Iowa Girl on the Go

Today’s East Village Sunday Bazaar was both the last bazaar of the season and the site of a Halloween dog parade. I have to admit I enjoyed the dogs the most.

The temperature was perfectly nice this afternoon — cool and sunny. But it was also very windy, and that made outdoor vendors scramble to batten down the hatches, so to speak. Displays were crashing down, textiles were weighted with heavy objects, plants were dumping over.

The event, held on Sunday afternoons in September and October, reminds me a lot of Market Day held once a month on Saturday mornings in downtown Des Moines. The main difference is that one is indoors and one is outside. The vendors seem similar. Today there were vendors selling antiques and vintage finds, jewelry, knitted hats, scarves, bags made from rice sacks in Cambodia, journals made from old books, furniture, and the like. My daughter bought a scarf; I was tempted by some of the jewelry and really liked the rice bags (pictured) — but I already have too many bags.

I was hoping for food vendors and maybe a bit of live music, but none was to be had. Some of the East Village shops and restaurants were open, but not all.

The surprise of the day was the dog parade — dogs dressed in their Halloween best with their people handing out candy and other treats to onlookers. I scored a fine plastic spider ring, a purple plastic necklace, and a handful of candy that I gave to Katie.

Dogs were dressed as hotdogs, bears, insects, dinosaurs, ballerinas, cowboys, and Santa Claus. A few, apparently too dignified (or too large) for such nonsense wore bandannas around their necks or no costumes at all.

Just three miles west of Boone is a unique bridge with a fascinating history.

The Kate Shelley High Bridge was the highest double-track railroad bridge in the United States. The bridge was designed by George S. Morison for the Chicago and Northwestern Railway and was constructed from 1899 to 1901. It stands 185 ft above the Des Moines River with a length of 2,685 ft. The bridge was renamed in 1912 to honor Kate Shelley.

The story of Kate Shelly is one of bravery and heroism. Kate was a teenager when, in 1881, a huge storm knocked out the Honey Creek bridge. One train, carrying four men, plunged into the creek. Kate knew that another train would be coming soon. Through the fierce storm and total blackness of night, she crawled across the Des Moines River bridge to warn the station master.

Her heroism saved many lives that night.

Today the original double track steel bridge is aging and trains were forced to reduce their speeds to 25 mph while crossing it. A new concrete bridge was constructed, beginning in 2006 and completed in 2009. The new bridge is slightly larger than the old bridge. The new bridge spans 2,813 feet long and is 190 feet high. The bridge is designed for two trains to travel across it at the same time traveling 70 mph. The new bridge also carries the Kate Shelley name.

To view the bridges, take Hwy. 30 west past Boone about three miles. Follow the signs that will take you north and slightly back to the east along narrow gravel roads.

If you think that covered bridges are the only reason to visit Madison County, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the variety of activities in Winterset, Iowa, and the surrounding area.

I spent today roughly following the advice of Des Moines Register writer Paula Reece, who wrote a travel piece in the “Fiftysomething” insert a couple of weeks ago about fall drives to take in the Midwest.

Before heading west this morning, I stopped at the downtown Des Moines farmers market, because this is the best time to go to the market in my opinion. I was not disappointed today. The air was crisp and there was still abundant produce and prepared foods to be had — including fall produce such as pumpkins, squash, apples, cider, bittersweet, and Indian corn.

After spending way too much time and money at the market, I headed to Madison County, known for its covered bridges made famous by Robert James Waller’s book The Bridges of Madison County and the subsequent movie starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep. (I have to admit I’ve never read the book, which probably makes me un-American — or at least un-Iowan.)

I have visited the bridges and the town of Winterset, the Madison County seat — but never on such a glorious fall day. I started my journey by taking Exit 104 off I-80 about 20 miles west of Des Moines. That led to a long and gravel-y drive to the first bridge: Hogback. (If I do this again, I will take Hwy. 169 off I-80, which provides a more direct route to the bridge. This is what I get for following the tourist map.)

Hogback Bridge is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, like most of the bridges. You drive along on a gravel road and then bam! there’s the bridge. Hogback, built in 1884, gets its name from the limestone ridge that forms the west end of the valley. It’s really just a few miles northwest of Winterset, and it’s a very nice-looking bridge.

My next stop was Pammel State Park, a disappointment. I was hoping to hike some of the “five miles of trails” promised in the newspaper article, but I’ll be switched if I could find a single one. I drove back and forth several times on the same roads and could only find water trails on the Middle River, which runs through the park. I did drive through the park’s tunnel — reportedly the only highway tunnel in the state of Iowa (can that be right?)

After that, I toyed with the idea of driving out to Roseman Bridge — the most famous one from the book — but I’ve been there before and found the presence of a gift shop annoying. Plus, I want to go back later with Dave because he wants to see the bridges and visit John Wayne’s birthplace. So consider Roseman on my to-do list for next summer.

Instead, I went to downtown Winterset to do some shopping. Reece suggests Applehurst, an eclectic shop in the former Madison County Jail. I went there, and it’s very cute. Lots of stuff outside to see, tables on the porch for drinking local wine and beer, and a shop filled with gardening and birdwatching supplies mixed with antiques, gifts, and more.

I was pleasantly surprised by the number and variety of shops downtown. I think it’s grown exponentially since the last time I was here — or perhaps I just wasn’t paying attention. But there are good-quality gift shops, art galleries, antiques, and even an old-fashioned Ben Franklin. I visited B.Shannon Designs, featuring custom jewelry and art, as well as a couple of antiques and gift shops.

