Let's Go Places: Springfield, Illinois and Des Moines, Iowa feat. Art and FLW

 

Friends, it's road trip time again!  I packed a lot into one week, so we're going to do this "post card" style.

The mission: visit the state capitals/capitols of Illinois and Iowa, go on an Iowa FLW bender, and most importantly, meet an epic blogger.  The result: all of that plus a surprise encounter with a work of art.

The Plan

• Monday, July 27: head in the direction of Springfield, Illinois, but also adhere to my solo road trip safety cap of a maximum of six hours of driving in one day.  You know what location is six hours from home on the way to Springfield?  None other than my childhood hometown of Champaign, Illinois!
• Tuesday, July 28: drive to Springfield, do Springfield stuff
• Wednesday, July 29: drive to Des Moines (5 hours)
• Thursday, July 30: do Des Moines stuff
• Friday, July 31: drive to Mason City, Iowa for a FLW-twofer.
• Saturday, August 1: drive to Cedar Rock state park for the final FLW hit of the trip, start heading home.
• Sunday, August 2: come home

Here is the bird's eye view:

A Postcard from Champaign

When I went to Champaign in 2023, I stayed in an Airbnb a few blocks away from my childhood home.  This time I got even closer and stayed on the same street, again just a few blocks away.

The unit was a garage that had been converted into a studio apartment.

The reviews very snarkily called out the least popular feature, which is my Airbnb Nemesis, the Tiny Shower.

Normally I avoid the Tiny Shower.  It works just fine for basic hygiene, but it's tough to wash your hair because there is no room to move your head away from the shower head, and shaving your legs is pretty much out of the question.  In this case, I was willing to make an exception for the location.  My verdict is that if the unit is located on my childhood street, you can make the shower as small as you want.

As far as Champaign activities, I walked the entire length of my childhood street, and spent as much time trying to check out my childhood home from the sidewalk as I could without being creepy.

There was a mandatory dinner at my childhood pizza joint/the world's best pizza at Papa Del's.

The next morning on the way out of town there was a hike at my childhood summer camp site at Busey Woods, which was the one thing that I didn't have time for on my last trip.

Stairs to Nowhere.  I think I remember these from my last visit in the 1980s?  Or maybe not.  It was too long ago.

A Post Card from Springfield

My first stop was the very thing that I came there for.  

The question that comes to mind with each capitol visit is what makes this one special?  The answer for capitol #23 was one of the other members of the tour party.  The tour party consisted of three other beings, who had eight legs between them.  Meet Karia, who had 50% of the legs of the other members of the tour group.

So far in my capitol wanderings I've encountered two working dogs (Babydog in West Virginia and Alfred in Indiana) but this was my first time touring a capitol with a dog.  What can I say, the bar has been raised.

The tour was a mix of interesting facts about the capitol, and everyone sharing their dog stories.  Oh, and if anyone is on their way to trivia and needs a fun fact, we've already learned that Texas is the largest state capitol.  Illinois is the tallest.  Also the building came in $5 under budget, and the project managers handed the payment over in cash to the treasurer.

Let's see that dome!

Hold the thought on this one for now...we'll circle back in just a sec when we talk about Iowa

After the capitol I visited the Lincoln home.

The big news here is the Lincolns' taste in bedroom wallpaper.

And Mrs. Lincoln's bedroom commode.  Heads up that this is not the last time that we will be talking about toilets in this post.

In my wanderings around the city, I stumbled upon another story that I've encountered on my travels.  This is where it all started!

Airbnb wise, I stayed in another studio apartment on the third floor of a house.  Everything about the unit exceeded expectations, including the third floor air conditioning on a very hot day.

I recently got a plug in cooler for the car, which has made road food a ton easier, but it is a little tough to haul around.  This was the most challenging trek that I've had to make with it so far.  Hey, I knew what I was getting into, so no complaints.

It's all fun and games until you have to haul a cooler up and down these bad boys...

A Post Card on the Road from Springfield to Des Moines

I had a couple of options to get from Springfield to Des Moines, and I chose the most rural one.  That was a great idea in theory, but after a few hours of staring at nothing but corn, I was starting to question my life decisions.

That is, I was starting to question my life decisions until I saw a roadside sign that had me pulling off the freeway in a hurry.  I was where I was supposed to be!

