ART SCULPTURE IN ROCK ISLAND, ILLINOIS

The QUAD CITIES, as this part of the country is known, consists of four communities along the Mississippi River.
On the east side of the river are the communities of Moline and Rock Island, Illinois. On the west side are the communities of Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa.

Rock Island, especially is an art influenced community. There are many free standing pieces of sculpture all around town, like the frog one in the above picture.

TRAIN FESTIVAL 2011 is what drew us to this area of the US.
Since our three husbands, whom I spoke about in the previous blog are all train fans and go to great lengths to see them, hence our trip to IL/IA.

After checking into our hotel we headed downtown to locate our places of interests for the following day.
As usual we got lost, a lot, until we acclimated ourselves and realized Moline and Rock Island were two different distinct areas.

After some meandering we were hungry. Someone mentioned there was a restaurant named Johnny's Italian Steakhouse. It sounded good so off we went to find it.

Our travel took us past the huge John Deere Compound. Moline has been home to John Deere & Company for more than 170 years. Their world headquarters and their largest combine factory are located in Moline. Many of their other complexes are situated in and around the Quad Cities.

The Mississippi River is conducive to industry and there is much of it located along that stretch of river, including the largest Alcoa Aluminum plant, on the western side.
Besides the river the railroad helps to move the freight.

Now back to the restaurant.We found Johnny's Italian Steakhouse in part of the John Deere complex . . . I guess that's why it's called Johnny's.

After a delicious dinner, I had scrumptious chicken picatta, we headed back to the hotel for a good night's rest because the following day was sure to be busy.

Check in for the next blog about those exploits.