Lake Okoboji, Arnolds Park and the Iowa Great Lakes, Iowa July-2022

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 back towards the middle of the state seemed logical.

We left Iowa City early stopping at Scooters Coffee to get coffee to go. Scooters is mostly a drive through shop and as it turns out, almost as populated as Starbucks-at least in Iowa. They have good coffee and every time we stop, everyone is friendly (Editors note: normally, we chose not to go to chain or national restaurants and coffee shops on our trips. Our goal is to drill down and enjoy the community-level places. Scooters has over 600 locations in 25+ states. Not exactly a one-off cafe, but for the purposes of Paddle Pedal and Coffee, we’re going to call Scooters ‘regional’ thereby allowing us to continue to visit them on occasion)

Our first stop was Iowa Falls. We headed into the downtown area and found Coffee Attic and Book Cellar. This place was exactly our style: old building fixed-up/restored busy with locals and a used book store in the lower level.

We had a great cup of coffee enjoying the ambiance. Definitely worth the stop.

We arrived at West Okoboji early in the afternoon. We set out on the Lake for about an hour but the wind proved to be a little much. So, we headed back in after fighting waves for 45 minutes.

We decided to take a tour of the Okoboji Car Museum and call it a day. Use the link to see our previous post about this experience.

Upon recommendation we stopped at The Ritz, right along the water in Arnolds Park. We sat outdoors and had a very good meal. I had a Liu Burger. I would say the Ritz name is tongue-in-cheek. This is an indoor/outdoor bar that looks like a lot of fun at night. We were gone before the late crowd showed up.

The bodies of water in this area are very large. The grouping of the lakes in the area are affectionately referred to as the Iowa Great Lakes. The lakes include Big Spirit Lake, Spirit Lake, Lower Gar, West Okoboji, East Okoboji, Minnewashta, and Upper Gar.