Our 16th Great Annual Model A Ride Around Iowa will be traveling to Eastern/Central Iowa.  We will leave from Ankeny, IA on August 18th.

The registration fee is $40 per person.  Deadline to register is August 1st.  Send registration fee, names and cell phone number, if different from last year, to: Joe Lamb, 7210 N W 21st St, Ankeny Iowa 50023-9644.  Make checks payable to the Central Iowa Model A Club.

Make your own motel reservations.  We have blocked 35 rooms for the club.  Release date is July 19.  Be sure to state you are in the Central Iowa Model A Club for our negotiated rates.

August 18, Super 8 Motel, Washington, Iowa (319) 653-6621

August 19, Country Inn, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (319) 363-3789

August 20, Holiday Inn Express, Newton Iowa (641) 792-3333

Itinerary is as follows:

Meet at the Burger King in front of Menards on Delaware Avenue in Ankeny.  Driver's meeting is at 7:45am.

August 18 - our first stop will be near Oskaloosa at the Nelson Pioneer Farm. The site of structures from the 1850s include an 1853 brick home, barn, log cabin, one room school, country store, stagecoach stop, blacksmith building and museum featuring farm machinery and many other items of interest. You don’t want to miss Iowa’s only mule cemetery. We will have lunch in Oskaloosa.

August 18 - our second stop will be near Sigourney at the Dumont Museum. Here you will see a vast collection of restored tractors, toys, dolls, pedal cars, horse drawn vehicles and model railroads. Lyle and Helen Dumont are recognized as two of the foremost collectors in the U.S. They built a 24000 square foot building to display their life long collection. They were friends to Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and have a vast collection of their memorabilia. This will be an enjoyable stop with a rare collection of Oliver tractors, garden tractors and single cylinder gas engines.

August 18- We will spend the night in Washington, IA. billed as “the cleanest city in Iowa”. Along the way we will see many Washington County barn quilts. Thursday evenings during the summer feature a farmers market in the picturesque city square, followed by an evening of live local entertainment and an old fashioned municipal band concert. We can enjoy the entertainment after dinner or pick up a snack and take your lawn chair to the square to eat while the bands play.

August 19 - We will start out with a short drive to Kalona for breakfast. Kalona is the largest Amish settlement west of the Mississippi River and is considered the quilt capital of the Midwest. Its newly repaved downtown area will be a pleasant visit for us. The town provides a variety of shops of antiques, quilts, handcrafted items, fabrics and collectables. The Kalona Historical Village has 15 buildings with a train depot, church, cottages,, Wahl Museum, Mennonite Museum, quilt museum and the largest spool cabinet collection in America. We will also have a chance to see the Max-Cast Foundry, the only art foundry not connected with an educational institution. Near town is a furniture shop, whose owner also restores “woodie” station wagons. You will be on your own to wander the town at will for several hours.

August 19 - We will go on to Iowa City for lunch. It has been said that no visit to Iowa City is complete without visiting the Black Angel. Located in Oakland cemetery, this memorial has several legends associated with it. One story says a grieving husband spent his savings to place a white angel over the grave of his wife, only to have it turn black overnight because of her unrevealed infidelity to him. Another story says that anyone who touches the angel will drop dead unless he or she is a virgin. A happier bit of folklore says that you are not a true University of Iowa coed until you have been kissed in the shadow of the angel’s wings. The real story is that is was commissioned by a Bohemian immigrant for the graves of her son and husband, but when it arrived in Iowa City, she refused to pay for it because it was not what she had ordered.. Eventually the court ordered her to pay $5000 to the sculptor and she had it erected in spite of her dislike for it. Does her posture admonish or beckon, forbid or retreat?

August 19 - The Devonian Fossil Gorge was exposed by the flood of 1993 when massive amounts of water spilled over the Coralville Lake dam. Flooding in 2008 further eroded the area below the spillway and swept clean the rocks to better reveal a geologic treasure of ancient seabed filled with thousands of Devonian age fossils.

August 19 - In Cedar Rapids we will tour the Ushers Ferry site to take a step back in time. This historic village is a collection of early 20th century buildings that have been moved here from surrounding towns to show the simple life of 100 years ago. The village was inundated by flood waters three years ago and is being painstakingly rebuilt by volunteers. We will stay Friday night in Cedar Rapids.

August 20 is the annual Amana Colonies Model A Day hosted by the Hawk A Model A Ford Club. The seven historic villages of the Amana Colonies were founded by German immigrants as a religious communal society in 1855. In addition to joining over 100 Model As from seven states, we will have the opportunity to experience the crafts and cultures of the colonies, purchase antiques or hand made crafts and enjoy wonderful food and drinks while visiting with great Model A folks.

August 20 - Later that evening we will drive to Newton for an enjoyable night at a drive in theater. We had this experience two years ago and had so much fun with our tailgate party that we decided to do it again. We will spend Saturday night in Newton.
　
August 21 - We will have a leisurely drive back to Des Moines and say our farewells.