Winterset City Park is one of the nicest city parks I’ve seen. For one thing, it has its very own covered bridge — the Cutler-Donahoe Bridge. This bridge was built in 1870 and was originally located over the North River near Bevington. It was moved to its present site in 1970. The park also features a well-tended English hedge maze — tell me the last time you saw one of these? — and plenty of other features.

I headed east out of Winterset to visit the Holliwell Bridge (also on a gravel road, but not far from town). Built in 1880, it is the longest covered bridge, measuring 122 feet. It remains in its original site over the Middle River southeast of Winterset.

I had to go back through Winterset to get on Hwy 169 to head back to I-80, and my stomach was growling, so I stopped at a little Italian deli right off the square. This small shop features a menu of sandwiches and salads, a deli counter with meats and cheeses by the pound, Italian imports, and a rather random gift shop. The women running the place were good natured and made me a dandy veggie sandwich on a warm Italian roll. It was so huge I couldn’t eat the whole thing — and with chips, Italian herbed crackers, coleslaw, a pickle, and a bottle of water,  it only cost me $5.00. (A number of other locally owned restaurants and bakeries can be found on the town square.)

Besides the Roseman Bridge, the other bridges I did not visit were the Cedar Bridge (north of Winterset) and the Imes Bridge (in Charles City, right off of I-35). I’ll leave those for my next trip.

The Northeast Iowa Artists’ Studio Tour gives art enthusiasts a unique opportunity to visit artists where they work — and even sometimes where they live.

The 14th annual studio tour features 45 artists from Calmar to New Albin, Waukon to Lansing, with a concentrated number in Decorah.

You can drive at your own pace through scenic Northeast Iowa. Many of the studios are only open for this event once each year, and you can visit with the artists and purchase their art. This was a perfect weekend to go for a scenic drive; the temperature today was in the low 80s and the fall color was lovely.

Dave and I spent the day traveling from studio to studio, starting at Steel Cow  where Valerie Miller paints cows. Big cows, small cows, brightly colored cows. Steel Cow, her urban gallery in small-town Waukon, is worth the drive from anywhere. I defy anyone not to smile when they see these paintings. The cows all have names, like Grace and Caroline and Queenie and Mae. We definitely started with the best studio on the tour. It’s totally cool.

From Waukon, we went to Lansing, ate lunch at TJ Hunter’s, and then visited Fred and Velga Easker’s studio up the road. Fred Easker paints extremely realistic, panoramic scenes of northeast Iowa and also offers the paintings as prints in several sizes at very reasonable prices. Velga Easker’s collages are inspired by quilts but contain tiny pieces of paper and even postage stamps. They are small, delicate masterpieces.

Heading north toward New Albin, we attempted to find the pottery studio of Nate and Hallie Evans. After a few missteps and backtracks, we finally pulled out the GPS and found the Allamakee Wood-fired Pottery studio down a long, skinny gravel road.

I liked the Evans studio very much because it seemed like a real, authentic, messy artists’ studio. They even offered us soup and homemade bread.

Winding back southwest on county roads gave us the opportunity to see more pretty fall leaves, farm fields, and dairy cows. We ended the loop in Decorah where there were more than 15 studios and galleries. We visited a few of them and also shopped in some of Decorah’s other nice-quality shops in the downtown area.

Next year’s tour is Oct.12-14, 2012.

Des Moines’ East Village is the setting for this weekend’s World Food Festival. The festival features authentic cuisines from Iowa’s diverse ethnic populations (as well as some American foods thrown in for, I assume, the kids and the faint of heart). Unique and exciting foods abound. For example: Aloo pie, a vegetarian dish from Trinidad; donates dolmasi from Mesopotamia; French crepes; Cajun jambalaya and etouffee; steamed buns from the Philippines; Ukrainian perogies; Moroccan gyros; plantain fritters from Ecuador; and Bosnian cabbage rolls.

Dave ate pupusas from El Savador: thick corn tortillas filled with pork and cheese and topped with vinegar coleslaw and salsa. I was thrilled to see a booth sponsored by the Ethiopian Association of Iowa. I love Ethiopian food and don’t get a chance to eat it very often — especially in Iowa. I ate vegetarian atkilt with cabbage, carrots, potatoes, green peppers, and green beans in curry sauce with spongy injera bread (pictured).

One great thing about this festival is that each booth offers a $1 taste item. Dave took advantage of this and had a little piece of alligator on a stick at the Fat Tuesday booth. He said it tasted like fish. I chose toasted marshmallows on a stick (caramel and coconut) and I’m pretty sure they were better than alligator meat.

The festival continues through Sunday.

For those of you who followed my blog in April when I was traveling with a group of Iowa Staters in Italy, you may remember that I became very close to my fellow travelers and had a very hard time saying goodbye. At the farewell dinner, Connie Osborne suggested that we all get together in Ames this fall for a football game and everyone was enthusiastic.

Those kinds of ideas generally sound great while you’re in the midst of a group in a lovely city such as Venice…but rarely come about once you return to your daily lives. But this group was different. Yesterday, five couples (nearly half of the total group) converged in Ames. I hosted the group in my home, and it was like a joyous family reunion. We all crowded into the kitchen, and the sound was deafening! It made me remember how loud we were in Italy!

For some reason, this group just connected from the very beginning. So it was really fun to see them again. We drank wine; ate pasta and bruschetta, bread, salad, and tiramisu; listened to Italian opera music; and celebrated the “second retirement” of one of the group’s members, Don Feld. We sat at two tables — it was quickly determined that men would sit at one and women at the other for maximum conversation — and reminisced about such things as the lovely villa in which we stayed in Tuscany, the restaurant we loved in San Gimingano, and our wonderful guide, Mauro. We toasted to good memories and good friendships.