Category Archives: Iowa

October 26, 2020 · 8:01 pm

Fort Hartsuff/Burwell, Ansel’s Bagels/Omaha, Dittmar’s Orchard/Council Bluffs – Drive from NE Sandhills home to DSM

Easy drive home from Burwell, Nebraska with a few stops, starting with Fort Hartsuff, an 1880’s U.S. Army calvary outpost fort from 1974 to 1881  on the edge of town.  It’s a well-preserved state historical park on the edge of the windswept Sandhills but several buildings were closed due to Covid-19 precautions. Further east in Omaha, we found even more happening in the Blackstone District since we were last there in 2018 including a new attractive food hall,  The Switch Beer & Food Hall, (a clean, ultra-modern space on bottom floor of a clean, ultra-modern new high-rise) which has several good dining options (complete with outdoor seating)! We opted for the well-reviewed Ansel’s Pastrami & Bagels where we had the famed pastrami sandwich (delicious but seemed more like brisket than pastrami) and bagel with dill cream cheese and lox. Bagels are good – heavier and chewier than I’m used to but that’s fine. Next time, I’ll try the Vietnamese Street Food option. Over the Iowa line in Council Bluffs, we stopped for some Jonathan apples at Dittmar’s Orchards, which was full of families picking apples and pumpkins. (We were the only ones wearing masks…)

 

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October 11, 2020 · 8:29 pm

Fabulous fall ride from Beaverdale to Easter Lake – with glorious gardens at the World Food Prize Building in downtown Des Moines

Lovely ride on a crisp fall day on the Des Moines trails from Beaverdale south along the River, through the East Village, past Principal Park. along the now-finished Carl Voss trail to Easter Lake for a picnic and loop ride along the lake. Pretty surprise when we returned to downtown Des Moines and rode through the World Food Prize Headquarters — marvelous mums and overflowing planters, plus other pretty garden bits and bobs.

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August 31, 2020 · 6:58 pm

Great new biking option in DSM – Des Moines River Trail/Carl Voss trail to Easter Lake

We’ve cycled along the Des Moines River Trail from downtown at Mullets southeast to the Cownie Soccer fields but yesterday we discovered the trail has recently been extended about six more miles to Easter Lake and it’s a glorious ride that is surprisingly rural in parts (for a city trail). (Turns out this leg of the trail is named after an old friend and now city councilman Carl Voss!)

We passed a lush soybean field and rode through the woods along the river to Easter Park, which we’ve also spent little time at. The Park has a wonderful six-mile trail looping around it and through it with nice playgrounds, cool bridges (including a red covered bridge — shades of the Bridges of Madison County). We found a perfect picnic spot on one bring crossing the late — a stylish high-top circular table with two high-top metal seats, where we ate as a few canoeists paddle below us and some pimply teens goofed around and played Lynyrd Skynrd  louder than we’d like but hey, it’s a public park.

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July 20, 2020 · 3:08 pm

Cool new sights in Waterworks and Riverview Parks, DSM

Bike riding has been our saving grace during the travel-limiting pandemic – and I write this, sadly, while RAGBRAI was supposed to be happening. Peddling along our favorite loop ride from Beaverdale to downtown Des Moines yesterday , we admired new attractions in Waterworks Park downtown and Riverview Park, near North High School.

Waterworks Park is now home to a sculpture honoring RAGBRAI founders John Karras and Don Kaul, who we remember fondly from working in the 1990s at the DM Register during happier days (for newspapers and the world beyond…). Adjacent is a fantastic new playground/playscape made of huge grey rounded logs that reminded me of the Flintstones and an F Troop fort. Would love to see what kids make of it. And this is all part of the great new outdoor amphitheater there, where last year we enjoyed a free DSM Symphony concert (in the rain, no less).

The tunnel leading under Fleur Drive from Waterworks to Grey’s Lake Park is not technically open but it proved a fantastic alternative to riding across four lanes of busy traffic. It’s also very attractive.

