US Highway 34 
(and much more)

U.S. Highway 34 that cuts through the southern part of Iowa is nondescript to some people, unexceptional to others, and downright dull to still others. Portions of it are now four lanes, which make it a handy bypass around such towns as Fairfield and Mt. Pleasant, freeing travelers of the downtown, stop-and-go traffic, but perhaps even adding to the highway’s featurelessness and colorlessness.

Few people realize, in our age of interstate highways, that Highway 34 runs coast-to-coast and was once a main thoroughfare for people (and the military) traveling cross country. When we lived in Colorado, and were about to move to Iowa, I noticed with interest that the Highway 34 that went through Loveland and Greeley, Colorado was the same Highway 34 bisecting Mt. Pleasant. Hmmm. On one occasion, not being in such a hurry, I actually made the trip on 34, thus avoiding the I-80 gig, and seeing so much more of rural America. I meandered through the tiny Nebraska towns with their giant elevators, railroad depots, and seed-corn-cap-filled coffee shops, noting with interest that Highway 34, in many places, was a stone’s throw from Big Brother I-80. Double bottoms rolled and roared, scaring the bejesus out of vacationing Disney World goers, just a few hundred feet from a world almost forgotten and rapidly disappearing. Mixed in with the seed-corn caps, were cowboy hats, sparking the imagination. There are still real, live ropers out there.

Now that Highway 34 is taking on the appearance of a high-speed interstate, it is in danger of slipping into the rapid-transit, non-noticed mode, elevating (or de-elevating) it to the nameless, mindless world of get-to-where-you’re-going-as-fast-as-you-can.

However, if one is observant to detail, and actually looks around between cell-phone calls, Highway 34 still has a lot to offer. Traveling west to east, between Ottumwa and Fairfield, you may notice a plywood sign rigged onto a farm wagon. “NO EMINENT DOMAIN” it proclaims loudly. Story has it that a farmer, Tom Krumboltz, not happy about Hwy 34 bisecting his farm ground, exercised his First Amendment rights and erected the sign. (If it had been me, I’m not sure I could have spelled “Eminent Domain” right.)