Iowa Girl on the Go

I love fall and I love beer, so it seems surprising that I’ve never been to the annual Oktoberfest celebration on Court Avenue in downtown Des Moines.

I remedied that last night. Friday was the first of the two-day celebration featuring live polka music and dancing, food, beer, and folks in German costumes. The celebration continues today, starting at 4 p.m. and running until 1 a.m.

Cost for the event is $10 at the door, but that gets you an official Des Moines Oktoberfest mug and your first beer. After that, beer is $4.

I was surprised to see the number of really good dancers until I saw that many of them were members of the Polka Club of Iowa. Who knew?

Last year I was at least a week late (maybe two) for the peak of fall color for my annual trek to northeast Minnesota.

This year, I was at least two weeks early. Maybe three.

It also rained all day Sunday — my only full day on the north shore. So I spent a fair amount of time inside: driving, reading, even napping. But I also took a walk (with a jacket and umbrella).

But I am getting ahead of myself. Saturday Dave and I drove to Duluth. En route, we spent a few hours at Jay Cooke State Park just outside the city. It’s a beautiful park, with the St. Louis River flowing through it and a swinging bridge. There was a bizarre wedding (or cult activity or virgin sacrifice) going on at one of the picnic areas. I love Minnesota.

Saturday night we went to Canal Park by the waterfront. This is a big tourist area with shops, restaurants, bars, antiques, boat rides, an aquarium, IMax theater, and more. It was chilly out, and I was hungry. We tried one bar but the service was wretched. So we ended up at a higher-end Italian restaurant where I drank expensive wine.

The next morning we drove up the north shore in the aforementioned rain. I took literally no pictures the entire day. We walked to the water falls at Grand Portage State Park, visited the Grand Portage national historic site, and dropped by the Naniboujou Lodge — a real gem right across the highway from Judge Magney State Park (a few miles north of Grand Marais). Judge Magney State Park will forever remain in my mind as the place where I wrecked my Volkswagen Beetle several years ago. I was the only one in the parking lot. (It’s a long story.) Then, as now, it was cold and raining.

In Grand Marais, we went to my favorite places: Gunflint Tavern (for beer and veggie chili) and Sven and Ole’s (for wild rice pizza — my favorite pizza in all the world). We stayed the night at East Bay Suites. The room was small but it had a (fake) fireplace and a (real) balcony — upon which we could watch it rain. This morning we woke up to a sunny, beautiful day. Too bad we had to leave.

We walked around the Grand Marais harbor area and took a few pictures before driving down the shore. We stopped at Cascade Lodge for breakfast. That’s where I normally stay on the north shore (the lodge, not the restaurant) so it felt like home there.

Farther south we stopped at Palisade Head for a brief walk and some photos. Our last stop on the north shore was Split Rock Lighthouse, a historic attraction I’ve driven by and photographed from a distance many times but never actually toured. It’s pretty cool. There’s a visitor center, lighthouse tours, and a walk down the lake to get the best view of the lighthouse.

I wish I would have had one more day.

You only have to drive a couple of minutes north of North Grand Mall in Ames to reach the 430-acre Ada Hayden Heritage Park, but it feels like a world away.

The park’s central feature is a large lake – actually made up of two lakes – with a walking bridge. Around the lake is a 2.8-mile paved bike trail (or 3.2 miles if you walk the path as a “figure 8.”)

In addition to the paved path, there’s a 1.2-mile “upland” hiking trail with a crushed-rock surface.

Ada Hayden is a great place to walk when the weather is nice. In bad weather, it’s best to stay away. The trail offers very little in the way of shade, so on a very hot, sunny summer day, this can be a miserable trail. Likewise, if it’s cold and windy, the lake just makes it feel colder and windier. But on a nice evening or a fall day, this is a great place to walk or ride your bike.

Boating and fishing are allowed on the lake, but not swimming. The lake’s surface is 125 acres.

Right now Ada Hayden Heritage Park is transitioning from summer to fall, so some of the summer wildflowers and bushes are looking a little tattered, but the fall colors are starting to come out. The sunflowers are brilliant.

I walked the trail today with my daughter’s dog, Charley. She isn’t used to long walks, and she has very short legs, so at about the two-thirds point around the lake, she headed for a grassy area to lie down. I carried her for awhile and then decided to take a shortcut back to the car. She was a pooped-out pup.

