Iowa Travels

I'm finally finding time to share some of our adventures in Iowa last weekend.  We drove the pickup (more on why later) and were heading to Jefferson via a stop in Winterset to see the John Wayne Museum.  Unfortunately, I-35 was closed (I mean totally closed, all 4 lanes, both directions, with detours) before we wanted to turn off.  The detour seemed to be taking us in the opposite direction we wanted to go, so we struck out on our own.  I used my phone to find a new route, and we hit another detour.  After some gravel roads (in which I jokingly referenced Sarah's trip home from college for last Thanksgiving, saying I wasn't opening any gates, and there were some gates, but we didn't go through them), we finally arrived in Winterset.  We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant then headed to the museum.

These pictures are of Freedom Rock outside the museum.

There is supposed to be a Freedom Rock in every county in Iowa.  We also enjoyed the museum and John Wayne's boyhood home.

Then we headed on to Jefferson...............in the pickup because we were delivering this.

The hubs had made another fire pit.  It weighed about 250 lbs., so getting it out of the truck and into their back yard required part of the football team (they were hanging out there before the game, so we were happy to provide them with some entertainment).

So now Deb and Chad have a new fire pit in their back yard.  Notice the heart engraved on the tree trunk.

Then, we went to the awesome football game..........which was mentioned in a previous post!  However, I now know we were witnessing history at that football game.  When Carter returned 2 punts for touchdowns, he became the Rams single-season and career record holder.  He also leads the entire state of Iowa, across all classes in return TDs, punt return yards (279) and yards per return (39.9).  This is his first year as the punt return guy too.  So, history was made!

On Saturday morning, we went for a drive (I made them take me to Fairway to sign up for the gift cards that are given on the radio whenever the Rams score), checking out the new school that is being built, Deal's Orchard where I picked up some of the best cider, and we visited a wood shop where everything is done with hand tools.  I was allowed to photograph the shop, but not the furniture they had made...........which is too bad, because it was lovely.

Here are some of my photos..........

Here he is using a hand crank planer............it's blurry because he moved it so fast!

And there is a theatre in the back of the shop that does Broadway-style musicals.  It's called the Hickory Boy Theater Co.  They had just finalized what their next musical would be, but he couldn't reveal it yet.

There was the lingering scent of popcorn from the popcorn machine in the back and wood shavings from the shop in the front.

Wouldn't this be a fun thing to do????

And so, that pretty much tells the tale of our adventure in Iowa.  We made it back home without any detours, so that was good.

Christi