Funny story…we had planned on heading south to Arkansas first, but one of the meteorologists that Jerl works with (waves at Krissy) 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 in the top right picture…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. The one in the bottom left picture 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. Ha!! 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 left photo above. You would think that having ten different kinds of marble all shoved together wouldn’t really work…but it looks alright! I love the staircase in the right picture! 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 the point-of-view in the bottom picture. In order to see the individual tiles you have to get up close like in the top right picture. 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! And this spiral staircase…I would love to have a library like this someday!

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 (left picture) all the way up into the huge dome! You can see a picture from our bird’s eye view up in the dome in the right picture!

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, but let’s not get into that right now. 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 the Clark Family) at a place called Blaze Pizza, but Nicholas told y’all about that place in the post before this one so I won’t go into details about the pizza. 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 Harry Potter friends this year!

See y’all down the road!

#minieasternloop2017