You're Going to... Iowa?!

Before heading to my parents' in Central Illinois, we decided to take a little detour to Iowa. Iowa?! What's in Iowa, you ask? Well, one of the few things that would get this orange-and-blue Illinois alumnae to venture into the heart of enemy territory... a visit to Herbert Hoover National Historic Site, our last National Park Service unit left to check off in the state!

We got on the road right after church to get as far west as possible before we ran into snow. Luckily, we did not hit any traffic. Maybe it was because we took I-88 to the Quad Cities - without an I-PASS, it cost us a small fortune in tolls! Yikes! And by the time we reached the border, we started to see light flurries.

Fortunately, our only stop today was just across the Mississippi River... Le Claire, IA! It's the location of one of the Antique Archaeology shops of American Pickers. We really enjoy watching their show on the History Channel!

But none of the stars of the show were there. We were told that Mike and Frank were out picking, and that Danielle only works from home so that she can actually get things done. That's understandable - in the half hour we were there, more than a dozen lookie-loos just like us stopped to check the place out!

  

From here, it was an hour further to our hotel in Coralville, right next to Iowa City. We took the recommendation of my good friend, and had dinner at the Hamburg Inn #2, famous for being a stop for presidential candidates during the Iowa Caucuses.

But I don't think the boys tasted any of their food since they practically inhaled it to get dinner over with sooner. Because...

...they wanted to have a snowball fight!

Two of the happiest kids ever!

On to Herbert Hoover NHS and back to Illinois soil tomorrow!