Sometimes you have a day in which you go for a long drive, and you stop at an antique mall in a little town to stretch your legs, you get out of the car and look around, and kitty corner from you is a building so striking, that you stop and think, "Good God, that looks like a Louis Sullivan building." And THAT, my friends, is a damned good day.
We'd been driving for several hours, and as we wandered into Clinton, Iowa, there was an antique mall on the corner, so we decided to get out and look around. We got out and I kind of stood there stretching a bit, and Ernie commented that someone else was taking pictures across the way. I looked over at the photographer, and then looked at what he was focusing on. My brain kind went 'phhht' and I thought to myself that it looked like Louis Sullivan. I quickly googled it and found I was right, which I would have also seen when I got close enough to read the National Historic Landmark plaques on it. Good God, we'd stumbled onto a stunning Louis Sullivan building. I was absolutely giddy.
It's the old Van Allen Department Store, and just crazily beautiful. It's as though the columns just explode at the top. Utterly gorgeous…made my day.
Onward.