Post Office, Independence, IA

    I am headed to Iowa City for the weekend to see an Iowa Hawkeye football game. They are playing Illinois, the homecoming game. I made three stops along the way, two of them were at Casey's General Stores locations- in Clear Lake and Cedar Falls. The third was in a town that I don't think I had visited before, Independence. I was able to find the post office in that town. It was of interest to me as I had heard there was some very nice WPA artwork there. There was mention of it on the Postal Service website. As a history major I liked studying this era, the Great Depression, and its work relief programs. I got some pictures inside the post office and outside as well. The artwork was of a mailman on his route in what looked like winter weather. It reminded me of the mission statement given about how virtually nothing would prevent them from delivering the mail. The post office was in the middle of town, no surprise there. I went to a Burger King first to ask for directions, just had to go back across the river to get there, it was just a little off the main road. When I found the artwork I said 'that is so cool!' and I am thankful I got all of my pictures without any interference. The people around me carried on doing their business. I also spotted somebody fishing in the river as I was about to leave town, probably Amish there was a horse and buggy nearby. I did get a picture of this as well but kept my distance to make it look less obvious as to what I was doing. Thank you for the zoom lens! I liked how it wasn't too far off of my normal path. When I left town I went south until the road ran into I-380, as I recall no more than 20 miles, and went on the rest of the way to Iowa City. I made it to Schaeffer Hall and found the office for the History Department and confirmed there was no reception this year. I did ask about the writing I contributed to, I was told they would have to research it. The homecoming parade started shortly thereafter, and before then I went to Iowa Book and Supply and got some Hawkeye socks. It looked like former wrestling coach Dan Gable was doing a book signing while there. After the parade I did mill around a little downtown, first going to Panchero's for a burrito. Then it was on to the nearby Old Capitol Mall and to the CVS store, where I got some Charlie Brown candy promoting the upcoming movie. I continued on to the pedestrian mall and found the benchmark art series much like last year, thinking of my 'Ohio friend' who liked saying milestone more than benchmark. My hotel was out of town, in Cedar Rapids, and I got a Heineken beer at the nearby Casey's and was drinking it while the 10pm news was on.