A writer for Edible Iowa magazine says the best burger in Iowa City can be found at Short’s Burgers and Shine on Clinton Street, made with local beef and home-baked bun and apparently there’s a $6 Burger special on Monday nights. Don’t forget the hand-cut fries and the Iowa-brewed beer including the venerable Amana Colonies’ Millstream, as well as Court Avenue Black hawk Stout, Old Man River Helles and Dunkel, and Peace Tree Hop Wrangler (I recently tried a Peace Tree sweet corn brew.) Sutliff Cider also gets a nod.
Category Archives: 2) Frequent Destinations
changes in Maquoketa Iowa
Speaking of Maquoketa – and I was at least blogging recently about one of Iowa’s hardest towns to spell – there is news that this eastern Iowa city’s Banowetz Antiques, one of the best antique dealers in the state, is downsizing so the owners can have more free time. Certainly understandable. Apparently they’ll still operate their lovely B&B in town, the Squiers Manor, in an 1882 brick Queen Anne-style manse, which is full of their antiques. (And it is Squiers not Squires – although it’s fit for a squire. It’s named after a man name J.E. Squiers.) I’ll never forget how tolerant they were when we brought a baby with us during one stay.
Grant Wood Scenic Byway …in northeast Iowa
Now that we have a fuller picture of Iowa painter Grant Wood thanks to a new biography (for details see my earlier post on the topic), perhaps its time to visit the Grant Wood Scenic Byway in northeast Iowa. Stone City inspired Woods landscape of the same name. Anamosa is Wood’s birthplace and home to the Grant Wood Art Gallery (as well as the National Motorcycle Museum, of all things, and one of the prettiest prisons – no joke – around: The Anamosa State Penitentiary, which has an interesting history museum where you can learn about the serial killer John Wayne Gacy who resided there.)
The DM Register recommends traveling on Highway 64 east from Anamosa to Maquoketa (visit Banowitz Antiques and stay the Squires Inn, owned by the Banowitzes) and then Highway 62 to Bellevue…where you can stay at Potter’s Mill B&B (I was there years ago when it was a restaurant); the Old city Hall Gallery; and Bluff Lake Catfish Farm (a restaurant which began as a place where people could catch fish they caught nearby in two lakes.)
Filed under Iowa
Madison County, Iowa – beyond the bridges
The DM register awhile back offered some suggestions for a road trip in Winterset, beyond visiting the famous covered bridges of Madison County so here they be:
– Heavenly Habitat Bed and Breakfast – the name apparently stems from its former life as a Lutheran church. There’s two rooms available plus a shop selling shabby chic antiques. It’s at 218 S. Ave.
– Fons and Porter Quilt supply – run by two women who have a magazine, mail-order biz and quilting show on Iowa Public TV. 54 Court St.
– Rudy’s – a western-themed restaurant on, where else, John Wayne Drive (an homage to Winterset’s famous native son.). offers chicken and noodles, meatloaf, homemade pie and the like. (Could it have a better small town ambiance than the Northside Cafe, of “Bridges of Madison County” movie fame?)
I am still trying to remember the name of a business that sells antiques and old farm stuff every once in awhile in a barn somewhere in Madison County. If anyone out there can recall the name or details, please help me out!
Filed under Iowa
The real Grant Wood? And another way of looking at his Iowa landscapes…
There’s a new biography out about famous American (and Iowan) painter Grant Wood (R. Tripp Evans’s “Grant Wood: A Life”) and a review in the NYTimes reports it doesn’t paint the typical portrait of Grant as the “simple, homespun, rustic Iowan he may have seemed to be.” And it questions Midwest travel marketing that welcomes people to “Grant Wood Country” and Wood’s vision “of the values that made this country great!”
Instead, the book reportedly argues that Grant and his work have another side – that’s more shall we say eccentric or contrarian even sensual and sly. Those rolling hills of Anamosa County depicted in his famous painting “Stone City?” – the author says they unmistakably refer to rounded mens’ buttocks (Grant, while married to a woman, was homosexual we’re told) and I won’t even mention what a field of sprouting cornstalks represents. Go ahead, take a guess.