The backstory is that when I went to Chicago in 2022, I went to the Chicago Institute of Art and saw the painting American Gothic.  Obviously we've all seen it, but being there in person gave a very different perspective of the painting and I've been obsessed ever since.

So what was the road sign?  It was for the American Gothic house!  It would never have occurred to me in one million years that the house would still be standing, that it had been turned into a museum, or that it would be somewhere between Springfield and Des Moines.  Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world....

If you are so inclined, the museum has costumes that you can borrow and there is a selfie stand so that you can recreate the painting.  I don't normally post pictures of myself on the bloggo, unless I'm in a state capitol or unless I'm standing in front of the American Gothic house.

Seen but not purchased at the gift shop:

I continued on my way from the American Gothic house and found myself again driving alongside the corn.  The GPS said that I was 10 minutes away from downtown Des Moines, but all I saw was corn.

All of a sudden there was a city skyline in the distance!  I had arrived.

A Post Card From Des Moines

When I started checking out the Airbnb scene in Des Moines, I saw that there were a lot of condos downtown that had access to the skywalk.  That was a location that I was interested in for reasons that I will get into later.

The unit that I selected was in the Hotel Kirkwood (former hotel turned into condos).

The unit was a very large one bedroom apartment.

As soon as I walked in, I knew that it was going to be good.  Not only did it look good, but all of the furniture was comfortable, and the unit was fully stocked with everything that a person could possibly need.  

I got settled and then was soon back on the road to meet a friend for dinner.

Let's Meet a Blogger!

It's difficult to pinpoint how long I've been reading Kim's blog, but it has been a long time.  I know that it was winter when I found her, and my best guess is that is was early 2019.  I remember fighting off the blahs of a cold winter by running on the treadmill first thing in the morning, hopping in the shower, and then kicking back on the couch with my coffee for the few minutes that I had before it was time to get ready for work.  Kim's blog would be waiting for me, and she was also fighting back against winter but going one better by taking outdoor selfies at the end of her (indoor) workouts.

The reason why Kim is so important in my blogging life is that she is the reason why I started talking to people on the internet.  I was just starting to find my blogging tribe, and just starting to leave comments, and not only did she comment on my blog but she invited me to join in and post on the Weekly Run Down, which is a fitness blog linkup that she and Deborah co-host.  This meeting was long overdue.

We met at Kim's house and met Max (her dog), and then we headed out for dinner.  The least interesting thing that I can tell you about that night is that I had nachos for dinner.  The most interesting thing?  Well, you would have had to have been there.

Remember how I said that I took note that there were Airbnbs on the skywalk?  And what is the skywalk anyway?  It is a network that connects a mere 55 buildings in downtown Des Moines, so that you can walk from building to building without going outside.  Kim works in one of these buildings and often writes about her lunchtime walks on the skywalk, and since our first connection was fitness, it was clear that we needed to go on a lunchtime walk.  So the next day at noon we met up and put in a solid two miles.

I got very spoiled by two meet ups with Kim in less than 24 hours, and was sad to say goodbye.  Why can't we all live closer to each other?  Sigh.  Kim's side of the story is here.

Let's Tour a Capitol!

Time to get what we came here for!  First thing on Thursday morning I walked from the Airbnb to the capitol.

You never know what you're getting into with these tours.  Sometimes they are very brief, and sometimes they are a master class.  Where did Iowa fall on the spectrum?  Well, the guide gave us a heads up that the tour would last for 90 minutes.  I licked my lips.

Iowa was constructed on the same philosophy as Minnesota.  Just because we're in Corn Country doesn't mean that we can't have nice things.  Iowa is the grandest of the grand, and like Minnesota there is an ultra welcoming vibe.  The tour guide made a point of telling us that we (meaning the adults but especially the children) we allowed to touch things.

This is all very well, but what we really came here for is the dome.

And we did get to go very close to the dome!  The tour concluded with a walk around the rotunda.

Iowa and Illinois shared an architect, and two statues.  These statues were originally designed for Illinois, but were ultimately rejected because folks felt that the ladies were showing too much leg.  The architect kept the statues in storage and then offered them to Iowa, who was happy to have them.

This would be the time to scroll back up to the Illinois capitol pix to see their version of the statues.

Later on Illinois realized the error of their ways, and wanted to get the statues back, but Iowa said "you snoozed, so you losed".  Illinois settled for sloppy seconds and made copies of the statues.

