Last but not least, our travels took us to “Plow in the Oak” park in Exira Iowa where we witnessed a tree that had eaten a plow. Yes, that is correct. The tree had eaten a plow. The tree is a burr oak and popular legend is that a farmer left his plow leaning against a tree when he went off to fight in the civil war. Over time, this tree grew around the plow and today you can only see the handle and the blade of the plow sticking out of the tree on either end.

The interesting tale here is that while we were planning our Roadside America adventures for the day, I kept telling Emily that we were going to see a ‘Tree that had eaten a plow”. I explained that over a very long period of time, a tree would grow around things that it could not move. When we finally arrived at the park we showed Emily the plow and sure enough the tree had eaten the plow. I then asked Emily to go stand next to the tree so I could get a photo. She looked at me like I had just asked her jump into a pit of rattlesnakes. She slowly edged her way to the tree keeping a wary eye on it the whole time. Soon as the camera had snapped the picture … zip … she shot away from that tree like a rocket.

People always say you can learn a lot from a kid. I think I’m on Emily’s side on this one. You shouldn’t really trust trees that eat things.

Our next stop on Roadside America was the “Tree in the Middle of the Road“. This landmark is located near Anita Iowa and is actually near the interstate where I travel every time I return to Iowa to visit family. The directions on the website were very good as long as you were trying to find the location of this tree starting from the interstate. We were not. Armed with our Garmin Nuvi GPS we set off to find this tree.

Due to the outrageous gas prices as of late, we managed to cram our family into our “Blueberry” for this road trip. That would be our 30 mpg city car also known as a Scion Xa. This little guy has never seen gravel roads in it’s entire life and I have to say I think we scared it a little bit with this adventure.

I was not really sure how to setup the GPS to create a path that would take us by all of the roadside attractions we wanted to see, so after a while we threw caution to the wind and we decided the tree was our goal. When the pavement ended, we had a choice to make. The street signs said that we were in the 200 block. Now mind you, I have learned that a ‘block’ in the country is really a mile so if you are on 200th street and you want to get to 350th street you have about 30 miles to go. Oops. Thirty miles on gravel road in the blueberry is not advised and the drive was a bit freaky at times.

Finally, after about 15 miles or so, we decided it was time to give up and head to the next attraction. We just didn’t know where the tree was. Just as we were about to bail, we saw a sign at a T intersection. A picture of a large tree, an arrow pointing left and a reassuring ‘9 miles’ was scrolled across the bottom. Our exit was to the right and it was time to make a decision. Of course we went for it. It was not long until we found the next sign that said ’straight ahead ‘6 miles’. Yea, we are almost there. Then we came to another T intersection. No sign this time to help us on our way. So we tried left and we headed off into the wild country side.

About this time I started playing with the GPS again and using the ‘address’ that we printed off from the Roadside America website, I was able to locate the intersection where the tree was located. We were near it, but oddly not really all that close. A few more false turns and we finally found this elusive beast!

This tree is worth the drive. I have not seen many trees in my life time that are this impressive. It was just massive! The legend goes that in 1850 a surveyor cut a cottonwood sprout to use as a walking stick. He later plated the stick to mark the corner of this intersection where it still grows today right in the middle of the intersection.

No, this is not a fairy tale, but I tell you that it is true. I have seen this with my own eyes and have lived to tell the tale. This monstrosity towers over 10 feet tall and rotates at a fair clip clockwise. For those of you that do not know my history, I feel I must let you in on a little joke. This oddity of nature is actually part of a billboard inviting travelers on highway 141 in Iowa to stop by and enjoy the small town of Coon Rapids Iowa. It’s funny because I grew up in this little town for eighteen years of my life and this rotating ear of corn has been old hat for a very long time.

Recently, Mary has found a website called ‘roadsideamerica.com‘ that features such oddities all over America. Mary was quite excited about the idea of stopping and seeing some of the crazy items we have seen on the list. As you can imagine I experienced a range of different emotions when I found my hometown on the list for their ten foot tall rotating ear of corn. This was an oddity? A freak of roadside America? Well, despite the fact I had seen it for almost eighteen years of my life when I thought about it, hell yea it’s a roadside treat. You won’t see that anywhere else.

So, where better than to kick off our quest to experience roadside America other than my hometown of Coon Rapids Iowa. Sure enough, the rotating ear of corn was just where I left it back in 1992 and it was still chugging along. You had better move quick on this one, the rumor mill in town says they are thinking of ‘modernizing’ the entrance into town and the rotating ear of corn may be on the move. Catch it while you can!