Waterways Walk and Inside the Iowa State Capitol - Mon., Sep. 22

Another picture-perfect day greeted us as we started our 11K (6.8 mile) Waterways Volksmarch at 8 a.m. The walk followed along the Des Moines River, then across it on the Caboose Red Pedestrian Bridge.

Bob on pedestrian bridge over Des Moines River

Principal Park where the Iowa Cubs farm team plays

A pretty fountain outside Principal Park

We walked to the confluence of the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers at which point we turned to follow the Raccoon River. You could tell that there had been flooding upstream by the amount of debris (i.e., trees and branches) that was against bridge pilings.

Trees piled up against bridge supports

As we turned away from Raccoon River, we enter Gray's Lake Park. The recreational trail took us on a bridge over part of Gray's Lake.

Recreational trail bridge over Gray's Lake

View of downtown with lake in the foreground

Gray's Lake

Did I mention the weather was perfect? Not a cloud in the sky, about 65 degrees. After we walked around half the lake, we continued along the Raccoon River into downtown. This seemed like the longest portion of the walk along ML King, Jr., Parkway. But there were excellent views of downtown so we couldn't complain too much.

Downtown from ML King, Jr. Parkway bridge

Downtown Des Moines, IA

The most interesting building on the waterways Volksmarch was the Polk Co. Courthouse. Unfortunately the whole top was scaffolded along with parts of the sides. The building was built in 1906 in the Beaux-Arts style. This building has lots of ornamentation. In the keystones of the second floor are 28 "grotesques." Grotesques differ from gargoyles  because gargoyles were designed to divert water away from the building and grotesques are faces. (It is said the architect included his own face among the grotesques.)

Polk County Courthouse

One of 28 grotesques...Is it the architect?

More building detail

In the next photo, you can see a horizontal platform near the top of the vertical metal lift. The platform is a big elevator that is used to transport people and work materials up to the work area.

We then headed back to the car along the recreational trail. Our next destination: the Iowa Capitol. We plan to take a tour. Because our feet were tired from the 11K walk, we drove to the Visitor Center parking for the capital. As we walked in the door of the Capitol, a tour was just starting. We had a gentleman from Toronto, a lady from Cedar Rapids, WI and the two of us.

Here are pictures from our tour along with commentary:

The second photo of the Rotunda dome below is a close-up showing the emblem of the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.). The emblem, painted on canvas and suspended on wire, was placed there as a reminder of Iowa's efforts to preserve the Union during the Civil War. A painted sky with clouds was added to the interior during recent Capitol renovations.

The Rotunda dome.

Emblem of the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.)

Just off the Rotunda is a model of the battleship U.S.S. Iowa on loan from the U.S. Navy. In the foreground of the first photo below is one of the two bells from the U.S.S. Iowa. It weighs 1,000 pounds.

Dolls depicting Iowa's first ladies in their inaugural gowns
are on display near the Governor's Office.

Next we toured the Governor's Reception Room:

Chandelier in Governor's Reception Room

The walls of the Reception Room - marble and wallpaper

Because the Governor had no official business today, we were able to tour the Governor's Private Office.

Governor's office

At the base of the dome, statues covered in gold leaf,
and eight half-moon-shaped paintings called lunettes
tell the story of "The Progress of Civilization."

Below is one of the statues gracing the marble and granite Grand Stairway. Our guide told us an interesting story about the two statues at the base of the stairway. Originally, the statues were made for the Illinois Capitol. Illinois took one look at the statues, decided they were "too naked" and rejected them. The architect asked Iowa if they'd like to put them in  their Capitol and Iowa was happy to. Fast forward 100 years...Illinois came knocking on Iowa's door asking for the statues back. Iowa said no. So Illinois sent designers to the Iowa Capitol with 3-D imaging cameras, took lots of photos, and commissioned another set of statues just like the first. So if you go to the Illinois Capitol you will see statues just like these.

Above the Grand Stairway, you will see Westward, a mural painting covering the entire wall by Edwin H. Blashfield of New York. The mural symbolizes the pioneers' arrival in Iowa.

Above Westward in arched panels, are six mosaics made of small pieces of glass tile. Bob thinks he remembers that there are 400,000 pieces of tile in the mosaics, each one hand-pressed into place.

The six mosaics symbolize Defense, Charities, the
Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches of Iowa,
and Education.

One of the six mosaics up close.

Next our guide took us into The State Library of Iowa--Law Library. It is awesome and contains over 100,000 volumes. There is no elevator, so the books are moved up and down on a dumbwaiter. There are two circular staircases of iron grillwork in the library.

Law Library

Here we are on a circular staircase.

From the bottom looking up.

Impressive and ornate - notice lunettes and statues

House of Representatives

Again, notice lunettes and statues above columns.

Marble and granite Grand Stairway and tile floors.

