Iowa

Another history lesson. We spent some time in the Amana Colonies in east central Iowa. The Amanas were a German religious group that believed God spoke to them through a human "prophet". They were driven from Germany in about 1846 during the height of Lutheranism and originally settled in upstate New York. When it got too crowded there they sold out and came to Iowa. They practiced communal living so the set up 7 small villages on the property they had purchased so that everybody was close to the fields they had to work. Each village of had their own store, communal kitchen, barns, brewery (they had more fun than the Mormons), gardens, etc. This picture was the store in High Amana (the town was on a small hill) and the interior was still the way it originally was. In about 1930 they reverted to capitalism and sold all their property except the farms which is still operated by the "Amana Society". There still are many adherents to the Amana religion in the area. They have a large manufacturing plant in the community that makes the Amana refrigeration stuff.

The evening we found ourselves in Grinnell IA which had a very nice fireworks display. I stayed awake long enough to take this picture but it didn't focus very well.