Iowa Capitol Building in Des Moines
We had an awesome day.
We woke up to the morning temperature of 45 degrees in Pella, Iowa and a little breeze. The high temperature was 73 degrees in Johnston, Iowa.
I got up at 7:00 am and got dressed. Then we had breakfast. After breakfast we put things away and secured because we're moving on. We had five fabulous days at Red Rock Lake but it's time to move on.
On the way out of Howell Station Recreation Area we stopped at the dump station to dump our tanks and fill the water tank with water. They had two dump stations and each station had to dumps and fresh water. Larry didn't have to use our hose to fill the water tank because they had a hanging hose and he could put our filter on it. This made it so much easier. While Larry dumped the tanks I walked over to the gate house and put our site tag in the box. The gate house was just across the street.
After dumping the tanks and getting water we were on the road at 8:00 am. Larry drove 75 miles on four lane highways and partly on an interstate. He prefers two lane or four lane highways then interstates. He feels they're less stressful.
We stopped in Des Moines to have some fun.
First was the capitol building. It opened at 8:00 am and we arrived at 9:00. We parked in a giant visitor parking lot by the capitol building. There was no one in the parking lot so we had no problem finding a spot. Then we walked over to the capitol building. When we entered the building we had to go through security. The two guys were very friendly. We went to the information booth and found we got there in good timing because the first tour was at 9:30, which was about 20 minutes away. This gave us some time to walk around. They had a small gift shop. Our tour guide was Jamie and she had been doing the tours for five years. She did an excellent job of talking about the structure of the capitol building. Her background was in architecture so a lot of the tour was about the architecture of the building. During the tour we saw the first ladies and first gentleman of Iowa doll case. In 2017 Kim Reynolds became the first female governor in the state. So her husband became the first first gentleman of the state. She talked about the USS Iowa (BB-61) battleship and showed us the model. We went inside the Supreme Courtroom. They don't hold their regular sessions in the capitol building, they're in the Judicial Building on the Capitol grounds south of the capitol building. We went inside the House of Representatives gallery and walked around the library. The library was gorgeous with spiral staircases. We saw a lot of beautiful art about the history of Iowa. We walked up a 91 step spiral staircase to get into the dome. At places it was very tight. Once in the dome we walked around and saw the dome up close. It was a great tour for 90 minutes.
After the tour we went back to the Minnie and had lunch. Then Larry drove to the Pappajohn Sculpture Park. It's 4.4-acre park with 24 sculptures. Before walking the sculpture park we saw a gorgeous clock on a building. It's a digital clock, that changes every hour on the hour. It didn't take too long to walk around but we saw some nice sculptures from different artists.
The last stop was Des Moines Art Museum. It was a fantastic museum with a lot of paintings, sculptures, modern art and mixed media. There are art works that are permanent and made by well known artists, such as: Edward Hopper's Automat from 1927, which was made in a postage stamp, Stanton McDonald Wright's Synchromy, which has been reproduced in numerous texts about art/movement and Francis Bacon's Portrait of Pope Innocent from 1953 appeared in Robert Hughes' BBS series The Shocks of the New in 1980s. The art was on display on three floors and in a sculpture garden. We didn't go through the garden. The special art exhibits is by Maria Lassnig. She does animated films and gets some of her ideas from watching television. The museum was established in 1948.
After walking around the museum we went to Walmart to do some grocery shopping. After putting all the groceries away we were back on the road.
Our final destination for the day was U.S. Army Corps of Engineer Saylorville Lake Cherry Glen Campground. On the way there we stopped at Chasey's to fill up the Minnie with gas. Once this was done we continued another four miles to Saylorville Lake.
We stopped at the gate house to check-in and the gentleman said just go to the site. Our site was #79 and we had no problem finding it. The campground only had a few sites available when Larry made reservations yesterday. They have three more Corps of Engineers campground on the lake but they don't open until May 1st. The sites are very close to each other but that's ok because it's only for one night.
After setting up the Minnie for the night it was 3:00.
I played my games. I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Two Game Tango Mini of 6 games (3 Klondike and 3 Free Cell). It took me 19 minutes and 13 seconds, which put me in 33rd in my group. I played Angry Birds Friends and Angry Birds 2.
Larry did some research on where to go from here. For dinner we shared a salad from Walmart.
After dinner I walked around for 35 minutes for 1.33 miles. By the end of the day I only did 11,000 steps. We had a super day.
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I would love to hear friendly comments on anything at all. Ruth