One Couple’s Quest for Fun Kayaking, Cool Bike Trails and a Great Cup of Coffee
Our trip to the heavenly state of Iowa
This was going to be a big day as we were driving 1.5 hours to West Bend and another hour to Storm Lake then returning “home”. We headed out on Friday July 22 and stopped in Webster City at a very nice coffee shop for breakfast – Morning Glory Coffee. After breakfast, we drove to…
When I was very young, my parents took our family to Northwest Iowa to visit my mom’s relatives. While there, we took a side trip to West Bend to see a grotto. I did not remember much about this place but was motivated to visit again. Since David and I planned for our 2022 summer…
For most of the Iowa tour, we stayed at a centrally located Airbnb. Many of the out-and-back excursions were less than a two hour drive. Our general plan was to start driving to the destination, find coffee along the way then do the activities of the day, eat supper, then return for the night. This…
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…
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…