The last time I tried to fly to New Orleans, in 2012, it was a bright sunny day and my flight was delayed for hours and then cancelled. Mechanical problems. So I had a good feeling this morning when we woke up to a snowstorm in Iowa. And of course there are the uncertainties about flying, thanks to Trump’s partial government shut down. Sure enough, our flight took off with only a slight delay…for de-icing. And I made a point to thank the TSA agent in Des Moines for his service!
We are staying in a huge soulless hotel, the Hilton Riverside, because dirck is working at a conference at the convention center next door so the price is right (free). we did get a little glimpse and big taste of charming NOLA tonight when we returned to Boucherie, a great little restaurant in a small wood house on a side street in the Uptown/Carrollton neighborhood.
We had one of our best meals here seven years ago and were not disappointed …again. Char-grilled oysters with preserved lemons, duck confit, boudin balls with garlic aioli, smoke wagyu brisket with Parmesan fries, Blackened shrimp & grit cake, Krispy Kreme bread pudding. Yes, we are very full. And I got serious indigestion later. Dirck also tried sazerac, the classic powerful New Orleans cocktail, and I had a delicious Pimm’s cup (with citrus ,cucumber and ginger.)
Shockingly bad performance by the Kansas Jayhawks (our in-house favorite) at Iowa State University’s cavernous Hilton Auditorium in Ames – the Jayhawks lost by 17 points. But it was fun to go to a game at Hilton for the first time. We sat high in the nosebleed section so the noise from the increasingly joyful ISU near-capacity crowd was slightly less deafening and we had a good vantage point to see all the flashing lights, arm- waving fan cheers, perky pom-poming cheerleaders and the amusing half-time show with little kids doing somersaults while spinning basketballs.
Millie did well last night at the comfort inn although as we expected, she slept with us, which didn’t help my ability to sleep. she only barked a few times, when other people were coming into mearby rooms. She ate her dinner but was too distracted this morning to eat again. We saw two other dogs in another room. One little one yapped a little. We are not sure we were charged for me, although we were told it was an extra $10.
It only took about 30 years but last night, friends dragged me over to Carl’s, the famed dive bar in Des Moines’ Sherman Hill neighborhood. From the outside, the worn wood building looks like it’s about to collapse. Inside, the place was bigger and brighter than I expected, with a lively and diverse crowd enjoying Tuesday night live music by local musicians. I’m not big on bars – I don’t drink much – but I get the draw of this place and see why people (including many a visiting Democratic operative) love it. It feels “authentic.”
I got a chance to do what I love to do most in NYC (besides seeing old friends and family): Wandering around interesting pockets of the city.
The second day, I started at the Spring Street station and wandered south into Little Italy and Chinatown, then a little west to Soho (western section is still charming, along Thompson and Sullivan/Spring and Prince Streets) and then up to Greenwich Village/NYC, stopping for a nutritious lunch (not) of a chocolate chip cookie and coffee at the wonderful old Vesuvio bakery storefront on Prince Street (now technically the Birdbath Bakery despite the iconic storefront from the 1920s) and admiring a gated mews lined with pretty old carriage houses, MacDougal Alley, just north of Washington Square Park. Reminded me, fondly, of London. I lingered in front of 1 Fifth Avenue, an elegant old building where my parents got married (when it was a hotel, I believe). Then I ended up at The Strand bookstore and at Union Square where I caught the #6 subway back to the Upper East Side.
Thanks to the Krause Corporation (owner of the Kum & Go convenience store chain) for opening its fantastic new headquarters downtown for a day of public tours. So many people wanted to walk around the five-story Krause Gateway Center, designed by Italian architect 
The building is unlike any other in Des Moines — or elsewhere that I’ve visited–with its massive scale and sculptural look including high glass walls separated by four overhanging white horizontal planes. The glass walls on the main floor are 29 feet high — higher than any other such walls in North America except for an Apple store in New York City. The space is very light (naturally) and the building almost translucent. From the building’s south side, you have a fantastic view of the sculpture park below and if you look north, down a long hall, you can gaze through another window at a street leading up to the Sherman Hill neighborhood.
The interior design is sparse and clean with immaculate desks – in various configurations and groupings. There are high top tables, lower top desks, sitting spaces in an upholstered nook that felt a bit like a padded cell (except one side is open.) Most people don’t have assigned desks. Employees do get their own locker, to store their stuff, which they remove and place wherever they plant themselves during a given day. I gather this is au currant office design (and supposedly spurs more collaboration) but also takes some getting used to for employees accustomed to the creature comforts of their very own cubicle, slathered with family photos, gag bobble-heads and stacks of yellowing paper, yes, paper.
None of that to be found at the Krause Gateway Center, where the furniture is clean and contemporary, popping with color including orange and red Swan chairs, the famous chairs designed in 1958 by Arne Jacobsen for a Copenhagen hotel (I grew up with white Swan chairs in our ancestral home) as well as deep blue, orange and green high-backed chairs and couches. Big dramatic pieces of contemporary art also pop off the white walls and blond wood paneling –and there’s even a second floor art gallery, open to employees only.
The roof has vegetation that apparently will grow — and features stupendous views of the city, although I worry that the fencing at the edges isn’t high enough.
TakeBetsywithyou 