Home Town Beefcake #2: The Iowa Side

The Quad Cities is the cluster of four major cities and dozens of towns and villages on the Mississippi River between Illinois and Iowa.  I grew up in Rock Island on the Illinois side, and didn't have much cause to cross the river into Iowa: an occasional visit to the Putnam Museum or North Park Mall,  or the shops in East Davenport. But I still have fond memories of those occasional visits, so I'm searching for contemporary beefcake.

1.  The biggest city on the Iowa side is Davenport, population 100,000, like two Rock Islands.  Big, brash, urban.  My first boyfriend's apartment.  The Chinese restaurant where I got a sausage sighting.  The adult bookstore where I used to buy porn magazines.










In high school we used to sneak across the river to watch the teens work out at the Davenport Boxing Club, which has been training young boxers since 1924.










Davenport has four public high schools with unimaginative names West, East, Central, and North.  Rocky High didn't play against them, since they were in another universe, but occasionally we had a friend who moved across the river and invited us over.

There were also two parochial high schools, Assumption Catholic and Christ Lutheran.











And St. Ambrose College, where my sister attended for one semester.  It's the alma mater of Seth Rollins, whoever that is.

















2. East of Davenport is the last of the official Quad Cities, Bettendorf, which I've already covered in a post.  See The Betten-Dorks of Bettendorf, Iowa


Then come some villages on the Mississippi: Riverdale, LeClaire, and Port Byron, where the students all go to Pleasant Valley High.  Home of the Spartans.


















3. If you continue northeast along the Mississippi, you will pass through Princeton, Comanche, and finally Clinton, known for its interesting Maine-style lighthouse.










And Clinton High School, home of the Fighting Bumble Bees.  It doesn't offer wrestling or swimming, but it does have shooting.  These teenagers swim for the YMCA.














4. West/southwest along the Mississippi, you pass through more small river and farming villages, such as Blue Grass, Buffalo, Wilton, and Walcott.  The World's Largest Truck Stop, on Interstate 80 in Walcott, is a favorite tourist attraction, a trucker's paradise with shopping, a food court, a doctor and dentist on staff, hotel rooms, truck car washes, and a museum of trucking.  Good for beefcake watching.







5. Even farther south/west on the Mississippi, 30 miles from Davenport, Muscatine rarely petitions to be included in the Quad Cities.  But it was so close that their events were reported in the Davenport Times-Democrat and the Rock Island Argus. 

Like the high school swim team winning awards.






6. North of Davenport is mostly cornfields, but there are a few villages, Eldridge, Long Grove, and Parkview.  The teenagers all go to North Scott High.