Land is to Iowa as water is to the sea, the one essential thing.
I flew low, about 3,000 feet above the soil, because I wanted to see this wide state pass close beneath. On a warm day from so low you can sometimes smell the earth. Mile by mile I watched corn and roads, corn and farmsteads, corn and soybeans, towns and land pass beneath. I looked for the ragged little square of Hayden Prairie near Lime Springs, but missed it in the expanse. There is nothing bold about Iowa's land - except its extent.