May 31st - Des Moines, Iowa

A gas station in Council Bluffs was offering 1.39 for regular gasoline and 1.35 for plus grade gasoline, so we stopped there to fill up for the drive to Des Moines. I was curious why plus grade gasoline was 4 or 5 cents cheaper than the lower-octane regular, and it was a pattern I found repeated all over Iowa but never anywhere else. One piece of the puzzle fell into place when we stopped at another gas station that afternoon and saw the clarification that the plus grade had 10% ethanol added while the more expensive regular grade did not have any ethanol. Knowing that Iowa is a big corn producing state and corn is the basis for ethanol production, I will speculate that Iowa either subsidizes ethanol production or reduces the taxes levied on ethanol-enhanced gasoline. Since ethanol seems to reduce my gas mileage by about 10%, the lower cost really isn’t worth it and I decided to bit the bullet and from now on pay the higher price for regular, as much as that goes against the grain!

Be that as it may, the truck ran fine on our two-hour drive due east to Des Moines, which we interrupted by stopping along the way at an official State Information Center. Besides the usual official state highway maps, which we find quite useful additions to our Rand McNally atlas, they had a slick book-length brochure on the sightseeing possibilities for each region of the state. This was a really nice looking and informative piece of work that included a yearly schedule of special events. I found that the town of Onanaga that is north of Council Bluffs on the Missouri River has a special Lewis and Clark re-enactment event on July 14th and 15th this year. They apparently have a keelboat there as well as folks in period costume and so forth—it sounded like a lot of fun but we would be well on our way by then. If you are planning a trip to Iowa, that kind of book is just like the one on Pomerana/Mecklenberg we used in Germany and found very helpful (see Wanderung 2). It’s great that this one is free--we paid $10 for the one in Germany—and I wonder why all the states don’t do this. While reading the book I found out about a Danish windmill in Elkhorn, Iowa, that was open for visits and we decided to do that on our way back to camp if we had time.

We parked at the Botanical Center in downtown Des Moines to start our capital walk and even found a patch of shade that would help keep the truck cool. The Botanical Center is easy to see as it has a huge geodesic dome covered with curved glass panels. Driving to it was harder than the directions indicated since the normal exit ramps were ripped up and we had to take an exit a mile down the road. But we worked our way back to it and found the start box. As the “Starting Point” stated, Volksmarchers get free entrance into the ecological dome and we paused to take a look at all the diverse flora before setting off on our walk.

The Des Moines Volksmarch route is basically a walk in the shape of a “+” with four fairly short legs. We first walked south and then turned east to walk to the State Capitol. The Iowa Capitol has a really beautiful gold-plated dome in its center that gleamed brilliantly in the sunshine. The central dome was surrounded by four smaller domes on each of the four corners of the building, giving it somewhat the appearance of a minaret with multiple towers—all together a very pretty effect.

From the Capitol we returned to the west and kept on going across the Des Moines River thru the main business district. It was surprisingly empty of people—truly one could roll a bowling ball straight down the main street and not hit either persons or automobiles. Monika thought this was because the business district was for government and big financial businesses, and neither of those was operating on a Saturday. We were getting hungry, though, and the only thing we found as we passed thru was a closed Burger King. Fortunately on the way back thru the southern part of the business district we passed a farmer’s market area that supported a little pocket of restaurants. After a nice meal at the Spaghetti Factory, we walked south along the riverfront for the last leg of the “+”.

We crossed back over the Des Moines river on a bridge covered with fishermen, some of whom had caught some carp. Walking back north to the Botanical Center we had nice views of both the river and the Des Moines skyline across the way. We both liked this walk very much because each of the legs was different and interesting. Des Moines is a very clean city, but on a Saturday only the market area seems to have any sign of life so don’t count on getting food except in that area. The farmer’s market itself should offer food options like barbecue if you get there before 1 p.m. or so (we were later and it was closed).

On the drive back we turned off Interstate 80 to visit a Danish windmill at Elkhorn. We enjoyed seeing the inside of an authentic wind-driven mill. This one had been disassembled in Denmark and reassembled by volunteers from the Elkhorn area. The history and working of the mill were clearly explained and I found them absolutely fascinating. I was very surprised that Denmark had instituted land zoning for windmills already in 1617 to ensure that each mill would have enough customers to make enough profits to pay taxes to the government. In Denmark the Elkhorn windmill had been the subject of much controversy including suits and counter suits to the government. The more things change, the more they stay the same!

We were allowed to climb to the top of the inside of the windmill, and it was a wonderful old creaky thing. It was amazing how much of the gearing and shafts were made of wood—metal was only used where absolutely necessary for reinforcement. That reminded me of details of the Arabia steamboat construction we had seen in Kansas City, Missouri. We both took scads of pictures of the mechanism inside the mill as well as the graceful outside with the wings—such a pretty thing! What is funny about this is that I had wanted to see the gearing inside a windmill while we were in Germany where there are hundreds of windmills (see Wanderung 2), but I never could get around to it. So I had to wait until we are in the middle of Iowa, of all places, to finally see how the things worked! From the windmill we continued on a scenic drive thru the countryside to the Loess Hills beside the Missouri River and then south to Council Bluffs and our campsite, which was a nice relaxing way to end our day.