The redevelopment of Riverview Park is coming along nicely – with a huge outdoor amphitheater rising and a fun new old-fashioned-looking playground with a red and white carnival look that I assume is a big nod to the former Riverview Amusement Park, which was built on this site in 1915 – based on Brooklyn’s Coney Island – and lasted until 1978. The amphitheater stage has acrazy 60-foot high steel arch that mimics the Amusement park’s old rollercoaster and is named after the Riviera Ballroom that was once part of the park, hosting luminaries including Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington!.

Seeing these new projects gives me hope during a bleak time.

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April 18, 2020 · 11:00 pm

Social-isolating at Pammel State Park – Madison County, Iowa

It was easy to keep our distance from other people at Pammel State Park, a pretty 40-minute drive southwest of Des Moines in Madison County (as in “Bridges of…”), because there weren’t many people there. Which is why we picked it as our destination – the first after a month of staying very close to home during the pandemic lock down. Nice to have a change of scenery. The park is small, a wooden expanse with a cool 1920’s CCC wood and stone lodge and modest hiking trails. The coolest part was fording the Middle River in our SUV, paralleling a small dam. Driving through the gentle rush of water was the only way to get across. Not the best-marked park but friends advised us to cross the river to the quietest hiking trails near the lodge. It almost felt like a normal spring day except the public bathrooms were closed, as were the shops along the lovely square by the old stone courthouse in Winterset, the county seat.

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February 25, 2020 · 8:33 pm

Pho 515 – Des Moines

I worry that eating in Vietnam may forever have spoiled me and that no Vietnamese restaurant in the U.S. will have anything near the great food we had. So far, that’s been true. I’ve visited two Vietnamese restaurants in Des Moines and both fell far short of Vietnam. But maybe that’s too high a standard.

Pho 515 is in a corner of a huge Asian supermarket on Des Moines’ near north side and I’ve meant to go there for ages. Finally made it and at lunch the place was packed, mostly with Asian diners. My crispy pork with turned out to be large moist chunks of pork with an almost burnt orange crispy rind that was very crunchy. The dish itself was bland but the quality was good. A friend had a pho with supposed crab cakes but we never figured out if/what they were. It did have some tasty tofu. I’ll definitely give the place another try — there was a great selection of banh mi sandwiches. (Pho 515, bills itself as the “ONLY Artisan Style Banh Mi bakery in Iowa.”) I also want to do some wandering around the supermarket which looked full of interesting things!

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February 9, 2020 · 3:53 pm

Hotel Vetro, Rosanne Cash at Hancher, Pullman’s, Rapid Creek Cidery – Iowa City

Rapid Creek Cidery

We almost never stay at a hip hotel but  decided to bunk at The Hotel Vetro, a sleek high rise overlooking Iowa city’s ped mall (a mixed bag, we discovered) during a February trip here to see/hear Rosanne Cash at University of  Iowa’s Hancher Auditorium. (Nice to hear a female singer whose voice has held up as she’s gotten older.)

Although we decided to stay overnight because I was concerned about possible snow or ice-slicked roads common in February, the weather was actually fine. So we could have barreled home on Interstate 80 after the concert.  But it was nice not to have to. I  looked for our usual cheap Airbnb or old school bed & breakfast but the Hotel Vetro room ($144) was fairly comparable price wise so we went for it. It was fun to be right in the middle of the action downtown — except late at night when loud kids left the many bars. I could hear women’s piercing laughter and yelling in particular, especially near closing time at 2 a.m. (I developed a sudden intense cold so didn’t sleep most of the night, even without the drunk kids.)

We went to a few favorite shops – Textiles, Design Ranch, Active Endeavors,Iowa artisans…and made obligatory book purchases at Prairie Lights. Dinner at Pullman’s was excellent – crunchy slightly spicy fried chicken with soft biscuits and fresh honey, a burger sandwich with crispy fries and who knew they have homemade grapefruit for this sneezing customer?

