Best Western Holiday Lodge

Clear Lake discovered

by DPando

I got Clear Lake by fortune.. that day i woke up in Chicago, i knew was my last day in the windy city and i should wake up early to move faster towards west. Relying on my GPS i hoped to drive to the highway 90 but no way it drove me across Iowa where i hadnt any intention to visit.. but by luk or misfortune i discovered gorgeous places that nowadays i still remember

Sunset time

by DPando

Such a good place to enjoy a sunset. the place was as an oasis of peace with good vibrations, warm but not hot and a soft breeze in the air.. After the sun dropped i took again the car towards north to I90W where i slept in a rest area next to Blue earth town

Last Stop for Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens

by atufft

"Cerro Gordo County, Mason City and Clear Lake"

Mason City, population about 30,000 is the largest town in north central Iowa, offering travelers a noteable concentration of "Prairie School" architecture, the most famous building of which is a hotel design by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1909. About 10 miles north of Mason City, once connected by the historic 19th century electric Iowa Traction Railroad, which is still in some operation today, is located a large spring fed lake, known as Clear Lake. The town beside the lake has some 8,000 residents, with about double that number in summer. The lakeside cottages are summer homes for folks as far away as Chicago and Des Moines. I stumbled upon the town of Clear Lake when I stopped my truck at the Pilot Truck stop at the junction of I-35 and IA-122. The lake and town aren't very evident from the interstate freeway, and it's collection of corporate junk food restaurants. Looking for a locally owned restaurant for breakfast, I decided to walk the mile into town, so it was completely by accident that I discovered the beauty of this sizeable lake and the town beside it. It was also completely by accident that this was the last stop for musical idols Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens. After a performance at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, the musical band's private aircraft crashed into a field nearby town. This event is memorialized in town by a variety of ways.

The images for these pages were taken with my 2mpx iPhone camera, so please excuse the less than ideal technical results.