Des Moines

We drove through downtown Des Moines. There wasn’t much to see being the time of year (winter) but I did notice several Italian groceries and restaurants which indicated a sizable Italian population. I hope that any future visits are more productive.

boring

That’s their marketing line – city of skywalks. I visited a friend and the art museum where he worked. It was a great museum. He had a gorgeous home for low rent. We ate at some nice restaurants. And we walked the skywalks. Except for seeing Geoff, it could have been anywhere else.

Seems a cool enough city, except nearly everything’s closed on Sundays.

Went for business, but spent most of my free time in the East Village. Enjoying some fabulous food and shopping there.

Three words: Iowa State Fair. Go with fun people. Slather on sunscreen. Pace yourselves. See everything. Eat everything.

Consume: Dutch letter. Fresh lemonade. Homemade potato chips. Root beer float. Pork chop on a stick. Elephant ear. Potato skins. Ice cream. Chicken on a stick. Margarita. Deep-fried everything on a stick.

Check out: Chilled Butter Cow. Gleaming tractors. Beribboned produce. Prize-winning baked goods. Purposely hideous cakes. Eye-catching photographs. Invigorating live music. Huge cattle. Beautiful horses. Fancy chickens. Cuddly bunnies. Phony and authentic antiques. Gussied-up mobile homes. Scary rides. Not-so-scary rides. Lots of happy people enjoying life.

End of day: Drag your tired, stuffed, sweaty, sun-blotched body toward the shuttle buses. Buy a memento or two. Vow to return and do it all over again.

Spent a week here for work. Nice, very hot in August. Loud bugs at night??? Very small airport in West Des Moines.

I attended Drake University, living in Des Moines for 4 years. It’s a lovely, friendly city, with all sorts of things to do. The capital building is beautiful and the art museum is great. A lot of people think Iowa has nothing to offer but corn and cows and it’s simply not true! It’s a great state, and the capital city is a wonderful place to visit.

If you go, be sure to get one of the enormous cinnamon rolls from the Drake Diner, near the university campus! A walk through the campus grounds after a big breakfast is a perfect way to spend a fall day.

Well, actually Altoona.

Des Moines is a cute little-break-from-farming type of city.

I don’t know a lot about farming though. Grew up in the ‘burbs!

When I worked for Mayflower, I had a boss that lived on a farm just north of Des Moines. We were stuck there over 4th of July week-end. It was boring, and there were tons of grasshoppers. Iowa 80 truckstop is a good place to get 2-inch thick pork chops, though!