Hancher is always a great. We love the new Caesar Pelli building, much more than the previous one destroyed by a flood. I’ve gotten to the age where I appreciate watching a band (in this case folk/Americana with five excellent musicians) from the comfort of a plush seat.  It felt very relaxing, civilized. Okay, I’m getting old (although I did sit in a patch of dirt on a hillside last summer for the Hinterland festival outside Des Moines, listening to  live music by Brandi Carlisle, Maggie Rogers, etc.)

Brunch was at the fabulous Rapid City Cidery, in an airy building made of old barn wood overlooking an apple orchard (Wilson’s) in the countryside just north of Iowa City.  Operated by the James Beard Foundation-nominated former chef/owner of the now-closed Lincoln Cafe in Mount Vernon, Iowa, the cidery’s food did not disappoint. My omelette had perfectly cooked fresh fancy mushrooms, olives and feta. Dirck’s more standard fare was all about fresh ingredients prepared well – two bright yellow fried eggs, long pieces of crunchy bacon, roasted potatoes, a biscuit served with homemade apple butter. We need to get back there some day for dinner. 

 

 

 

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January 6, 2020 · 4:18 am

Views from on high – at Des Moines’ MacRae Park

There’s a very cool new protruding ramp known as “the EMC overlook” at MacRae Park on Des Moines’s south side offering dazzling views of downtown. We also took in some new views from the new Chris Coleman bridge in Gray’s Lake Park. Looking good Des Moines.

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October 11, 2019 · 5:33 pm

Good news in DSM: Kathmandu restaurant moves to Windsor Heights

Good news – our favorite Nepalese/Indian restaurant in Des Moines has moved a little closer to where we live — from the south side to Windsor Heights. My only concern is that one of my favorite things about Kathmandu (beyond the food) is the waiter’s shirt which said across the front: “More Parking in the Back.” (Now there’s plenty of parking in the front at the new location.)

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September 30, 2019 · 3:29 pm

Another annual Iowa farm tour – this time Union and Madison Counties (with a quick drive through Earlham)

We enjoyed the annual Iowa farm tour so much last year that we did it again this year — picking a different area of the state. This time we headed southwest, to Union and Madison Counties.  Very pretty rural countryside, more hilly than in central Iowa around Story County where we went last year.

Millie, our lab, came with us again and enjoyed sniffing around the old barns. The first we visited was a 19th century red wood beauty we finally found (GPS kept sending us to dead ends) in a little c county historical village in the small city of Creston. The “(New) Union County Barn” aka “Harris Barn” built in 1896 had been relocated from the countryside so it felt a little less authentic but inside, it was the real deal, with old dairy equipment, wood stalls for animals, a high hayloft and a rope, presumably to swing in the hayloft. (Or hoist hay bales into the loft.) (We’re told it’s:  a perfect example of post and beam construction with diagonal braces. Horizontal cladding is rare and is associated with Civil War veterans.

Next stop, two barns in Madison County, the first west of town on Highway 96. A nice woman showed us around inside the big white 19th century barn with a pretty cupola atop. She even pointed out the dead cat hanging from the rafters that she reported noticing early in the morning but didn’t want to deal with it.

North of Winterset, on Highway 169 just north of the Winterset Cidery, we stopped at our last barn — the McBroom-Hargis barn, five miles south of I-80, an enormous red barn  sitting on the edge of the highway and part of a country estate with several buildings that appeared to be old but were actually new-ish construction. The owner is apparently a talented carpenter — and we marveled at two miniature toy barns inside the big old barn. An 1884 story in the local newspaper referred to it as “the largest barn in this part of the county.” It has a wooden track, post and beam, pegs and was designed by I.F. Carter of De Soto.  More photos here.

We also drove at the onset through the town of Earlham — and spotted the Restaurant the Hare and the Hound there, which I’ve had on my list for awhile. It’s next to RJ Home (RJ stands for Rescued Junk) which sells vintage, salvaged, junk items one weekend a month.  We went once several years ago and didn’t find much but it was a fun outing and worth another visit, especially with the restaurant nearby.

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