Travel with Tobey and Sue

Travel with Tobey and Sue
Tobey and Sue in Africa

Thursday, June 13, 2013

June 2013 - Iowa Sojourn

Even though our blog is “Travel with Tobey and Sue,” we sometimes travel separately. I just returned from five days in Iowa and thought I would share some of my experiences with you.

I grew up in Marshalltown, but one of my best friends, Kathryn, lives in Des Moines, so that is where I stayed. We had a great time!

On Thursday, another friend, Carolyn, joined us at the Reiman Gardens in Ames. The Gardens is owned by Iowa State University and is one of the largest public gardens in Iowa. The butterfly wing has up to 800 live butterflies, of 80 different species, in flight. It was wonderful! The top two butterflies are the SAME butterfly! The color when it opened it wings was incredible.


We spent about three hours touring the 14 acre garden and checking out some unique garden art by local Iowa artists. The “Eco Bug” was one of my favorites!

There was even a pond filled with lily pads which offered the red-winged black birds a cool resting spot!

http://www.reimangardens.iastate.edu/index.cfm
On Friday, Kathy and I went to Marshalltown and we joined Carolyn and Sandy at the Maid-Rite for lunch. If you are from the Midwest, you will understand and appreciate the trek for a Maid-Rite! Nothing compares to this loose-meat hamburger! Taylor’s Maid-Rite opened in Marshalltown in 1928 and has been in its current location since 1958!

I have to admit, I was excited when they added catsup as a choice on your sandwich because until a few years back they didn’t even have catsup in the restaurant! (I used to bring my own with me!) A Maid-Rite is perfect when accompanied by a chocolate malt!

http://www.maidrite.com/maid-rite_history.html
On Saturday, Carolyn, Kathy, and I had a busy tour day in Des Moines. We started at Terrace Hill, the Iowa Governor’s mansion. It was interesting to learn about the mansion and imagine the rich history of the original residents. They don’t allow pictures inside the mansion for security reasons.
http://www.terracehilliowa.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrace_Hill
After the Terrace Hill tour and lunch, we toured the Iowa capitol building. The tour was free and well worth the time.

Our tour guide told us about how the original capitol was in Iowa City, then moved to Des Moines in 1854. A three-story brick building served as a temporary Capitol and was in use for 30 years, until destroyed by fires. The “new” building includes their Supreme Court Supreme Court Chamber, the House of Representatives. the Senate, and the Law Library, as well as other offices. The spiral stairways in the law library were so beautiful, as well as the dome!

Being a quilter, I especially liked the patterns in the tile floors. It was impressive.

We finished our tour day with a tour of some shopping malls. Our son is getting married in November so I needed to find a mother of the groom dress – and we were successful! WOOHOO! No pictures of that … we need to wait until the wedding!

We rounded out our weekend by going back to Marshalltown and doing the tour of all the houses we have lived in.

Afterwards, we had to cool down with homemade ice cream from Ev’s – a Marshalltown tradition.

I had a great time and look forward seeing them all again soon, but it is always good to be home!

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

May 2013 - Rocky Mountain National Park

It’s been a while since we have been out in the motor home – last September to be exact! We have a group of friends from church we make an annual Memorial Day trek with, but we are all retired now, so we can wait and go after the holiday rush. We headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park on Monday afternoon for our four night stay.
We had a beautiful view over Moraine Meadow from our RV and a great view of Long’s Peak. Monday was spent visiting with friends, sharing a great potluck dinner, seeing a beautiful sunset, watching the deer walk through our campsite, then stories around the campfire.

On Tuesday, Tobey and I, along with friends Marcia and Dean, took the 3-1/2 mile hike around the meadow. Last fall, the Fern Lake fire came down and skipped around part of the meadow, burning one home. We were able to see some of the damage, but were happy to see areas greening up. It was fun to spot a marmot sunning himself on a rock near the stream, as well as a large herd of elk. (http://www.nps.gov/romo/naturescience/currentfires.htm)




Tuesday night we again shared a wonderful meal together and Penny had fun being the center of attention!
The weather changed Tuesday night; the wind blustered bringing the rain. The wind and rain (sometimes sleet, sometimes snow) continued off and on through Friday! The RV shook and we sometimes felt we were going to be flown to Kansas! It was our first outing and we both forgot to pack stocking caps and gloves! Thank goodness we stayed toasty warm inside.
One of our traditions is a huge breakfast potluck which we held on Wednesday. We usually eat outdoors, but the weather was too cold and wet to do that this year. Fortunately, Lewis and Linda have a huge 5th wheel trailer which accommodated all 14 of us for the meal!

We spent lots of timed playing cards and board games with friends. (I beat Tobey at every game of gin!) It was lots of fun, even if it was cold and windy. Friday we packed up and headed back home after a great first trip of the season. We have revised our packing list and hope to be ready to go again later in June.