Category: Iowa

Pizza Roundup Pizza Ranch

Pizza Roundup Pizza Ranch

To my fellow pizza lovers, I bring you a post from yet another Pizza Ranch, this time in Altoona, Iowa!

If you’ve been reading my posts since the beginning then you should know that I have done one of these on Pizza Ranch every single year. This time it was still just as tasty if not better since we were all waiting for it.

Pizza Ranch has a nice southern style decor

and their regular southern food bar,

along with their awesome pizza

and dessert bar!

I got the Chicken bacon ranch pizza (my all time favorite from Pizza Ranch)

and the blueberry, cherry and cactus bread dessert pizzas.

The bathrooms are clean but I’m not sure if they have heaters in the bathroom because it was cold!

Just like last time I give Pizza Ranch a 5 star review.

See y’all next time on…

Pizza Street!!

PS: Here are the links to my last two pizza posts on Pizza Ranch, enjoy!  Illinois & Nebraska 

Aaannnddd…We’re Off!

Aaannnddd…We’re Off!

Funny story…we had planned on heading south to Arkansas first, but one of the meteorologists that Jerl works with (waves at Krisy) advised us to head north instead of south due to the bad tornado weather she was predicting. We listened. And we are so grateful she thought to warn us. We would have been right in the middle of several tornado outbreaks if we’d stuck to our original plan.

We started our #minieasternloop2017 in Iowa where we spent a week with very cold, very windy weather…but no tornadoes!!!

We wasted no time in getting to the foodies that Des Moines has to offer! We started at a place called Zombie Burger.
It’s hard to tell what’s going on here…this is the They’re Coming To Get You Barbara…a cheeseburger with caramelized onion, bacon, and zombie sauce all sandwiched between two grilled cheese sandwiches. Jerl said it was fantastic!

I won’t bore you with all five of our burgers…but I’ll share one more with you. This one is called Sarah’s Revenge and has Monterrey jack cheese, bacon, caramelized onions, fried jalapenos, red onion, and horseradish sauce. It was sooo good!!! I ate it all. And I’m not a single bit ashamed of that. lol!!

We got the Dr. Heiter’s Poutine Basket to share. It was good enough that I would go back just for this.

We made it to the Iowa SCB! I love the five domes! Iowa has the only SCB with five domes. I kind of expected to see the inside of all five domes, but we didn’t. That was a bummer.

What wasn’t a bummer though, was the inside of the main dome! It was impressive!

There are ten types of marble in the Iowa SCB. You can see them all in the photo above.

I love this staircase! We walked up and down soooo many stairs on this tour!

This is one of my favorite things about the Iowa SCB. I love the painting in the bottom, but I could stair at the mosaics on the top all day. Guys, those six arches on top are all mosaics! You would never know it from this point-of-view.

Here’s a closer view of one of the arches. Can you see the individual tiles yet?

How about now? Now go back up to the picture of all six of the arches. The detail is simply amazing! We see mosaic floors all the time in the SCBs but we haven’t seen such a work of art on the wall like this before.

We ventured into both the Senate and House Chambers. The ceilings were beautiful! The attention to detail was amazing throughout the entire building.

The library was gorgeous!

We always want to go up into the domes but, we never get to. If you take the guided tour in Iowa…you get to go up into the dome!! We walked up way more stairs than I care to remember all the way up into the huge dome!

Here’s a picture from our bird’s eye view up in the dome!

Speaking of dome…let me give you a better view of the main dome. That’s real gold leaf that you’re looking at.

There were a few memorials near the SCB. The Iowa State Capitol Building is definitely in our top five. If you get a chance to go to Des Moines, make sure you stop in and take a tour of the SCB!

Way back in 2015 during our first loop (on the way up to Alaska) we found Taco John’s. I’m a fan. Ok, I’m a little obsessed. Taco John’s needs to be nationwide. Guys, we found one in Des Moines! Gasp!! Even though there were loads of foodie spots we could have tried…I had to hit up Taco John’s at least once. I could seriously eat at Taco John’s weekly. It’s fast food Mexican, but it’s so much better than Taco Bell.

We met up with one of my friends and her family (waves at Clark Family) at a place called Blaze Pizza, but Littlest is telling y’all about that place. It was so fun to sit and chat face-to-face with someone I’ve known online for over 12 years! I have thoroughly enjoyed connecting with so many of my HP friends this year!

See y’all down the road!

#minieasternloop2017