.
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| RAGBRAI is an insane bike ride across Iowa that begins with a back tire dip in the Missouri River and ends at the mighty Mississippi River. Each year the route changes allowing for different batches of towns to reap the monetary benefits of hosting 23,000 drunken two-wheel party hounds. |
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| This year the lucky burg of Lewis commemorated the onslaught with a sixteen foot tall, thirty-two foot wide one speed hipster dream bike. The only thing missing was a sixty-four foot tall douche sporting size 170 skinny jeans with sixty-two inch cuffs. |
With my last Central Iowa oddities in the hopper I was off to experience the grandest treehouse in the Midwest and matching hardwood fire. Pitch dark peppered with vertigo inducing constellations made the winding hike through meadows and timber all the better. The view of mist rolling in on the lake's surface from the treehouse would have made any thriller film's cinematographer jealous.
After a full evening of campfire songs, peach pockets (fresh peaches, brown sugar and marshmallows wrapped in foil - tossed onto the coals) and crazy nordic folktales the girls headed back to the warmth of home. An hour or so later the fellas and I jumped into a wide aluminum canoe and returned to shore. Patrick sat in the bow with a lantern raised high, Captain Casey paddled in the stern and I in the amidship without being able to see anything beyond the oars. My fear of water mixed with the freezing air and butterfly excitement reminded me of sitting at the top of a killer water slide as a husky eleven year old.
I could not have imagined a grander way of ending my time in Central Iowa. It was nearly three in the morning when I pulled up to Leo's and around four when I was packed and prepped for my morning commute to Western Iowa / Eastern Nebraska.
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