In Which I Live a Grant Wood Painting

Summer in Iowa is everything that a Midwestern summer should be. The sun shines bright every single day and the sky stretches out in smooth planes of blue, broken by fluffy nebulous clouds that skitter swiftly across the horizon. The downtown of Iowa City is idyllic, with narrow brick buildings snuggled close together along the main streets. There are few buildings taller that five or six stories. The gold-leafed dome of the Old Capitol Building rises, the glowing beacon of the city, above the banks of the river. There is a bagpipe playing somewhere in the distance, as I sprawl against the base of a Corinthian column that graces one of the glaringly neo-classical buildings on the Pentacrest. It is refreshingly bucolic, if that is possible.