One Couple’s Quest for Fun Kayaking, Cool Bike Trails and a Great Cup of Coffee
Theses are long trips touring a specific state (or part of a state) on a quest for kayaking, biking and coffee. In addition we’ll search for cool hiking, special interest tours, good places to eat and the best pickleball courts.
When we choose to visit the museum, we were not sure what we would find. Iowa is a really neat place but not really known for it’s rock-n-roll pedigree. Of course there is the famous accident that took Richie Valens, The Big Bopper, and Buddy Holly in 1959 at Clear Lake but not much else…
As we were traveling to start the day we stopped for coffee at Coffee Revolution in Davenport, IA. The shop is a little bit of a drive south of I-80 but easy to get to. The shop had lots of branding items and gifts. In fact it seems that if you are a regular, you…
Clear Lake, Iowa is a great place to visit. Lot’s of stores, restaurants and some good coffee shops. Also it has an very interesting historic site just outside of town. It is the location where Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valen’s plane went down on February 3, 1959. The site has a small…
We’d heard of the Boone Dinner Train and it had come highly recommended so when planning the South Dakota we got reservations online. We bought out tickets in April for the July date. We were told that the dinner sells rides sell out very quickly. We arrived a little early and took our time touring…
This place was really cool. Literally and figuratively. The temperature was in the mid 80’s so stepping into air conditioning felt great. We purchased tickets for the tour and after a short wait the guide took us through the hidden door into an amazing setting. We walked down the center of this small town main…
Big Spirit Lake is part of the Iowa Great Lakes (see post) so we thought we would give it a try. However we woke up to 20 mph gusts- not ideal for paddling on such a big lake. So we opted to catch breakfast first the Breakfast Barn in Spirit Lake. Great classic breakfast, omelets,…
We wanted to try some hiking in Iowa but that proved a challenge – at least in the areas we visited. We did manage to find a nice little gem Dolliver State Park. The park is located about 20 minutes south of Fort Dodge along the Des Moines River. It has about 5 miles of…
Today’s destination was about one hour from our Airbnb. Lake View, Iowa. We stopped at Miltons on Main coffee shop and restaurant in Lake View. We had a couple of breakfast sandwiches and the house coffee and looked over the rest of the day’s plan. We thought we’d paddle first then try the bike trails…
Cedar Falls was our destination for today. We planned a full day of activities. Our first stop was Iowa Falls to get some breakfast. It was right on the way. We got a good look again at the Iowa River that runs through the middle of town. It looked shallow with a few dams-not our…
We had visited Lake Okoboji on our trip to South Dakota the previous year. It was only a short stop and there was so much to see and do that it needed a second trip. Our destination was in the NW corner of Iowa, so starting at the furthest point of our tour and working…