Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Des Moines: Sunday, Monday and Tuesday

We enjoyed some time with our daughter and son-in-law on Sunday, august 10th, in the morning.  SIL needed to see family in the afternoon, so we took advantage of the cloudy but warm day to wash those parts of Nessie that hadn't gotten a cleanup on Thursday, and had an early evening getting ready for the fair again on Monday.

Sunday night was the night of the largest moon of the year, so we attempted a photo:


Monday morning we got an early start on the Iowa State Fair.  Our visit on Saturday only covered about half the 450 acres of fairgrounds, so we went back to see a bit more.

Our first stop after giving the grand-girls some $$$ and some instructions on how a clock works was the Skytram.  There are two section of overhead gondolas at the Fair, and we decided that a ride on the closest section would give us a chance to find places to visit once we got back to Terra Firma.




















Then it was into the woodworking display building.  There were hundreds of intricate and wonderful items on display and for sale. This very precise carving is difficult to make out behind the glass, but it is made from very thick Cottonwood bark. Each piece (we met the artist) has a lower section resembling a tree and very gracefully blending into a "hobbit house" near the top.  The detail is very hard to see, but is amazing. The artist even paints a small painting inside each house, and the houses are complete with curved windows with window trim, doors with raised panels, and chimneys coming out of roofs that look like they're shingled!


Best in show was a carving of a bird that had some exquisite detail on the feathering and head.


After seeing the woodworking, photography and painting exhibits, we walked by the State Fair rv campground.


A bit rustic!

We took another leg of the Skytram toward the midway and the grandstands.  Donna and Teresa were enjoying the cool day and the beautiful ride.



We passed near another rv parking area,



Hmmm, not our cup of tea.  Then over the Grand Concourse,


To the midway.



Where we found two young lades trying to play plastic accordions!


Girls will be girls, even though they're grand!

A quick side trip to the Grandstand/Racetrack took us past this sign.  Good advice for all of us, even non-Iowans!


We found out that on Wednesday night, the arena will host a sanctioned tractor-pull event!  Monsters with multiple engines and 800 horsepower lawnmowers will compete.  We would love to go, but our schedule won't allow it, so we'll put it on the "next-time" list.

We finished the day back at Nessie with a dinner of grilled hamburgers with all the fix-in's and s'mores afterward.





After a dozen s'mores, we got pretty good at making them! The trick, we found, is to lightly toast the marshmallow, then quickly set it on fire and immediately place it on the graham cracker/chocolate while it's still aflame.  Tough on the eyebrows, but makes for a grand dessert!

The fireflies came out just at dark, so we Californians spent an hour or so marveling at the thousands of little lights.  A natural wonder, indeed!

Today, Tuesday, Donna and I had a late morning, talking to the neighbors and drinking coffee, with no particular agenda.  At about 11, we decided to go visit the Iowa State Capitol, which we have been driving past for several days on our way to the Fair.



The gold on the dome is 23-karat, and is so thin that 250,000 sheets of the gold leaf pressed together would measure only one inch thick! The dome is 275 feet above the Capitol grounds.

The building construction was started in 1871 and completed in 1886. It is built of brick faced with limestone, granite, and sandstone, and is a showcase of artwork, woodcarving, and decorative wall and ceiling painting, and is furnished with 29 types of marble on the interior.

Interestingly, the buildings designer, Alfred Piquenard, paid his workmen by the day, and inspected their work at the end of each day.  After payment was made, if he liked their work, he invited them back.  If not, he fired them!

The interior is an almost overwhelming display of intricate woodworking, metal sculpture, grand staircases and paintwork.




There is no wallpapering the building, everything is painted. In the office of the Secretary of State, the original 1857 Iowa Constitution is on display in a specifically designed case.


And, above the door, the woodwork detail is phenomenal!  Each office, be it Secretary of State, Treasury, Governor's office or what have you, has a different detail above the door, and a different detail on the door hardware.




This is the office of the Governor, Mr. Terry E. Branstad.


And the unique details in his suite of offices.



I could go on for days, but there are three things I wand to share with you:

On the first floor, there is, above a hallway door, a photograph that is 26 feet long and 6 feet high, showing the Rainbow Division, 168th Infantry, after its return from France in 1919, and standing in front of the Capitol.  For obvious reasons, I only got a photo of the center section.


It is one of the world's largest reproduction photographs.

The State Library of Iowa-Law Library occupies the entire west wing of the second floor of the Capitol Building and houses over 100,000 volumes. A delicate wrought iron circular staircase at each end of the library leads to four tiers of law books and court decisions.





What a Library!

And, finally, the Library houses the oldest books that I have ever seen:



And one of Benjamin Franklin's own books:


Overwhelmed by what we had seen, we had to take a break.  Just down the street is a coffee shop named the Vintage Bean, so we stopped in for a cup of tea and some good conversation about what we had seen.  Wow!

Tomorrow it's sayonara, Des Moines, as we're heading north into the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

'Till later!

1 comment:

  1. Wow! That Iowa State Fair is a huge affair! Makes our local Ventura County Fair look miniscule by comparison! Always love the animals, and the quilts were amazing! The State Capital is another amazing building.

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