It does have me wondering more about the Grant Wood poster we have hanging over our bed that shows three dour old Daughters of the American Revolution holding tea cups. I’ve always found it amusing but now could it mean something else? See: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/books/04book.html?scp=1&sq=Grant%20Wood&st=cse
Filed under Iowa
Three great fall drives – one obvious; two not
Couldn’t help but be amused by three perfect fall drives recommended by People Magazine. I’ve been on all three – which is not what many could claim, I’d guess. The first is a no-brainer: Highway 1, must-see stop: Big Sur. The second isa drive along the Mississippi River, with a must-see stop : Dubuque, Iowa, which is one of my favorite cities in Iowa (and this is a drive I wrote about for the New York Times travel section several years ago.) The third drive was even more of a surprise: Highway 50 through the middle of the country. Must-see stop: Dodge City, Ks. (With all due respect to my in-laws who live in and around Dodge, I don’t buy this one…)
Filed under California, Dodge City, Iowa, Kansas misc
cedar rapids eating options
You never know when fate might bring you to Cedar Rapids – and you’re hungry when you arrive – so here are a few restaurant options I found in the latest Edible Iowa magazine:
– La Salsita, 700 1st Ave. 319-365-9733 (Mexican)
– Gyro Hut, 1455 Mount Vernon Rd., 319-364-1959 (fully loaded gyros)
Filed under Iowa
Wine, beer, hard cider in the Leelanau Pennisula, Mi.
During our visit to the Leelanau Peninsula last month, we visited only one winery (Black Star) and weren’t impressed (although pretty place.) But my sister J and her husband want to go winery hopping up there this month so here’s one suggestion – based entirely on a knowledgeable friend’s review of the wine, not the winery persay: Forty-five North Vineyard and Winery – which gets its name from being located on the 45th parallel – is good wine, we’re told. So maybe the winery will be worth a visit too. see http://www.fortyfivenorth.com Tasting Room Hours are Mon-Sat, 11-6
Sun, 12-5
Another option: visit a hard cider maker. Tandem Ciders – near Black Star – looked like a neat place but it was closed when we dropped by. The season is more likely to be happening in September. We also found two local beers we liked – North Peak (out of Traverse City) and Bell’s (from Kalamazoo). Bottoms up!
Filed under Michigan
A good bike ride in Des Moines
We made a nice new loop on our bike ride Monday – starting on the Urbandale trail then heading north on the newly finished trestle-to-trestle trail into Johnston, which petered out too early at an ice cream stand – but then we cut through some housing developments and rode on too-busy NW 62nd street to hook up to the Neal Smith trail which we took to the Butterfly Garden at Saylorville Lake (some of it on recently improved trail), then headed back on the Neal Smith trail to the bridge that connects back to MLK Blvd. and the Urbandale trail.
A little improvisational but it worked and was a fun interesting ride.
Filed under bike trails, biking, Des Moines
The best bike trail in Iowa City – still looking
We tried again last weekend to cobble out a decent bike ride via trail in Iowa City and did only slightly better this time than last time – a few years ago. Part of it has to do with the lingering devastation from the 2008 flood – which wiped out some of the trail along the Iowa River – not to mention several major arts buildings including Hancher Auditorium. (It was sobering to pass by those hollow wrecked buildings.)
Part of it is that Iowa City doesn’t have the trail system of a place like Des Moines to begin with – and no casino revenues like in DM to construct and pave trails. We did begin at the southern end of the Iowa River Corridor trail south of town and it got off to a pleasant enough start – a tree-lined winding trail along the river but then it got diffuse and hard to follow around campus and when we picked it up again at the city park north of Hancher, the trail petered out into haphazardly marked residential streets and then it dumped us out with no further explanation – just as happened during our previous ride – on a commercial strip under construction (again still-recovering from the 2008 flood). We ended up taking a sharp right and winding through a very odd housing development – what’s called the Peninsula Neighborhood – that looked completely out of place with mock-old urban architecture in a rural setting. It felt like a movie set. Granted the brick rowhouses and single-family new-old home cottages and bungalows are attractive – but looklike they belongin Baltimore or maybe Washington D.C.
We did manage to make the ride into a bit of a loop, riding past the housing development and a golf course to the north end of the city park where we rode through downtown and campus to catch the trail back to our car.
Filed under bike trails, biking, Iowa City
TakeBetsywithyou 