Mom and i went on a little vacation last week, which i shall proceed to tell the story of in photos.
The first stop has no photos though, so um, just kidding. We went to Cedar Rapids to spend a night with Tim, Angie and Jamie (my brother & his fam) and stopped to see Nina & Karl’s new place in Coralville along the way. It’s nice, i’m jealous. Tim and Jamie showed us all the flood damage in their neighborhood, which was amazing to see. Almost every house has a big orange X on it, meaning nobody can enter. There’s just stuff all along the curbs in the residential area, and there was even a house that had been carried halfway into the street by the flood waters. WAY worse than the damage in Des Moines.
From there we headed toward Uncle Dave’s house and stopped at a lake on the way out of CR.
I look goofy in this pic. We were afraid the water was contaminated, so we didn’t get in.
We’ve stayed with Dave three times in the last month now, which is probably more than in the past eight years or so. It was good to visit again. From Dave’s place in Long Grove, IA we headed North to the Maquoketa Caves. We only went as far as the mouth of the big one, however, because the lights had been turned off and we had no lamp. Also, it looked extremely muddy and scary.
The mouth of Dancehall CaveWe decided to proceed to Crystal Lake Cave, just south of Dubuque, which is well-lit and clean and illuminated by a young tour guide so disenchanted with his job that he jokes frequently about how lame it is to come all the way to Dubuque, Iowa just to see that particular cave. The “Crystal Lake” was pretty silly; it looked more like a puddle that a few people had chucked coins into like an out-of-service mall fountain. I didn’t bother to try to photograph it.
I don’t remember what the different formations were called. Soda straws, maybe?
Then we went to the Mississippi River historical museum in Dubuque. I liked the animals. I’m still much like a little kid when it comes to museums.
Not doing it, just friendly.
We stayed in a cute little town called Mineral Point, Wisconsin that night at a bed & breakfast that made me wish i had a boyfriend. It was up above a brewery/restaurant which had really nice beer and food. The next morning we went to the Land’s End warehouse clearance event a few miles north. It was huge and crowded and insane, and i didn’t buy anything.
We drove all the way down to Kalona, Iowa that evening and stopped at President Herbert Hoover’s birthplace along the way. Turns out he was only in Iowa until he was eleven, at which point he moved to Oregon. Kinda like my life, but backwards. We had dinner in Iowa City and then headed down to Kalona, and caught an amazing sunset while driving. I couldn’t even begin to capture it, because out there in the country i could see the horizon all the way around us, 360 degrees, and it was all just beautiful.
We walked around Kalona a little the next day but decided against taking a tour of the Amish community there. I probably should have taken it, since i have a hard time understanding why anyone would want to live like that. No internet? Come on. What would i do with my Saturday nights?
Going back through Iowa City the next day, we stopped to see the legendary Black Angel at one of the old cemeteries. Supposedly people tell stories of how a man commissioned the statue for his deceased wife and it turned black in a day because of her infidelity. The truth is that a woman commissioned it for her husband’s grave, refused to pay for it because she thought it was ugly, and was sued by the artist and made to pay $5,000 which back in those days was a lot of money. Her name is on the grave and the birth date is 1830something, but there’s no death date. Like maybe she refused to be buried under that thing.
It’s not nearly as beautiful as the one i photographed in Rome. Few things are, i suppose.
After that we went shopping and headed home. It was nice to go on a little adventure for a while, but i always feel pretty relieved to be home again after a vacation. We’re settling back in now and will probably be heading to the Iowa State Fair before returning to the grind on Monday. Also rooting for Shawn Johnson tomorrow in the women’s gymnastics competition–representing iowa! Go team USA!
I’m on vacation right now, so i probably won’t write a substantial post for another week.
At the moment i’m at my big brother Tim’s house in Cedar Rapids. This was our first stop, and we still haven’t decided where we’re going next.
The apartment is pretty much all put together now, i just need a few more pieces of furniture. I’ve got internet and cable all hooked up and a new air conditioner, and it’s starting to feel like a nice little home.
I can’t wait to have a party, and i think my birthday will be the perfect opportunity…
(it’s on August 13th!)
It’s been an eventful week, so i apologize for not being able to post in a while.
When i went home from visiting my sister i was confronted by Dan about some things, and the conversation ultimately ended in us each going promptly to facebook and changing our relationship status from “In a relationship” to “Single”. The timing of it forced me to hastily pack a bag and return to Des Moines, find and sign a lease the following morning, and sneak back to Ames periodically to pack shit while Dan was out of the apartment. It’s still my apartment, of course, and i’m welcome there, only if the other resident happens to be around i’m greeted by cold silence the back of his head. Understandably.
So, one week, three trips to Ames and one overpriced Uhaul later i’ve got all of my stuff in my new apartment finally. I had thought that, having lived with a roommate in a small one-bedroom apartment and lost virtually everything that wasn’t in it, i didn’t have that much stuff left. My furniture filled a fourteen-foot truck and the rest took two carloads though, amazingly. Let me tell ya, walking fifty yards between the car and the front door over and over again in the middle of summer can make a person want to burn what’s left of her worldly possessions. Next time i’m hiring a moving crew, i don’t care how much it costs.
I owe a huge thank-you to Mike and Dan Falk, and of course to my Mama who not only helped me schlep my stuff around but has also provided companionship and food, and will most likely continue to do so. Maybe it’s just the fact that there are still boxes all over the place, but i really haven’t found the motivation to cook any sort of meal just for myself in this place yet. I don’t even have butter. And i don’t care.
The new place is a two-bedroom, bigger than i need but with no dishwasher or garbage disposal or working air conditioner. There’s a constantly-crying baby next door and the laundry facility is in the basement of the next building. It has its drawbacks. I’ll post photos of the interior when i’ve put all this stuff away. I haven’t even found a bike rack yet, so my bicycle is taking up a big awkward chunk of my living room. The cable and internet will be hooked up tomorrow, and i think it will be a much more comfortable place with those distractions readily available. I’m thinking of getting a futon for the extra bedroom, so if you’re ever in Des Moines and need a place to stay, give me a call.
First of all, thanks for leaving so many wonderful comments on my last post. It meant a lot to me.
My sister Amy and her son Harper are visiting from Oregon right now. They arrived on Wednesday and the three of us and Mom had fun shopping around the East Village of Des Moines, going to see WALL-E, reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and generally hanging out. Friday evening Uncle Doug and Aunt Vicki had a little BBQ to celebrate, and of course their whole branch of the family was there. Saturday we drove out to Uncle Dave’s and visited with that bunch and Harper had fun playing with his second cousins. It had been a couple years since most of us had seen each other, and it was nice to be able to catch up.
That evening Mom, Amy and I went to see Ani DiFranco at The Capitol Theater in Davenport. I never cease to be amazed by how much she rocks. She was a little less talkative than the last time i saw her over in Iowa City with Emily last summer, but that’s okay.
I wish i’d taken pictures of all this stuff. 
Next time.
Yesterday Amy & Harps headed for Cedar Rapids and Mom & I came back to DM. On our way we stopped at the Amana colonies for lunch and picked up some blueberry wine. I hadn’t been around there in quite a few years. It’s really well-maintained and cute, but it was so hot that we didn’t stick around for long.
I saw some paintings by this Chicago artist Laura Lee Junge in a little gallery there, and i thought they were really neat:
On an unrelated note, my current goal in life is to decide on an apartment to move to in Des Moines, which is proving to be a major headache. But i got my new camera phone today, so playing with that should relieve some stress for sure.