The building is massively built with five towers. Normally tours go up into The Rotunda tower, but today it was closed because contractors need to go up to provide quotes for work. Oh well.

After our Volksmarch, then tour of the Capitol, we went to the 5er, showered, packed and headed to Wisconsin. U.S. Hwy. 151 is a great road, but we had a major misconception about the two states...we thought they were flat. NOT!! We went up and down rolling hills all day. We are so thrilled to be where it's green again.

Iowa farmland

Bucolic

Pastoral

John Deere country

Halcyon

Agricultural

Tidy farms

Beautiful green rolling hills

Rolling downhill to Dubuque, Iowa

Cross the mighty Mississippi and, voila!, we're in Wisconsin.

It was getting late and we thought it best to call it a night. In our AAA Campground Book we found Joy Lake Campground just outside Belton, WI, 55 miles south of Madison. He was just getting ready to close when we called, but we were close enough that he waited for us to get there.

The campground is on a beautiful lake. Most of the sites are seasonal residents who have added permanent additions onto their trailers. We told him we wanted to do laundry and he put us in a site way back over yonder in the campground close to the laundry facility. It was unlevel but not bad enough to unhook and level.

The laundry room had three washers and four dryers. One of the washers had coins jammed in it, so we could only use two. We had four loads of laundry to do. All went well until it was time to dry the clothes. One of the dryers was full of dog hair. Scratch that one. The dryers I used didn't get hot, so I ended up running the dryers through two cycles (1-1/2 hours) to get the clothes dry. After that I wrote my blogs and headed for bed.

Travel Bug out.

Hiking Fools - Sun., May 5

What do you call a group of people who love to hike, make silly puns, sing a few bars of whatever song happens to pop into their heads, and play pranks on each other? Hiking fools (AKA San Antonio Hill Country Hikers).

Sunday morning I dragged myself out of bed to make the 8:45 a.m. start time at O.P. Schnabel Park Trailhead in northwest San Antonio. The park is part of the Leon Creek Greenway.

Meanwhile, Bob did a ten-mile run on the Riverwalk from our RV park into downtown San Antonio and back.

Once again our hike leader, Paul, took us on a mostly shaded hike. Did he stick to paved trails? Nooooo. He must know the park like a truck driver knows interstates. He had us traipsing through the woods on deer trails, gravel and rocky paths, over the "river" and through the mud. But we didn't end up at grandmother's house. We ended up right back where we started 5.7 miles later. Thankfully in the description of the hike, Paul told us to wear hiking boots or sturdy shoes. Especially nice to have on my boots for the steep rocky section of trail and for the mucky mud.

The heavy rain we had last week created more than mud. Wildflowers bloomed, grasses sprouted seeds, and the trees were vibrant green.

The hike wasn't the breakneck pace of last Friday evening's Tobin Park walk. Today we took time to smell the blooming sage, look at deer who were looking back at us, and take pictures. In honor of Cinco de Mayo, one guy broke out singing "La Cucaracha."

I am amazed by the variety of scenery in San Antonio and that we keep learning about new places to be out in nature. The locals on the hike talked about how much they like San Antonio's greenspace initiatives and vote for them whenever they are on the ballot. The greenspaces are well used by animals, birds, and people in the region. We saw many deer on our hike. The mud revealed tracks of deer, raccoons, people and dogs.

Runners with marathon numbers were on some of the paved trails. We were told they were running a half marathon. It must have been very popular because when we finished our hike the runners were leaving. Police had to direct traffic; the start/finish of the half marathon was across the main highway from the park we were in.

Surprise, surprise: I have photos from the hike today. Don't I always? Here they are...

Wooded glen.

Most times there is no water here.

Rain lilies.

One of the many deer checking us out.

This huge rock wall reminded me of a hike we took at the Ledges
area in Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio.

Our hike leader, Paul, said there usually isn't water here. All of us were impressed by this pretty, seasonal "lake."

Instant lake, just add water.

Wildflowers on the rocks.

Isn't this inviting?

Check out those roots!

Black-bellied whistling duck.

Paul talking, Kim, Carmen and Eduardo.

Paul capturing a moment.

Can you say "spring cleaning?" That's what we did all afternoon. It was way past time to clean our 5th wheel carpets so we rented The Rug Doctor machine from WalMart and Bob, bless his heart, made many passes of the carpet cleaner over all the interior carpet. When he had done enough, I took over and made a couple more sweeps of the living room carpet. It looks so much better!


Sunday night TV is 60 Minutes and Amazing Race. We finally sat down and relaxed with dinner, then later with a bowl of ice cream and cookies. Well deserved. Thank you, honey, for being the "heavy lifter/ muscle" in the carpet cleaning. It's so nice to walk on the carpet now.

So ended our second busy weekend day in a row. Even the cats are exhausted!

"I wanna hold your hand paw."

We love each other.

The end.