Iowa Land

Although many people who haven't been to Iowa believe the land here is flat, in truth this state has quite variable terrain. The northern part is indeed flat, where the Wisconsin glacier tens of thousands of years ago crushed the rolling hills. But the western border, the Missouri River valley, has great bluffs of loess (an unusual kind of soil), and the southern counties from roughlyt Council Bluffs east to the Mississippi are hilly. 

"Toward Coon Rapids," oil on canvas, 18x24

In "Toward Coon Rapids" the land looks like rolling folds of a blanket--a verdant, undulating cover of the earth.