Make it a Sister Trip in Iowa

Iowa… oh Iowa!

It’s crazy how many humans overthink the idea of rural states, if you’re from the city. I had absolutely no idea what to expect coming into Iowa and it may have been the best thought process yet.

I was on a super small (in size and duration) plane ride with my sister from Chicago to Des Moines. As always, I love making friends and it just so happened to be that the person next to me was from Des Moines. He provided a few recommendations that we’ll later see in this post! I had also gotten so many recommendations from my friend, Naomi, for where to explore in the city! The excitement grew as the days got closer.

Des Moines sign

First stop was the basic wall sign every state I’ve been to has. It’s a true staple! We took a panoramic picture so you could see the whole sign, but the colors were so vibrant and nice!

Center Grove Orchard

One of the recommended orchards in Iowa and it had closed the Sunday prior to our arrival, YAY! Side note: we actually researched on the website and it didn’t mention anything about being closed at the time, so I would call just in case!

Although I didn’t have an opportunity to go through the corn maze, I was able to work around it. As always, my sister and I made the best of it. We went apple picking (for FREE), we purchased some apple cider donuts (because MUST HAVE in the midwest), bought some fudge, and just took endless of photos (our specialty).

Deciding on what pictures to post was a little difficult… so here’s all my favorite ones from the Orchard.

Iowa State Capitol

My favorite part in the whole building was the library! I don’t know why I absolutely love old libraries and their history. Amazingly enough, this library is only open for lawyers to check out books. Everyone else would have to read the book during its hours of operation.

Fun facts:

• Gave $3 mil to Los Angeles to build a replica battleship in exchange for any Iowans to visit the museum in Los Angeles for free.
• The supreme court uses another building next to the capitol for meetings and the actual capital as a conference room, since it outgrew the amount of members.
• Why does Abraham Lincoln play such an important role for Iowans? The state LOVES the impact he made on them.
• To reach the top to the building, it’s 90 steps up the dome from the second floor and 130 steps down.
• Each of the squares from the ceiling of the dome opens up with a little light.

University of Iowa

The University of Iowa was such a cute campus! It looked like the ones from the old days, very rustic and brick feel. Inside the campus we visited the Old Capitol Museum- which is where all the meetings were first held from the Capitol, before they moved it to the Iowa State Capitol.

Some fun facts about the school:

• Has the #2 most money raised for Dance Marathon in the nation.
• Was voted #34 best public universities with 31,000+ students enrolled each year.
• Founded in 1847, 59 days after Iowa was admitted to the union.
• It’s a R1, “research 1” and D1, “division 1” school.
• First law school founded in West of Mississippi.
• The Iowa river flows through the campus separating west and east sides.
• Most successful athletics is mens wrestling, but also has had 254 NFL draft picks.

Corn Fields

THE MOMENT WE HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!

IOWA CORN!!!

So there wasn’t an actual corn field to just plop and take photos at… We literally stopped in the middle of the street to park the car and walk into a corn field. It was the cutest field ever and I was the happiest person alive, for absolutely no reason.

This was the moment I’ve been waiting for since I found out Iowa was the corn state. Iowa has one of the richest fertile soils in the United States and it was just magnifico! *flick your wrist and kiss the finger tips like the Italians*

Overall, we had a blast in Iowa! It was SO much better than expected and honestly, one of my favorite rural states so far.

Tips:

• When planning your trip to Iowa, since it is a rural area, I would recommend renting a car. Most areas are very spread out, but we planned accordingly with what we wanted to explore. So it worked out!
• Plan outfits according to weather!!! It looked sunny in all my posts, but in reality, it was really chilly weather. My kind of weather!

Cheers to Iowa being my 24/50 states! What do you think will be next?!