I found my way up to Iowa City, well okay actually I was staying in Coralville but whenever we ventured out to enjoy the town Iowa City was where it happened. I got to explore the university, help a friend move through bribes of beer and wine and enjoy a few visits to the Ped Mall which is not your ordinary mall. Who knew that after traveling through miles of corn you could stumble onto something other than a tractor.
The University of Iowa held a nice campus where some guy with mad frisbee skills hurled (or whatever it is you do with a frisbee) across a field not filled with corn and landed them between two goals. I guess he was practicing for a game called Frisbee golf, I must learn more of this game. There was also a building called a Pentacrest or so I was led to believe but Wikipedia sorted out why this four sided building was called the Pentacrest.
Where there are college students there must be bars, and the Ped Mall was the home for this little section of town. Along with some ‘local’ friends (both out of staters who must have never watched Children of the Corn) we ventured through this mall of sorts. We hit a country themed bar with sickles and saddles and other cowboyesque things on the wall and retro rockers staring down the 3 of us who obviously looked out of place. Cautionary note, I actually don’t get weird looks walking into bars believe it or not but that could be because I stand well below eye level. After a quick drink we headed out to a second floor hole in the wall bar called One Eyed Jake’s where the bartender informed us he just got fired. Seems they were closing the bar down and everyone was getting laid off at the end of the week. He took this news fairly well seeing that he was in a celebrate good times kind of mood because the shots started flowing for little or no cost and he matched us on every one. I hunkered down because I could tell this was a start of a good night, little did I know that it was the end! They close down the bars by 1:30 which means last call is at like 1:00 am, now I thought 2:15 in Ohio and Michigan was bad but this made me a sad little monkey.
I can’t speak on too many of the bars at this Ped Mall but from what I did explore It was all fun for me with plenty of options centrally located and barred off from under-age patrons on the weekends. On top of that there are food vendors who wait outside to help you soak up some of that alcohol.
I wish I could speak more about the town but it really is geared towards the college community and other than my exploration of the campus, the small down town and Corallville there was little to entertain me other than a fun night on the town.
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