The first week of August I spent in Des Moines, Iowa, with my daughter who competed in the Junior Olympic track meet.
Des Moines was never really on my bucket list, but I ended up really enjoying it. We stayed in an rental apartment in the East Village part of downtown Des Moines. When we first drove up, late on a Sunday night, I was a little disconcerted by the drunk people outside of the apartment building. A party was going on, a loud party, in the building's restaurant/lounge, and some guy was outside cussing into his phone as we pulled up. This was not the a cute little complex I was expecting. After finding parking, lugging our bags upstairs, and looking for ice in the hallway machine, the party seemed to be winding down, but I didn't want to stay at a place with a bunch drunk people around. I spent the next couple of hours looking at other options for accomodations in the city before crashing into bed.
The bed was comfy, and in the morning light after a good night's rest, I realized the neighborhood wasn't as sketchy as I initially feared. We were less than a mile from the capitol building, blocks from the river and a nice bike path, and a few minutes' walk to coffee shops, restaurants, and cute boutiques. Across the river were more restaurants, a sculpture garden, and more hotels and highrises linked by an elevated pedestrian walkway. Since we had to rush off early to the track meet before I could find a place with a vacancy in my price range or find out if we even could cancel, I decided I'd give it one more night before moving on. Fortunately, the lounge was closed the remainder of our stay, and I ended up loving our little urban getaway.
Des Moines, although the capitol of Iowa, is not a big city, although it has personality. We were in the trendy urban neighborhood, but a mile's jog along the bike path led to an older community with beautiful old homes. I drove a couple miles the other direction one morning to jog around a lake in a park near downtown. The track meet was at Drake University, which is not a bad looking campus, with lots of native plantings and big trees to give it a botanical garden feel. The surrounding neighborhood where we parked was hit or miss - definitely some houses looked like students lived there. I also admired the neighborhood around the art museum, which I visited in a lull between events during the meet, which also was filled with gorgeous, old brick homes and big, tailored gardens. The art museum was designed in three stages by Eliel Saarinen, I. M. Pei, and Richard Meier. Works were exhibited sparely, but to their benefit. I was interested to see the docents leading several groups of adults with sight impairments around the museum and allowing them to touch the sculptures, including a Rodin and a beautiful black water woman by Wangechi Mutu, based on a character from East African folklore.
Because the rental apartment was booked for the weekend, we had to move to a hotel for the last two nights. I also wanted to be able to cancel the reservations for the weekend because I wasn't sure my daughter would qualify for finals in the last relay. This hotel was in a more suburban area, and again I found a trail along a creek that was absolutely beautiful, so pretty that I ran seven miles without noticing until the very end - when I cursed myself for going so far.
Des Moines has surprised me. I brought a huge bag of books and had a number of projects to work on during the down time between races (She had 5 races on 5 different days), but I was distracted by things to see and do around Des Moines, including watching some exciting races. A highlight was the art museum, but we also toured the capitol building, which has a law library famous for its ornamental stacks. With time to spare and half a dozen salons in the area, I treated myself to a hair cut - something I hate doing because I hate paying a lot for bad haircuts. Happily, I liked my cut, and it didn't cost a fortune. I tried four different coffee shops and two bookstores and enjoyed walking around the campus of Drake. And I did get quite a bit of reading done, too - mostly young people books: The Girl Who Drank the Moon, The Outsiders, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Watsons Go to Birmingham... trying to decide what books to teach.
My daughter also had a successful meet - she PR'd and medalled in the 800m and her relay teams both medalled also (4th in the 4x800 and 7th in the 4x400 - top 8 medal.) She had to run on 4 different days because each event had qualifying heats and finals, and none were on the same day. They really want you to stick around. She now is heading into senior year with a faster time and more options for running in college. She isn't elite level yet, but if she wants to compete in college, she would be a contributor on a lot of teams.
Now in the third week of August, vacation is a dim memory, and I'm getting the school schedule down after a week of classes. More on that to come.
