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 décor
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
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!
Hey Guys! We spent almost a month at my parent’s house in the Southwest corner of Missouri visiting with family and friends!
One of our friends (waves to Gogo and family) sold Girl Scout Cookies with her troop…and well…we always like to support our friends in all of their endeavors. Especially when food is involved. So, we bought some cookies to help her out…and…cookies. Since she lives in Virginia, she graciously shipped them to my parent’s house for us. Food is our favorite kind of mail.
Did you know that Girl Scout Cookies can have a different name based on which bakery they were made in? What?!?! I know, right?! I totally did not know this! Not only are the names different, but the cookies can even be different. The S’mores cookies were totally different! I don’t have any pics to show you…we kind of ate them too fast…but if you have a chance to compare them, do. The S’mores cookies from Little Brownie Bakers were like a sandwich cookie where the ones from ABC Bakers were a dipped graham cracker cookie. Just FYI…we voted the Little Brownie sandwich cookies better.
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Since we’re on the subject of food… We had to hit some of our favorite foodie spots while we were back in our old stomping grounds. The burger above is the Poutine Burger from Eagle Drive-In. If you live in the area, go get one today. Trust us…everything from Eagle Drive-In is good!
We even found a new foodie spot! Wiestside BBQ is definitely a spot we will hit again! Just check out that burger Littlest has!
Jerl and I took a little side trip down to Houston one weekend. The plan was to stay with some good friends of ours (waves at friends) who were expecting a baby any day. On the Tuesday before we were to fly down, they thought they might have to induce early. So, Jerl and I decided to take some of the stress off and grab a hotel room. The last thing an expectant mom needs is the added stress of house guests. Well…more stuff happened and we ended up canceling our room and planned on staying with our friends again. We flew down on a Friday night.
Not a bad view for sunset… I didn’t get a window seat. I feel bad for the guy that sat next to me. I kept leaning over him to take video and pics. I did ask first and struck up a conversation with him…so that’s not too rude, right? He didn’t seem to mind…maybe he was just a nice guy. We ended up answering questions once he found out about our nomad lifestyle.
For anyone who’s had a baby, y’all know they do things on their own time. Our friend picked us up at the airport Friday night and told us they were, in fact, inducing that night! Wait, what? Long story short, they had the baby and he’s an absolute doll! We also had the help of a couple of other friends (Ben, and Brian) who we can’t thank enough. We packed up our storage unit Saturday morning with the help of Ben and Brian, then drove back to my parent’s house that afternoon. But, first…we made a pit stop at Torchy’s to stock up on some chips, queso, and salsa! We needed sustenance to get us through the long eleven hour drive ahead of us. *wink, wink*
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The weather didn’t cooperate with us during our stay in MO. We had all of these plans and projects we wanted to do while back, but we didn’t have the right weather to do it. The couple of days that were nice, the boys all took the opportunity to ride around my parent’s place on anything with wheels that went fast.
Mr. Dude turned 14 while we were there. Well, actually, he turned 14 the day after we left, but we celebrated while we were there! I baked him an Almond Joy Cake! It was pretty tasty!
We started planning the last 50 state tour loop. It’s going to be a doozy, Guys!! More on that in a different post.
I had a girl’s night with some of my besties (waves at friends). We’ve been friends for…a few (cough 30ish cough) years. Give or take a few years. I went to school from kindergarten on with one of these lovely ladies! Bonus points for anyone who knows which one!
Oh!! And, my camera crapped out. Boo. It saw me through 36 states. So, I’m learning how to operate a new camera.
I’ll leave you with this pretty from my parent’s (waves at parents) yard.
Hey Guys!! Aaaannnddd…we’re back in Houston! I can’t even begin to tell you how fast our Eastern Loop 2016 went or how good it feels to drive back onto Texas soil after having been gone for a whole year. A whole year, Guys!! This was our first full year loop and it was…well, it was kind of awesome. I’m not going to do our Year-In-Review post right now so stay tuned for that!
All of our loops start and end in Houston. That’s by design. We go back to Houston once a year to see our friends and get all of our yearly check-ups done. Even nomads have to go to the Dentist (waves and Dr, McGriff & staff), get their eyes checked (waves at everyone at Today’s Vision Sugarland), and they definitely have to get physicals done (waves at Dr. Kahn & all of the lovely Ladies). And, with two nomad cats, a good Veterinarian staff is a must (waves at SPAH)!
We spent two weeks getting our business done, visiting friends,
and hitting our favorite eateries. Y’all know we’re foodies and Houston is a foodie town. I’ve tried several other places in several other cities, but the best Indian Food is in Houston and this is my favorite place to indulge.
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We spent the whole year missing Torchy’s Tacos. They have awesome tacos, but my favorite thing to get there is the queso. It’s…well…magical.
We didn’t just hit all of our favorite foodie spots, we also went to the Houston RV Show! No, we’re not looking for a new home. We wanted to see what new features were being added and get a few ideas for some upgrades we are wanting to make to our home-on-wheels. Check out this slick feature! This is an induction cook top that has been designed in a way that allows you to easily remove it and move it to another spot like the table or outside and still use it! We want to take out our gas cook top and replace it with something like this. Our current cook top uses propane and we’ve found that in some areas propane can be…well, a pain to find.
