 Yes, that's a big Pokeball behind the AnimeIowa registration desk. Each year the convention creates a paper anime symbol to be smashed to bits after the cosplay: last year a Pikachu, this year the Pokeball. |
 Here's costumer Rob, famous for his Racer X portrayal, leading what looked to be a large Michigan contingent in Cedar Rapids - assuming they were able to get off work. |
 Cedar Rapids has a nice downtown basketball arena and convention center near the banks of the Cedar River, and that's where the convention moved in 2001. You know you're in small-town surroundings... |
 when you look out your hotel window and see a freight train moving by. Downtown train tracks were a sign of progress in the Midwest, and generations of people got used to giving the trains a wide berth. |
That train came from a grain elevator one block north of the convention. The building on the left is the convention center and the highway in the middle is I-380. The grain elevator in the back is the Quaker Oats cereal mill, famed as one of the nation's largest. |
 Slipping southwest from Wisconsin was costuming fan Kayt Robarts, who missed Otakon but arrived at AnimeIowa to tell everyone she's in fine shape and getting ready for an art gallery job. |
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