All The Corn Can Be Found in Iowa

I already described our 'fancy' hotel stay in my previous post. The only redeeming factor staying at the Sheridan had was it's location. It was right in the 'downtown' area of Iowa City and very near the campus of the University of Iowa. So there were lots of unwashed college kids in sandals milling about everywhere. And the coffee houses were plentiful. Not that I'm a big coffee house type of person, but I just noticed that there were tons of them within a four-block radius.

There was some nice playground equipment in the town square just outside the hotel, so Archie and I did lots of hanging out in that area. Especially since the indoor hotel pool wasn't anything Archie could swim in without a swimming adult with him. I couldn't swim with Lawrence. Not in water that came up to my chin at it's shallowest point!

So Monday we spent the day exploring downtown Iowa City. It was nice having Phillip come 'home' in the evening, and I must admit it was fun watching cable television again. I watched Discovery channel shows non-stop. Archie and I really enjoy the show "How It Is Made" and we all love shows like Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, Man vs. Wild, Survivorman and the like. Phillip had his doubts about "How It Is Made" until they started showing how they made car parts and metal pipes and other 'guy' stuff like that. Then he came around! Ahhh...cable television...how I've missed it! But not enough to pay for it! :-)

Tuesday we packed up and headed for the cabin at Palisades State Park, about 30 minutes North of Iowa City. During our travels of Iowa thus far, we saw corn field after corn field. Flat farmland, one field after another. I don't know why anyone is worried about the corn crops. They are quite plentiful in Iowa! So imagine my surprise when we get to the Palisades State Park and the terrain abruptly changes to this:

That picture was taken on a hike we did while Phillip was at work on Wednesday, but is a good sampling of how the park looked. If you click the above picture once to make it big, you can see Archie waaaay down against a huge rock-cliff.

We rented a cabin for Tuesday night and Wednesday night. Here is our little cabin. Cute, huh?



Here are a couple of pics of the inside. We had to bring our own bed linens and stuff. That's why Mom will recognize the quilt on the bed as the one I had when I was a child.






We went exploring immediately upon our arrival, while Phillip was still at work. Here are some pics from our explorations:









On one of the evenings we were there, Phillip and Archie came in with this little treasure they found:



We stayed Tuesday and Wednesday night at the Palisades. For Thursday night, we decided to try another hotel, since the Sheridan wasn't a good fit for us. We stayed at the Quality Inn, incidentally less expensive, WITH a good breakfast, WITH a great indoor pool, WITH free wifi in the room, FREE local calls, and even the cable was better. We stayed at the pool all day Friday after we checked out waiting on Phillip to get off work.

Here are some more pictures taken various times and places during our Iowa excursion.

This was at the Sheridan's pool. Phillip was able to swim with Archie in the evenings. I just love an 'action' shot!

This is what Lawrence did all day Friday while we were at the Quality Inn's pool waiting for Phillip to get off work so we could make the long trek back to Cincinnati. I don't know how he slept in there. The trouble with indoor pools is that the room is usually very hot. Not a problem for swimmers. But those of us who couldn't swim...it was um...unpleasant after the first few hours. Archie swam for 7 hours on Thursday and 5 hours on Friday. I had a monster migraine on the way home from being in the heat all day. But it was fun watching Archie have a good time. He had lots of tricks to show me and was quite properly worn out for the ride home.