What else did I do in Des Moines?  Well, by this point on the trip I'd been on the go since leaving, it was insanely hot, and the Airbnb where I was staying was very nice.  So my day in Des Moines was: tour the capitol, meet Kim for lunch walkies, and then I went back to the condo and watched Beef on Netflix for the rest of the afternoon.  I'm sure that there was a better way that I could have used my time, but I have no regrets.

A Post Card from FLW Territory in River City!

The next morning I was on the road early and drove the two hours from Des Moines to Mason City, Iowa, which is home to two FLW sites.

It is also the inspiration for "River City" of Music Man fame.

I didn't tour the site, but I did spend the rest of the trip humming You Really Ought to Give Iowa a Try.

The day started with a tour of the Stockman House, which was an "FLW on a budget" house from 1908.  The house was fabulous of course, but the best part of the tour was that there were about 10 other people there, and they were all ladies of my vintage.  Two of the other women were on a 50 state quest, and the guide made a quip about achieving "50 before 50" and their response was "we're going for 50 after 50".  It was a good group with a vibe to it, and we were all instant best friends for the duration of the tour.

That afternoon I headed into downtown (lol, a five minute drive) to the National Bank and Park Inn Hotel.  This was a complex that FLW started in 1908, and finished remotely for reasons that you know if you've read the book Loving Frank.  Namely that he and the wife of a client started publicly knocking boots, left their spouses, and went to Europe to shack up.  If they had done that in 2026 it would have been NBD, but in 1909 that was the kind of a move that made a person Not Welcome in Mason City, or for that matter, pretty much everywhere else in the US.

The story is that the building was originally a bank, a law office, a hotel, and assorted retail.  The bank failed in 1916 and the hotel had a cycle of ups and downs that eventually resulted in the whole thing being converted into apartments.  Retail came and went, and eventually the building fell into disrepair and became an eyesore.  After 25 years of standing vacant, folks were talking about demolition, but someone remembered that it was a FLW building and suggested restoring it and opening a new hotel on the site instead.  

One interesting feature of the hotel was the design of the room doors.  

Originally the doors had slats to allow for greater air flow to keep things cool in summer, which was a very desirable feature in 1910.  In 2026 we have air conditioning and we like things quiet, so today the doors have the same look without the open spaces.

After the tour, I walked around Mason City for a bit until it was time to check into my hotel.  Where did I stay in Mason City, you ask?

If you answered anything but the Park Inn Hotel, then you have not been paying attention.  

It was a little pricey at $250, but it you think about it, that's probably the cheapest stay that you can have in a FLW property.  Plus it is the only hotel that he designed that is still in operation, so why not support it?

While I was doing my research, I saw a few negative reviews for the hotel that said that it was run down and dirty, and I want to tell you that my experience does not back up these reviews.  Everything about the stay was lovely and it was worth every penny.  I spend most of my travel nights in Airbnbs or chain hotels, but my stay at the Park Inn has me thinking that maybe I need to check out more of the boutique hotel scene.

A Post Card from the Final Stop on Our Iowa FLW Journey

The next day I lounged in my FLW hotel room, and then reluctantly left.  Once I was on the road I was excited for my next stop, which was Cedar Rock State Park.

FLW designs have similarities, but they are never the same.  The two unique features of Cedar Rock were:

• The owners of the house loved their piano.  On the tour, they invite anyone who can play to take a minute to pound out a little tune.  Another woman on the tour treated us to Chopsticks, and I dropped a few bars of Prelude in C.  Like I said, I don't normally post pictures of myself on the blog unless I'm in a state capitol, standing in front of the American Gothic house, or playing the piano in an FLW house.  Also thanks for asking, I did bring more than one outfit on the trip, but this just happened to be a repeat day.

• I told you that there was going to be more bathroom talk and I know you've all been eagerly waiting for it.  Very appropriately, there was a preview on the stalls in the visitor center restroom.

Because when you need to save space, you need a moveable sink that you can slide over either your bathtub or your commode.  For some reason FLW never used this groundbreaking technology in any of his other residential bathrooms.

On that note, it was time to start wrapping up another wonderful trip and head home.

Who has been to any of these places?  Have you seen The Music Man?  Had an encounter with the site of a painting?