Iowa Part 2

By tune in next week I apparently meant tune in a few weeks. I got caught up in the craze of Christmas shopping, switching jobs, and enjoying the holidays with my family. I “forgot” (see completely ignored) about writing Iowa Part 2. If you have yet to read Iowa part 1 I would recommend doing that now. Don’t worry I’ll wait for you to get back before I continue. Okay now you’re caught up on wacky billboards and why you shouldn’t stab people let us, not lettuce (credit for that goes to my high school band director), continue on with the day trip to Iowa.

 

Several hours of driving later we crossed the Mississippi River for the very first time. When I say that Antique Archeology was just past the river, I literally mean it was a back alley and a street away from the river. So we did cross the Mississippi River, but just barely. First order of business was visiting our destination location: Antique Archeology. It was slightly unreal pulling up to the storefront I had seen so many times on television. The two buildings were just as timeless and awesome in person. The newer brick building holds marketing merchandise mixed in with little finds from the picker’s adventures. Several of the pieces were for looks only, but I was just happy being able to see them on display. Like the jacket from an Evil Knievel service station. The original store holds more of the actual finds. Like a clothing rack with beautifully tattered leather jackets and a row of rusty Indian motorcycles. The more you looked the more oddities you saw. People were crammed in shoulder to shoulder looking at the various treasures. Everyone hoping to find an inexpensive trinket to take home with them. I decided that a t-shirt, bandana, and the photos I took would be enough memorabilia for me. I understand now why they always say they’re looking for ‘smalls’ for the shop because they have a hard time keeping it stocked.

 

We asked the cashier if she had any recommendations for lunch. The woman was the kind of friendly where you can’t help but smile back. She took the time to ask usk a few questions about what we were looking for before suggesting the Blue Iguana. We drove down the main street and decided to park in the back parking lot by the river. Carrie took the opportunity to put her toes in the infamous Mississippi River. It was still pretty early in the day so we took the opportunity to walk Main Street. Rich history radiated off of the old red brick buildings with their aged wooden signs. The jazz playing from lamp post speakers almost made it feel like a movie set. All in all the little part of Le Claire we saw was an interesting and busy spot. The shops were all local creations, no chain stores,and there was a little something for everyone. The restaurants we saw included a brewery, a diner, and the Blue Iguana which offered Mexican food. A bonus of the Blue Iguana was the balcony with  a view of the river. I will say the river is just a river, but all of the history tied into it makes it pretty cool to be around.

 

Over a delicious lunch we decided to head back east so we would have plenty of time to explore Starved Rock State Park  and anything else we came across. About this time I realized a slight issue with our plans. That morning when we left we intended on a day of window shopping and car riding not hiking. The day had also gotten rather hot. Suffice to say the wedge sandals, skirt, and heavy T-shirt I was wearing wouldn’t really due. Luckily I had bought a tank top at Antique Archeology and in the mess that was my back seat I found my work boots and a pair of sweatpants. It was better than a skirt and wedges at least.

 

It was about three hours back to Starved Rock where we stopped at a little odds & ends mom and pop shop to look for shorts. After searching the entire store I found the only article of clothing offered in the place was a $60 pair of leggings. We continued on our way through a little tourist stop to the state park. (Side note: There are several things I’m not super comfortable with and one of them is large bridges. No, it’s not a heights thing. I just don’t trust man made structures that much. There are also several things that I am decently terrified of. One of which is being around a bear with nothing to prevent said bear from eating me. That’s a not wanting to die via being shredded/mauled/eaten thing. Keep in mind Carrie knows these slightly irrational concerns all too well.) After laughing at the pink sasquatch outfront one of the tourist shops Carrie noticed one thing and I noticed another. The thing that grabbed my attention first was a road sign with a lovely bear on it warning visitors to the state park that this was bear country. As I’m starting to sputter about that Carrie interrupts to ask if I’m okay with driving over bridges. “I mean it’s not my favorite, but I do. Why?” I look up the road farther to see that there is a rather high, rather long, and rather old bridge coming up rather quickly. “You know maybe we don’t need to go hiking here.” I squeaked out while crossing the death trap of a bridge with a river far below us.  Once over the bridge Carrie convinced me that we wouldn’t see a bear much less get eaten by one so I pulled, somewhat reluctantly, onto the drive for Starved Rock State Park.

