Corn and Thunderstorms - a Visit to Iowa

Ahh, memorial day weekend. Perfect for a trip to the beach, or maybe just a BBQ with family. But that would be too obvious, so we decided to visit the corn growin', gay-marriage havin', beer drinkin', more pigs than people, rain-soaked heartland of America - IOWA!

Our friends from Canada and Sweden were visiting our other friends in Iowa City, so it was a perfect chance to catch-up while also visiting new cities... and of course Paul found some roller coasters nearby. :)

We arrived in Des Moines late Friday night and high-tailed it to downtown for dinner. When in Iowa, we did as the Iowans do and ate Chinese Pizza. Yes, Fong's Pizza piles Americanized Chinese food on top of pizza. It was surprisingly good! We tried the Moo Shu Pork pizza (hoisin bbq, diced pork, mirepoix, cabbage, mozzarella, and green onion, drizzled with Moo Shu sauce) and the Crab Rangoon pizza (crab rangoon base, surimi, green onion, asiago and mozzarella, topped with crispy egg roll strips and sweet chili sauce). The Moo Shu Pork was good, but the Crab Rangoon pizza was excellent. Highly recommended if you're in Des Moines! We also were pleasantly surprised with the Friday night streetlife in the city. Lots of bars and clubs along 4th Street and Court Avenue. But we had a busy day ahead of us, so after dinner we went to our hotel to get some sleep.

Drinking local beer at Fong's Pizza

Moo shu pork pizza

Meanwhile, rain and thunderstorms started to move in. It ended up raining all weekend (we finally saw the sun on Monday when we were leaving the airport), but we didn't let that stop us. Saturday morning we went to Iowa's beautiful State Capitol Building. Possibly because of the bad weather (wishful thinking), there were only two other people on our tour - a couple of nice lesbians from Des Moines. The tour guide was very informative, and we got to see a few behind-the-scenes areas. This is definitely one of our favorite state capitol buildings.

Inside the dome of the Iowa State Capitol.

Library.

Mosaic in the Capitol.

Iowa Senate chamber.

The only state capitol with 5 domes.

Gold dome.

Iowa doesn't mess around!

JUMP!

Downtown Des Moines

There was a slight break in the rain, so we drove over to Adventureland with hopes of getting in a few coaster credits. Again, because of the weather, there were no lines - but most of the rides were still open! We grabbed a quick ride on Underground and Dragon. The woodies weren't open yet, so we got some Dippin Dots (what people in 1987 thought future ice cream would be) and parked ourselves by Outlaw. Luckily they started testing, and we were the first in line. Outlaw is a really fun family woodie. Smooth, with some nice forces, and great PTC trains with just buzzbars. Unfortunately Tornado never opened, and a maintenance person told us it was a mechanical issue, unrelated to the weather. So Paul will just have to visit Iowa again in the future to get the credit.

The Dragon.

Outlaw's curvy first drop.

I warned you there are more pigs than people in Iowa!

From there, we drove east to Andrew and Tori's house in Iowa City. We hung out with them and their adorable kids and pets and had Tori's delicious home-made country fried steak for dinner. Andrew and Paul made a beer run to the amazing John's Grocery, and when Janice and Peter arrived we commenced drinking immediately. Obviously. The group was unsuccessful in their attempt to film Paul patting his head while rubbing his belly.

On Sunday we did some touring around the area, including a stop at Prairie Lights Book Store, some yummy hamburgers for lunch, and a visit to the Natural History Museum, where we learned that large ice age sloths often shake their fist at things. Then we drove out to the Amana Colonies. This is a weird collection of little villages that isn't really Amish and isn't really communist, but they sure do make good cheese. And there's a brewery! We mostly managed to avoid the rain, but did see a decent thunderstorm that evening. Since we started the trip with crazy pizza at Fong's, we had a nice bookend to our journey with Andrew's home-made pizza with equally bizarre ingredient choices for dinner. How about mango chutney, chocolate chips, mozzarella, and sriracha? It was delicious. Like amazingly delicious.

Some Canadian beers Janice and Peter brought. Oh, and Bigfoot.

Andrew and Janice living the High Life.

Mmmm, beers...

General William Tecumseh Sherman liked to sleep on Paul's pants. 

Look, it's Sam! She was looking for banana-os on the floor, I assume.

Sebastian is a majestic hairball.

Pooh is not impressed with our pancake breakfast.

The old Iowa Capitol, on University of Iowa's campus.

Damn you, sloth!

The rain didn't stop us!

Janice and Peter at the brewery in Amana.

Paul and David at the brewery.

Another night, another set of beers!

Just another normal day in Iowa.

Monday morning, after saying goodbye to our lovely friends, we took a quick driving detour through Cedar Rapids and Ames on our way to the airport. Our flight back to Atlanta ended up being delayed, so we got to explore the Des Moines airport for an extra 3 hours. Somebody needs to open up an ice cream or froyo joint in this airport!

I'm sure we'll be back to Iowa sooner rather than later. We still need to see Iowa City on a sunny day.

Sam said this beer was just OK. She couldn't really taste the maple.