Visiting Backbone State Park

Wow! Another of the 100 Places in Iowa, Backbone State Park is an amazingly different piece of Iowa. Our oldest state park, Backbone features a narrow ridge of stone that drops sharply to the river below. As Linda and I were climbing around, I was a little more cautious than usual because of the severity of the drop. The image in the upper left shows Linda ahead of me on the trail; in that image, Linda has just passed a point where the ridge is effectively no wider than the path. In the image on the right, you can see the river and trees below. Reading from the Wikipedia entry, I learned that this area is part of the Driftless Area, unaffected by glaciers in the last Ice Age. It's a very interesting place to visit.