Today is Valentine’s Day. So I need to wish everyone a Happy Valentine’s Day, whether they celebrate it or not!
HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!
I hope your Valentine’s Day was either as amazing as you wanted it to be or sucked way less than you thought it would!
Today is Valentine’s Day and I can think of no city that just effuses love like The Dirty, Fort Dodge, Iowa. Back in June I took kind of a rando road trip. I didn’t really have any kind of grand plan. I think I just needed to get out of town. I couldn’t think of any place to really go. Which is dumb on my part because in my yearly Ledger at the beginning of the year I write down a bucket list of places in Iowa I want to make sure to visit that year. I usually don’t even get to 50% of the places on my list and on this mini road trip, I didn’t even get near any of them. My ultimate destination ended up being Humboldt. On the way there, I passed through Fort Dodge.
I stopped and did a little street photography in downtown Fort Dodge. Which is a combination of abandoned and occupied and often it is difficult to tell which is which.
Here are my pictures of my time I spent in The Dirty:
I legit thought this dog was going to attack me. It ran at me with malice in its heart, but stopped when it realized who I was.
I work with a guy who constantly announces he is about to give a “hot take” and then gives the most milquetoast opinion. So I’m not going to claim that this is a hot take, but “Brass Monkey” is the worst Beastie Boys song. There isn’t a close second.
This is true and probably in Fort Dodge on the daily.
Here is an example of the “in use or abandoned”? I don’t know. It gives off both vibes simultaneously and also manages to be both cool looking and ugly at the same time.
I wanted to throw something in this dumpster so bad. Don’t tell me what to do sign!
I wonder if this school is going to cancel a 100 year old orchestra program and then turn around and buy a $175,000 dollar scoreboard for the football team too.
I used to visit this church on occasion when Andrea was the Pastor. I wonder what this program is all about.
I love almost all murals (unless they overtly support fascists and authoritarianism and pedophiles) and what I’m about to say doesn’t imply that I also don’t love this mural…
The no faces, was certainly a choice… but what the heck race is the woman and the baby supposed to be?
I’m going with aliens. And that also goes for the guy in the suit and the woman at the end.
#FACTS
I’m going with… this one is abandoned.
Fort Dodge does actually have a pretty cool art museum.
After I left Fort Dodge, I headed up 169 to Humboldt. But that is a collection of photos for another day. Or maybe even other days.
That’s cool with the football sign is where we had the district-wide Christmas concert when I was in first grade. I was one of about five kids who were taught how to do sign language for the group performance of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” I also went to daycare in the basement of a church across the street and lived about two blocks away.
My bio dad used to steal crap from the drugstore with me in tow.
These are not questions you asked, just memories you brought back!
Then you will be excited that this trip will come back through Fort Dodge, although briefly.
I’m not sure you really lived in Fort Dodge though, since not one of your memories involved Taco Tico.
I hope your Bio Dad also taught you how to steal from the drugstore. Cause if he didn’t, that is a parenting fail.
My grandma was very country club. Although she loved Taco Tico, she would’ve been scandalized at us all going to eat there after a Christmas concert. We probably went to Dirty Nelly’s or Community Tap for pizza. The former is gone and the latter has gone in the toilet.
For as often as he did it, my bio Dad was shockingly terrible at stealing. I remember we’re going to a gas station with him once when we were staying overnight with him, and he stole Bazooka Joe bubblegum. He was not covert at all. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you the story about him going into the grocery store and ripping open boxes of Alpha-Bits to steal the baseball cards inside before throwing them on the shelves; I had a newspaper clipping about that one for a long time before I lost it.