Western road trip, days 13-14: Iowa

Day 13: road to Davenport

We hit the road from Omaha in the morning to meet my college roommate, Tracy, for coffee in Des Moines. She lives a bit north of there, and she knew a cute cafe and brought her kids so I got to meet them. She's a teacher for the deaf in the area and her kids are school-age, so you can guess she's been going through a lot with the 'rona. It was good to see her.

We hit up Barn Town Brewing for lunch, which was definitely a destination spot in Des Moines. Maybe all of Iowa. Really nice hazy IPAs and imperial stouts. (And they were making people wear masks, and they had an outdoor table! Hooray!)

On the river walk in Davenport, IA

We arrived in Davenport, Iowa, where we had booked a hotel for our last night on the road. I've never spent any time in the Quad Cities, so we wanted to at least stop for a walk, some beer, some food, and maybe an art museum (the art museum will be tomorrow). We hit up Taste of Ethiopia by the river downtown for an absolutely delicious shared vegetarian platter and fried donuts with honey. Then we took a nice, long walk down by the river. 

River walk bridge; Davenport seems to be a town of bridges, I like it

After earning our 10,000 steps, we visited Endless Brews for some nice local taps (they had a good mix of Iowa beers and general Midwestern brews). They had a nice bottle shop, too. A couple of excellent breweries in the Quad Cities don't seem to have tap rooms, so this is where you can find them.

Endless Brews, or in our case, 4 brews

Our hotel, the Current, is situated in a cool old building downtown and has interesting art on the walls and in the room. But our room is maybe a bit too interesting; there is a dog sculpture on the desk that I'm writing on right now, and I am 98% sure that the sculpture includes real human teeth. I don't even want a picture to remember this by.

The Current, downtown Davenport

We did get up to the roof for a fun view of downtown Davenport and the river. Catching up to some work, then it's the road home tomorrow!

Roof of the Current, view of the river. Some neat old buildings in Davenport

Oh, and we finished Black Leopard, Red Wolf today. I feel like I need to reread the book, or at least go back and revisit some passages to understand them better, but it was super interesting. Hyper violent, really intense, but innovative in the way the narrative is told.

Day 14: Davenport, road home to Chicago

Went for a short walk along the river front, then opened up my laptop for one more morning of hotel working.

We took the afternoon off to get lunch and see a museum in Davenport before we left. The Figge Art Museum in downtown Davenport is cute and has a focus on Midwest art and culture, although I think they could do even more (they have some rooms focused on European Renaissance art - who needs more of that?? Ha!).

Justine Thyme, a drag performer!

There were a lot of cool Grant Woods and a room of photographs from a Pride parade somewhere in Iowa. It was awesome.

We finished another audiobook on our way home, which made a big pile to return to the library, which was our first stop when we got back into town. We got through quite a few, and it was nice to unload them so they can get into quarantine and come off of my record (so I can request more!).

I ran a few more errands and even fit in a yarn bomb before bed. Lots of people commented as they walked around Grant Park. It's nice to be back in Chicago, especially with all that's going on in the world. 

My beautiful city is still standing, although the Columbus statue is not!

Yarn bomb in Grant Park

The road trip was a great way to work out our travel itch, see new places, and also do something I haven't done for a while - miss our city and miss our apartment. We have been pretty much stuck at home since March, so it was a good feeling to come back and go, "Ahh, we missed this place!" It only took 3,500 miles, apparently.

As the breweries were a major focus of our trip (and as we brought home about a case and a half of cans, crowlers, and bottles), I thought I'd give a final run-down of our absolute favorite, must-find breweries, all destinations unto themselves:

1. Drekker in Fargo, ND
2. Boiler in Lincoln, NE
3. Dangerous Man in Minneapolis, MN
4. Barn Town in Des Moines, IA
5. The Brewing Projekt in Eau Claire, WI

Runners up are Überbrew in Billings, MT; Lost Cabin in Rapid City, SD; Fair State in Minneapolis, MN.

We're already planning our next road trips, as international travel will likely be impossible for the rest of the year (and we'll have to wait and see how the COVID hot spots go). Thanks for road tripping with me!