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Your guide to Iowa’s theme park season

May 15, 2026

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🗣️ It’s Friday. You can officially start voting early in the primary election (more on that below).

Time for Only in Iowa, this week’s photo, Positively Iowa, and news you can use.

The primary election—aka, voters registered with a recognized political party picking their party’s candidates to run in the November general election, which includes candidates for Iowa governor, and US Senate and House—is Tuesday, June 2. Find out if you’re registered to vote here, then get registered to vote here, then fill out an absentee ballot request (by Monday!) or find your in-person polling place here.
It’s bird migration season! Send me your photos!
Iowa is not ready for a disease, a disaster, or a bioterrorism attack, according to a new report. Maybe it’s time to get on that?
The latest billboard is coming to Des Moines—have you spotted it yet?
A Dubuque Redditor is looking for legalization enthusiasts in the area to start up a NORML chapter.
Speaking of Iowa Reddit, here are the “hidden gem” places to eat and drink in Cedar Rapids, and the “overrated” places to eat in Iowa City.

Amie Rivers

Newsletter Editor, Iowa Starting Line

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Iowa amusement and water parks: Opening dates, prices, and more

Discover all the fun awaiting you at Iowa’s top amusement parks. (Molly the Cat/Unsplash)

Adventureland and Arnolds Park both open for the season this weekend, and other outdoor theme and water parks around Iowa are soon to follow.

Check out which dates everyone’s opening up this year, plus ticket prices and more.

🎢 Get ready for summer →

Want your community event promoted for FREE to Iowa Starting Line’s 20,000+ newsletter audience? Email me to find out how!

🐶 These are “Cooper the doodle and Luna the lab,” who belongs to reader Rene C.

“They are simply the best dogs ever!” Rene writes.

The matching hats, OMG!

Send me your pet photos!

U of Iowa’s Pulitzer Prize winners: A couple of graduates from the University of Iowa won Pulitzer Prizes last week: Yiyun Li (MFA, Nonfiction and MFA, Iowa Writers’ Workshop) won the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction; and Daniel Kraus (BA, Comm Studies) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Another two were finalists for a Prize: Torrey Peters (MFA, Nonfiction Writing Program) was a finalist for Fiction, and Scott Anderson (MFA, Iowa Writers’ Workshop) was a finalist for History.

Tribal artifacts returned to Meskwaki: Over 200 culturally important Meskwaki items, all taken by a single collector in the late 1800s, were returned to the Iowa tribe on April 28 and will be housed in the Meskwaki Museum in Tama. The tribe noted that it made history as the largest collection of items returned to them in a single day — and from a single collection—and that they came back after 150 years in remarkable condition.

Saved from a house fire: A Johnston 17-year-old, his father, and a nearby delivery driver saved a woman from a house fire on Sunday. “I saw how big it got; it was spreading on the walls,” Marek Dessimoz, the teenager, said. “I just did what I thought was right.”