Iowa: A Pleasant Surprise

Not that I have historically spent a lot of time thinking about Iowa, but, when the state crossed my mind, I never really considered it much of a destination.  Rightly or (more likely) wrongly, I always kind of lumped it in with how I pictured Nebraska and Kansas:  unrelenting, flat farmland.  I now know that this isn’t true about Kansas, I still don’t know if it’s true about Nebraska, but it’s absolutely not true about Iowa.

Thus, my title…Iowa proved to be a pleasant surprise.  We saw lots of rolling hills and scenic vistas.  There was a lot of farmland, but it was very pretty country.

We woke up on Sunday morning, and the kids wanted to swim.  We had gotten there too late the previous day; plus, the hotel was packed full of youth baseball players, all in town for a big tournament, so the pool had been covered up, anyway.  So, we grabbed breakfast, beating the baseball rush, and the kids went swimming.

Meanwhile, Jeff and I had looked up the possibility of attending church before we left Des Moines and found one about ten minutes from our hotel called the Downtown Church.  The website made it sound a lot like the church we currently attend, so we decided to give it a shot.  We packed and loaded and headed downtown.

The Downtown Church ended up being exactly like our church, except for the denomination.  It, too, is a multi-site campus with a contemporary worship service.  The kids really liked the chocolate cake that was available, and Jeremy went without too much protest to the nursery.  The older two kids sat with us, and we later discovered that this particular site (there are two other plus the main campus) does most of its business at a Saturday night service.

In any case, it was neat to see how another denomination was doing what we are doing.  When it ended, we grabbed Jeremy and headed out of Des Moines.

Our first stop was about 30 minutes away…the bridges of Madison County, made famous by Robert James Waller’s book and Clint Eastwood’s movie.  It has been years since I’ve either read the book or seen the movie, and I wasn’t a huge fan of either one.  (Glorified stories of adultery don’t really float my boat.)  However, the bridges are actual landmarks and were pretty neat to see.  At least, the first few were.  After that, we were ready to move on!

Here is the Imes Bridge.

Here is the Hollowell Bridge.

And here is the Cutler-Donahoe Bridge.

As you might can tell, same bridge, different setting.  We did see bird nests and wasp nests, and one actually had water underneath it, so the bridges were scenic.  They just weren’t very varied.  We decided to take a pass on the remaining three.

In between the first and second bridges, we took a little stop at an Iowa winery called Two Saints.  Since our time in France, Jeff and I have really enjoyed stopping at wineries in the different states that we visit and sampling local wines.  Our kids, on the other hand, absolutely detest wineries and are very vocal about it. After all, as Charlotte put it, “Those are no fun for us.”  Wah, wah.

On this particular occasion, we simply reminded them of all the fun stuff that we were doing later on in the trip and that the least they could do was indulge us in a little wine tasting.  (I’m not above using guilt on certain occasions.)

Charlotte, in particular, still wasn’t happy about it but finally was shamed into watching her little destructor, I mean, brother while we tasted.

Aside from the fact we found a few bottles to take home from here, we also discovered during this stop a major flaw in our itinerary.  As we were chatting with the vineyard owner, she asked what our plans were.  We told her that we were headed into Omaha to spend a few hours, and she looked at us as if we were nuts.

Evidently, quite unbeknownst to us, the Missouri River had been flooding for the last couple weeks.  We knew about the floods up in Minot, North Dakota, but had no idea about those further south.  As a result, the interstate heading into Nebraska was completely shut down with massive detours north and south to get into Omaha.

Our plans for a quick jaunt into Nebraska went down in flames!

After the winery and bridges, we headed into the town of Winterset, home of the bridges, and grabbed lunch at one of the few restaurants that was open, a Mexican place on the square.  Then, with our newly formulated plan, we set out for South Dakota, mightily hoping that the interstate east of the river would stay open.

The roads were open; however, we saw a lot of this. 

Those are sandbags on either side of the interstate.  It was kind of creepy driving through them.  When we had the chance, we hopped over into Nebraska long enough to take a picture and then floored it for Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where we arrived at the Country Inn and Suites around 7:00.

As this was a Sunday evening, our one attempt for supper at a nearby diner failed, so Jeff went out for Subway while the kids tried out the pool at this hotel.  Then, it was off to bed.

Tomorrow…the Fourth of July, Dakotas-style!