Iowa in Review

  Our trip to Iowa began in the Amana Colonies where we met our first RV campground friends!  Their 4 month old mini schnauzer drew the girls over right away.  We've quickly discovered that fellow RVers are willing and excited to share tips & recommendations.

  So the Amana Colonies... a touristy town, but we found so much history in this communal society from the 1800's.  We toured quaint gift shops and buildings that were reminiscent of the era and loved that it was close enough to bike to & around. 

We all loved our next stop.  Jim's dream was to hand milk a cow while in Iowa, so dear friends of ours contacted their Mennonite relatives in Kolona and made Jim's wildest dreams come true:)  Our first stop was to James Yoder's chicken farm where we were able to tour through several barns full of nearly 100,000 chickens!  We were able to see the process from chick to egg-laying hens & how they collected, sorted & packaged the thousands of eggs.

We then went across town to James' brother Layton & his wife Joanne's to watch the hard work involved in running a dairy farm.  We were able to observe the 5:00pm milking and even milk a cow ourselves!  Natalie & Alayna were then given the chance to bottle feed a few-day-old calf some of the fresh milk.  

One more thing off the bucket list!

Alayna milkin'

Natalie milkin'

Layton's sweet daughter swatting the cows out.

Chatting with some of the Yoder kids

James & Layton's dad, Calvin and his wife Aida had us over for dinner and we enjoyed our evening chatting with them. 

It was so nice for these families to let us have a peak into their world and priceless getting to show our girls how much goes into getting the foods that we so easily buy at the grocery store.

Next was Des Moines where we tried our first of Adam Richman's (Man vs. Food) food challenges!  Last year he visited Jethro's Barbeque to take on the Emmenecker Challenge, but was unsuccessful and joined many others in the "hall of shame".  

 Turns out the four of us together couldn't even finish this bad boy:

That's because it consisted of a huge pork tenderloin, an angus steak burger topped with slabs of texas brisket, applewood bacon and fried cheese, finished with buffalo chicken tenders.  All smothered with melted cheddar cheese and white cheddar sauce, placed between two buns and served with a side of baked beans.

Pure deliciousness... just too much deliciousness.

Our last fun in Iowa was visiting the Living History Farms... a Deanna Rose Farmstead on steroids!  A whole town set up like one in the 1800's and an area that led us through 300 years of Iowa's farming history.

 

Broommaker 

Blacksmith

Drug Store

The girls loved learning how leeches have (and still are) used for medical purposes!

Oxen working the fields

We loved that we were able to see a new side of Iowa other than the monotonous drive through it while heading up north on I-35 every year.  The rolling hills of crops sprinkled with barns, silos & cattle were so beautiful.  But we're ready for time with family and exploring in MN!