As a little girl growing up in Sumter, South Carolina, I longed to travel and experience places that I read about or heard about. Once again as I have so many times on this two month journey, I found myself sipping my morning coffee and reflecting on the incredibly satisfying life that we have. This particular location was a lovely vineyard in central Iowa. And now a day later, I am enjoying the sounds of songbirds and the beauty of acres of blueberry bushes laden with the fruit that will very soon ripen.
Ashlea is with us this week and we are both researchers and planners, so our days are filled with wandering from one interesting location to the next. She flew into Omaha, Nebraska to meet us and will fly out of St. Louis, Missouri to return home. The total drive distance is only about 450 miles. We planned the week so that we would have very short drives each day to enable us to experience the roads less traveled. This often involves pulling Wander on wash board dirt or gravel roads but the rewards are great.
Our host at the winery, Joanne, suggested we go to Lake Red Rock. Lake Red Rock is the largest lake in Iowa and a beautiful recreation area managed by the Corps of Engineers. Ashlea did a 2 mile hike through the woods and over the river. I chose to do a shorter trail but beautiful!
The COE volunteer at the lake visitor center recommended we drive into nearby Pella, Iowa. Pella is a charming little Dutch town with a very interesting history. It was established in 1847 by immigrants from the Netherlands fleeing religious persecution. Many descendants of these original founders still live in the town. The architecture of the early buildings as well as newer construction is lovely and very Dutch. This may be the cutest little town we have visited. We visited a Dutch bakery and came away shocked at the prices! We bought 3 individual pastries and a cherry coffee cake for the unbelievable total of $8.04!
We had lunch at a lovely little restaurant, Liberty Street Kitchen. It is located in the Royal Amsterdam Hotel in the center of the business district. Our food was delicious and the atmosphere equally as good. We all enjoyed a side of what we agree might be the most delicious brussel sprouts we have ever had.
From Pella we proceeded southeast through Iowa to Blueberry Bottoms Farms an organic farm near Brighton, Iowa. Kim and Steve are our hosts at this Harvest Hosts site and like all our HH stays across the country, it was a delightful experience. The farm is over 400 acres and it includes the blueberry fields, an orchard with hazelnuts and chestnuts, some persimmon trees, paw-paw trees, one apple tree and one peach tree. The remainder of the acreage they rotate with crops like oats, soybean, wheat and other grains. Kim took us on a tour of the farm in their “Mule” and we were all very excited to learn about this lovely organic farm. It is really impressive that with the exception of some occasional part-time help, the two of them work this large farm by themselves. Steve also works another “full-time job” and Kim is an adjunct professor at Southern New Hampshire University.
No comments:
Post a Comment