Huzzah! Today we harkened back to Ye Olde Canterbury-on-Sherwood (Sleepy Hollow Sports Park, just south of the Iowa State Fairgrounds on Des Moines’ east side) for a chance to shop, dine, and experience merriment from the age of Shakespeare.

It was also a chance to muck about in the mud, as it turns out, given the torrential rain we experienced in central Iowa yesterday. I guess it could have been worse. In the Middle Ages the streets would have been running with sewage.

This is the ninth Renaissance Faire in Des Moines and the first time I’ve attended. I was a regular at the Renaissance Festival in Kansas City (on the Kansas side) for many years…mostly before having kids. So that tells you how long it’s been. I loved that festival, with it’s unique foods and crafts (I always bought a ceramic Christmas ornament), but mostly for its bawdy humor by comedy teams like Snot and Puke and solo comedians like David Naster.

The Des Moines Faire is much, much smaller than the one in Kansas City. The first act we attended was the Twins de Fous Merde in the Viking Pavilion. I made it through exactly four bad jokes — and I mean both very badly written and very badly executed — before I had to get up and leave. It was painful to watch. (Two girls in the very small audience were laughing their pretty heads off at every joke; I have to assume they either knew the actors…or wanted to get to know them.)

Our next stop was the South Corral Mud Yard, with entertainment by Crazy Boy Coy. Crazy Boy was a darn good juggler and put on a funny and impressive show. He seemed like a real professional, unlike those two unrehearsed dumbos in the Viking shack. Crazy Boy juggled balls and flaming sticks while balancing on a large ball, and he carried on witty banter all the while. I thought he was cute and had no problem putting money in his hat after the show.

The next guy (Comedy Hamlet at the Castle Stage) reminded me of Chris Farley doing one of those out-of-control, angry characters on Saturday Night Live. You remember that guy, right? Now imagine him as Hamlet. You get the picture. He made me uncomfortable. I did not put money in his hat.

I was getting hungry at this point but the jousting extravaganza was about to begin in the jousting arena, so we joined the crowd and waited to be entertained by knights on horseback. There were three knights on three huge, gorgeous horses, and they did indeed do some kind of jousting thing. But I was not into all the silly fighting and forced storyline and guys hitting each other on the head. So I drifted over to the food vendors in search of something I could eat.

I stood in a line at the “Off with Your Bread” stand, whose sign promised fruit sorbet in a natural fruit shell in addition to soup in bread bowls. The wait was for nothing, however, because they had no fruit sorbet. So I stood in another (very long) line for a pretzel and a beer. Other food choices included bangers and mash, roasted turkey legs, gyros, fajitas, brats, crepes, ice cream, funnel cake, and pizza — most of which was not exactly available in the Middle Ages.

The Faire offered a number of shops selling leather goods, ceramics, weapons, clothing, jewelry, and the like.

Probably the most interesting part of an event like this is the costumes — not just on the festival participants but also on a large portion of the crowd. I guess if you have a costume like that, you want to wear it — and outside of Halloween, there’s not a lot of opportunity.

The 25-mile High Trestle Trail that runs between Woodward and Ankeny in central Iowa is a great bike and walking trail — but the bridge that gives the trail its name is the real hidden treasure.

The half-mile-long bridge between Madrid and Woodward was converted from a train trestle that overlooks the Des Moines River from 13 stories high. It’s an incredible view, and the bridge itself is spectacular thanks to artwork by David Dahlquist Studios. Dahlquist and his team created a design comprised of 41 steel “frames” that create a tunnel effect as you look across the bridge. The center frames contain blue LED lights that make a night viewing a one-of-a-kind experience.

Six overlooks on the bridge feature interpretive panels that highlight the region’s cultural and natural history.

I arrived at the trail one night last week just as the sun was low in the sky. It was one of those humid, late-summer nights where the eastern sky just goes gray and murky. But the sunset was gorgeous in the west, and dozens of bikers were on the trail along with a few in-line skaters and a group of women just sitting in bag chairs watching the sun go down. When those blue lights came on and illuminated the bridge, it was just magical.

Here are two more views as the sun went down. If you look close at the last one, you can seen the moon.