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I got to spend the entire afternoon with one of my absolute favorite BFF (waves and Andrea). We always celebrate both of our birthdays while I’m back even though neither one of them is in February. She knows me so well…check out those truffles!
We’d just left Louisiana and all of that wonderful Cajun food right in the middle of crawfish season. We tried a place not far from where we were staying in Houston. It was ok. If we hadn’t just had the real thing, it would’ve been good.
During crawfish season all of the HEBs (Here Everything is Better) have live crawfish that you can get live or you can get them already boiled up in a spicy Cajun seasoning! We got 8 lbs of crawfish! We ended up with about 17 ounces of crawfish to use later in an Étouffée. Guys, we didn’t actually eat any of it as we shelled it. Maybe a few…for quality control purposes only. I promise! lol! We were a little surprised by how little we ended up with so we headed back and bought some crawfish in the freezer section that had already been cleaned up. And you know what? It was cheaper to buy them frozen! Oh well, lesson learned. I’ll post up my Étouffée later if y’all are interested.
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Living in an RV, weather is always on our minds. We had a few close calls with tornadoes in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. We didn’t really expect any trouble in Houston. But we spent an hour or so up at the RV park office during a tornado warning one morning. Growing up in Tornado Alley, we know the power and devastation Mother Nature can cause so we’re always prepared to jump and run.
Hey Guys!! We spent one day exploring New Orleans.
We stayed about an hour north of NOLA so we got to drive across Lake Pontchartrain on the longest (continuous) bridge over water in the world to get to New Orleans. This bridge is about 23 miles long with several crossovers on it. Can you imagine getting on it by mistake and having to go the full length of the bridge before being able to turn around? Yikes!
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We went on a Sunday morning hoping to avoid some of the crowds. Too bad we didn’t know about the 5k run that was taking place. There were cars everywhere, no parking spots, and streets blocked off! We made it to a parking garage where we choked on the cost of parking. We learned later that traffic is always bad and parking is always pricey in NOLA. We’d been told that NOLA isn’t really family friendly. We were hoping by going on a Sunday morning there would be more families out and there were! We had a good time strolling around looking at all of the street performers. You can see how many kids were around in the pic above.
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We headed right to Cafe du Monde! The line was long, but moved fast. Make sure you take cash if you go to Cafe du Monde. Things run a little differently there. You order with the waiter and then they go stand in the line you see in the photo above to get your order. The waiter pays with their money before they bring you your order so you then owe your waiter for your order. We’d never seen a process quite like that before. I wonder what happens if the costumer didn’t bring enough cash? Our fluffy pillows of fried dough (otherwise known as beignets) and chickory coffee came in record time. They’re pretty good, but I think it’s mainly the novelty of eating at Cafe du Monde that brings people in masses to this cafe.
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We took some time to look through The Cabildo where we learned about life in Louisiana starting in the colonial times. Check out this blunderbuss! It’s so ornate! We also got to stroll through the room where the Louisiana Purchase transfer happened in 1803.
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This is called an Immortelle. An immortelle is a wreath made of durable material (the one above is made from wire and beads) to be placed on crypts and tombs.
Throughout the late 18th century, most of south Louisiana suffered from epidemics of yellow fever, malaria, cholera, and smallpox. We stopped by St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 to see what the famed “cities of the dead” look like. We made it to the Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 for a quick walk through. I wanted to go to the St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, but you now have to have a guided tour just to get in the gates. Pretty much all of the graves are above ground in crypts.
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We went the week before Mardi Gras and everything was decorated for the party. We took a quick peek at Bourbon Street, but didn’t actually walk down it. We’d been warned it wasn’t really family friendly.
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Since pralines (pronounced Praw-leens) is the Louisiana state candy…we had to grab some. Plus, we wanted to compare them to the ones we got in Charleston. You might be surprised by how different they were. The ones from Charleston used heavy cream in theirs and there wasn’t any milk in the ones from NOLA. The ones from Charleston only came in two flavors (original and chocolate) while the ones in NOLA came in five flavors (original, peanut butter, coconut, rum, and chocolate). We all enjoyed the ones from NOLA more.
We couldn’t leave NOLA without sampling some of the dishes they’re known for. We found a place called Mother’s. We found it on one of those tv food apps. Mother’s has been on quite a few shows. I wanted to make sure and get a little of everything so I ended up with a sampler plate. I got to try the crawfish etouffee, the jambalaya, the red beans & rice, and the turnip greens. It was all really good! The thing Mother’s is really known for though are the Poboys. Jerl got the Famous Ferdi Special which has ham, roast beef, debris, and gravy on it. Debris? What the heck is debris? It’s magic. Mother’s cooks their roast for hours and all of the juice and shavings that fall off the roast is then ladled onto the top of a poboy. It’s basically a NOLA version of a french dip. Like I said…magic.
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So! We survived NOLA! We got to see most of what we wanted to see and got out of their before it got dark.
