The Iowa countryside was a welcome tonic yesterday after a few weeks of being cooped up in my office. The hills of central and west-central Iowa were covered in a thick blanket of tall green corn and looked lush against the blue sky.
I took a tour of the spanking new distillery in the small town of Templeton that makes the famous prohibition-era Templeton Rye Whiskey. We got to up close how the whiskey is made (with a whole lot of rye and malt barley that is made into a mash and mixed with yeast and water and fermented). The small museum is equally interesting, telling the somewhat sanitized story about how much of the town made and sold bootleg whisky during Prohibition in the 1920s. The priest, the sheriff, prominent townspeople all seemed to be in on the town’s big secret and “the good stuff” was stashed in hollowed out gravestones, wooden fence posts and corn cribs.
We also saw how the barrels that the whiskey are made in Ohio out of white oak wood that is intentionally set on fire inside so the interior develops a char that helps give the whiskey it’s caramel color and smoky flavor. We all go to sign a barrel before stepping o into the “speakeasy” got a tasking of special reserve whiskey. I forced myself to take a few small sips. Not my drink.
The nice clerk at the little post office in town suggested Deb’s Corner Cafe for lunch, seven miles west in the German town of Manning, which turned out to be a perfect spot. I sat at the counter and had a tuna sandwich ($3.50), and a bottomless glass of iced tea and homemade cherry pie. I went across the street to a “marketplace” with gifts and fancy drinks and looked briefly at the old barn from Germany that the townspeople transplanted here. I drove back on Highway 44 (and outbound on Highway 141), both scenic two-lane country roads.
I wouldn’t normally go to the Iowa State Fair on a Saturday — too busy. But I wanted to catch Elizabeth Warren’s brief stint on the Des Moines Register’s famous political soapbox, so we went. It was hot, although not as hot as it could have been, and very very crowded but we did get to see Liz, who performed well and apparently had the largest crowd of all the 2019 Democratic political candidates, to date. (I couldn’t tell – -we were in the thick of the crowd, standing next to a young documentary filmmaker from L.A. who was shooting footage for a film about the Iowa State Fair’s role in presidential politics, or some such.)
We also happened to hear former Colorado Governor Hickenlooper, who seems like a good guy — and although we skipped the Cory Booker soapbox appearance, we passed him and a large entourage, reportedly in search of vegen-worthy fair food. Speaking of non-vegan-worthy food, I fell hard for the maple syrup cured-pork belly on a stick sold at the Iowa Pork Producers tent.
The fair always makes for exceptional people watching but even more so this year because of the political campaign workers/reporters (telltale signs: a Princeton T-shirt, the DC regulation gear – blue button down shirt and khaki combo, etc), the unnerving folks wearing NRA T-shirts, camouflage gear and/or Trump 2020 shirts (Dirck had to restrain me from shooting them dirty looks. Probably best to ignore them.) Also, the hard metal band Slipknot (internationally-known, Iowa-born) was playing its first ever state fair concert to a sell-out crowd so there were some 20,000 maggots (slipknot speak for “fans”) — many wearing menacing black Slipknot t-shirts or other weirdo Slipknot gear (bright orange jumpsuits, creepy face masks like the band members). Many waited in a long line outside a trailer dubbed the “Slipknot Museum” that was parked in the middle of the Grand Concourse (fair speak for the fair’s main drag). It all added a little je ne sais quoi to the fair…
Young and gorgeous Maggie Rogers also put on a high-spirited show, dancing exuberantly across the stage during almost every well-sung song. The folk rock group Dawes (a favorite of our son’s) and The War and The Treaty — a wife/husband soul group and one of the few Hinterland non-white groups — also threw everything they had into their show. Well done!
As we arrived in Indianola, after some hills that felt gratuitous to include on the route. I was surprised to see a big hole in the center of the square where apparently the old courthouse is being replaced with a new “justice center.” Apparently the festivities were actually nearby — on the Simpson U. campus. (News to me.) I did find Outer Scoop on Jefferson, for some great and much-deserved ice cream.
Late post: I set out on a gorgeous morning for the gorges…where else? They have always been my favorite landscape feature here. After a short drive down around the lake past downtown Ithaca, I was at the grand daddy of falls, high-falling Taughanock. It was an easy 20 minute there and 20 minutes back walk on the wide dirt path through the woods lining the flat rocks of the gorge, lined by high canyon walls. Lots of water crashing down on them there falls. I noticed that the beautiful old Taughanock Farms Inn, which I used to go to for a splurge dinner with my parents as a kid, is now the Inn at Taughanock. Still there, as is the Glenwood Pines, an old roadhouse along Route 89. Last time we went there about 20 years ago, the restaurant review I did of the Pines in 1980 was still tacked up on the knotty pine wall.
Nut ridge road (to the cottage @ the lake❤️)
Blue green algae is the scare de jour on Cayuga Lake but no one has been able to adequately explain what the health risks are. And I have thoroughly enjoyed my late afternoons swimming in the lake which is warmer than the gorge pools but still very refreshing. Tonight myra and I went to a wine tasting at a new winery, Bright Leaf, just up the road. We listened to live music, sipped wine, nibbled on crostini and couscous,and admired the sunset over the lake, an orange fireball slowing dropping into the pale blue water.
Maybe it’s because I am old enough to aspire to be a birder or maybe it’s that I never realized what a cool place an ornithology lab can be, but I was pleasantly surprised by my visit yesterday to The Cornell Ornithology lab at Sapsucker Woods. I arrived as a free lab tour was starting and it was great, about 18 visitors from all over (including a guy from Wales who mentioned living for a few years in Ottumwa, Iowa and loving it) and a very engaging guide who led us into the areas normally off bounds for visitors. We saw some very interesting stuffed birds, bird feet and bird wings in the specimens lab (or some such) and learned all kinds of interesting tidbits about the life and study of birds. (See Notes below) I also walked on one of the sawdust paths in the woods around the attractive modern lab building with a borrowed pair of binoculars (which an 8 year old girl tried to show me how to use) to try to find some noteworthy birds. Next trip I’d like to go on one of their early morning free guided bird walks on Saturday or Sunday.
On the way back to the lake, I stopped at the Ithaca Bakery outpost in the odd Triphammer mall for bread for dinner. Nice to have. And I drove through the hidden hamlet of Ludlowville to see if anything was going on and was pleased to see that nothing was.
TakeBetsywithyou 