Over the summer I had planned a week-long excursion to visit a friend of mine while she visited and stayed at her family's farm in the heart of Iowa. Little did I know it would be the height of the gas price hike and the start of a 2-week heat wave across the middle of the country.

Iowa is hillier than I remember. When I was 12 and again at 24, It was the state I drove through to get west. However, I spent time enjoying the quiet beauty of this state and the sprawling vastness of the various farms, that dot the landscape. Don't sleep on what this state has to offer; from the quirky to the iconic.