Maybe I should say…we spent one week in Louisiana…eating. ;-P I knew it was bad when we found this place called Ronnie’s only five minutes away from where we stayed. We went there for dinner our very first day in LA and it did not disappoint!
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I know, I know…it doesn’t look like much, but let me tell you….woo-WEE…it is amazing! What you’re looking at are boudin balls. They’re made of rice and smoked pork then deep fried. The ones we got were stuffed with pepper jack cheese. If you’re ever in Louisiana make sure to get yourself some and make sure you pronounce it like a local… boodan. Ours was served with a spicy remoulade sauce that just really pushed it all over the top! We went back to Ronnie’s just for these. Y’all, I think we gained twenty pounds here, but you know what…I’d totally do it again!
We did actually get out and see some of the state. We didn’t just eat. I promise. We made it to the SCB in Baton Rouge. Check out that front door! We were completely surprised by the Louisiana State Capitol Building.
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This is the front hall of the SCB. We haven’t seen too many great halls like this. Out of 35 states…maybe three (including LA). I mean…look at the ceiling. Look at our ornate and detailed it is! We spent several minutes with our heads craned back trying to take it all in.
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One of the things I always look for at a SCB is the State Seal. In LA they’ve got a huge one right in the middle of the great hall! This is the Senate Chamber. Check out those columns. We really walked around totally stunned at the opulence of the LA SCB.
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Now, there’s not a dome at the SCB, but there’s a fantastic view on the 27th floor! And…you can actually go outside on the walk! That was a first for us. Usually, if there’s some kind of walk up that high it’s locked. It’s usually off limits. You can look out the windows, but you can’t get outside. It was so nice being able to go outside and checkout that view!
We also stopped by the old SCB. It looks like a castle! It was very cool!
When you walk into the old SCB you immediately see this amazing staircase! And Guys…look at the dome!!! I took sooo many pictures of this dome! But, look at it! Gorgeous!! The old SCB has been turned into a small museum. We didn’t really look through it all due to time.
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The stained glass wasn’t just on the dome. There were several of these wonderful windows too! Check out this mirror! I had the boys stand next to it so you could really see how huge it is!
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Here’s another view of that ah-mazing dome…and one more shot of the outside. Because, castles are cool.
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Zapps chips are offered in tons of states, but they’re a huge thing in LA so we grabbed a couple of bags. We weren’t too impressed with the VooDoo flavor. It was both very sweet and very sour all at the same time. I’ve struggled this entire EasternLoop2016 to find decent root beer. Y’all…it’s been so hard! And then we get to LA and there’s four different Barq’s!!! What?!?! I had to get some of each.
Abraham Lincoln thought that Vicksburg was “the key” to winning the Civil War. The Vicksburg National Military Park has a 16 mile road that winds through some of the major battlegrounds of the Siege of Vicksburg.
One of the cool things that the NPS offers at these battlefields is an audio tour of the park. There are usually a few different ones to choose from. We always get the longest, most detailed one. This time the longest one was two and a half hours. It took us over five hours to complete the whole driving tour. We get out at each stop and look around. Talk about it. One of the times we stopped and got out to look around we found some hidden canons.
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Along with the audio tour we got this great little booklet. In the picture above you can see one of the stops. At this stop we learned about the Shirley House. This house was caught in the middle of a siege. The army dug a “honeycomb” of shelters all around the house during the battle. The house is still there today and so is the “honeycomb”. The shelters have all fallen down and been cleared away, but the land is still scarred from the battle.
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The Illinois Memorial was the biggest memorial we saw. So much thought goes into each Memorial. On the Illinois Memorial there are 47 steps that lead up to the entrance. One for each of the 47 days of the Siege of Vicksburg. Inside the Illinois Memorial was this gorgeous seal.
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We’ve been to several different battlefields, but this was the first time we found a tunnel!
We learned about the different types of artillery. You can see in the pic above that the opening isn’t smooth. It has notches. These notches are super important! They allow the artillery to go farther and with more accuracy.
I think, perhaps, our favorite stop on the tour was at the USS Cairo Museum where we learned about the Ironclad River Gunboats. On December 12, 1862, the USS Cairo became the very first armed warship to be sunk by a mine. They weren’t called mines at that point. They were called “torpedos” or “infernal machines”.
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The NPS has restored bits of the Ironclad and installed walkways that allow you to really get inside and see the guts of the boat. The USS Cairo came equipped with 13 guns, including 3 large 64 pounder Navy smoothbores. Two and a half inch plate armor made of charcoal iron is what covered the mid section of the boat in order to protect the vital guts of the boat.
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There was a model in the museum to show what the USS Cairo looked like. The USS Cairo sank in 12 minutes, but no lives were lost.
I did find a few pretties. I don’t know what tree this was, but it had pretties all over it.
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We really enjoy the battlefields. We learn so much and it’s such a great way for the boys to really get an idea of what took place there. Instead of just reading about it in a book while sitting in a classroom, they get to walk around the grounds it took place. I didn’t go into extreme detail about each stop, but hopefully I’ve intrigued y’all enough to go visit the Vicksburg National Military Park!