 

If you travel with me odds are we will do a lot of different things and sometimes that requires clothing changes. So being able to change in a vehicle or not caring and just changing behind the car door in a parking lot is probably a good skill to have. We headed to the visitor center which offered a small museum set up to explain the history of the area along a with a bookstore, a meet up place for tours, restrooms, and a concession stand. Had we been thinking we would have stopped for waters, but I was too busy pushing fears of bears out of my mind to think of it. With the lovely miniature bears from the museum displays fresh in my mind we started out for Starved Rock.

 

I don’t think the trails really counted as a hike because the ground was so uneven the paths were made up of boardwalks and a lot of steps. There were signs posted all over pointing towards different lookouts over the river that might be of interest. Had either of us been very good at reading maps we would have seen that the very first trail you pass by is the seemingly endless staircase to the top of Starved Rock, but no, we walked right past it. Honestly I am glad we did though. The views were gorgeous and the extra cardio was long overdue anyways. The only problem for us really was that the last time we had water was about 5 hours earlier with our lunch and it was hot out. Not to mention my vehicle at the time did not have the luxury that is air conditioning so we’d been sweating pretty good on the drive back too. Not a great combo when you’re about to go on the real life version of the stair climber from the gym. It took us about an hour to realize that we had gone past the trail for starved rock, but luckily we were on a circle path with shortcuts back to the information center. When we got back and we found the correct set of stairs it took a lot of convincing on both of our parts to start climbing them. At this point our legs were exhausted, we were dehydrated, and we couldn’t even see the top of the rock through the trees to know how far the climb was. One of us started up the stairs and the other followed. Slightly dizzy and not really sweating anymore we reached the top. It was a rock. It was a rather tall rock with a flat top. Honestly the rest of the state park’s views were a lot more impressive. From the other look outs Starved Rock looks impressive, and it is, but when you’re standing on it hangry, dehydrated, and tired it does not feel any different than any of the other rocks that you climbed up that day. We both just shrugged and went back down the bajillion steps. At the bottom we had our eyes trained on the concessions stands ready to drink as much water as humanly possible. We sat in silence for about ten minutes while we downed water and ate snacks neither of us really stopping to breathe until we had to. We were refueled and ready to hit the road for home.

 

Carrie mentioned that jumping in a lake to cool off would be ideal and I thought it sounded like a wonderful plan. We agreed the next time we saw an exit with lake access we’d stop. Apparently it wasn’t in the cards for us because even when we looked up swimming lakes we couldn’t find one that wasn’t way out of the way. Which makes me grateful to live in Michigan where chances are you’re within thirty minutes of a lake. Maybe it was all the talk about lakes and water, but all of a sudden I was realizing I needed to pee. About that time Carrie suggested we get off at the next exit and find a gas station. The liters of water we guzzled were catching up to us. Conveniently at this moment traffic slowed way down and then slowed down even more and then we were moving a few inches every five minutes. Neither of us could see an exit sign or any signs of traffic picking up either. Finally an exit sign came into view and I seriously contemplated driving along the shoulder. It was to the point where neither of us were sure if we could hold it any longer. I am only emphasizing this so much because I want you to know that we were extremely desperate to find a bathroom and in any other situation I wouldn’t have gone 70 down an off ramp, turned right on a yellow turning red light, whipped into a sketchy gas station, and parking crookedly beside an SUV that just did the same thing. Normally Carrie and I wouldn’t speed walk race the two girls from the SUV to try to get to the bathrooms first. Also, normally if we lost a speed walk race to one of the grossest bathrooms I’ve ever seen we wouldn’t use the men’s (at least the sign said men’s, but by the state of the one toilet bathroom it was used by monkeys as well) restroom with the other guarding the door. But we’d been stuck in traffic for almost an hour having to pee the entire time and so that is exactly what we did. Washing my hands and feeling even grosser after touching the sink and it’s BAR soap I just thought, “Man I wish I was peeing off of the sailboat right now.” Which as I mentioned in a previous blog is it’s own balancing act, but at least it doesn’t smell like a porta potty on a hot summer day.

 

That was a wrap on our day trip. We drove the last half of our drive with little excitement which was fine by me, because I was beat and ready to get home. We got home and it was so crazy to me that when we left that morning I had never crossed the Mississippi River, been to Iowa, or Antique Archeology. I didn’t even know that Starved Rock State Park existed. It had been a full day that was so much different than I anticipated, but also so much better. I hope if you have somewhere you want to see you take the day trip or the weekend and just go see it. Also, that is the second time I’ve found a cool local state park just by looking up billboards on the way. So if you go, “Huh that seems cool…” Look it up! Check it out! Some of the best experiences come from straying off the itinerary.