Location: Downtown Des Moines
Attractions: The Pappajohn Sculpture Park, Zombie Burger
Activities: Viewing Art, Eating Burgers
Date: Saturday, March 7th
Charlie’s Archery Team qualified for state, so we were headed to the city. Since it was one of the first beautiful days we have had this spring, we made the most of it.
Pappajohn Sculpture Park
Our first stop once we made it to Des Moines was the sculpture park. There are dozens of large sculptures in a nice grassy in roughly the size of a city block right in the middle of downtown Des Moines. We spent about and hour walking around taking different pictures of the kids with the sculptures. At one point we noticed an empty slab where a sculpture once was. We took this as an opportunity to take turns showing what we would do if we were a live sculpture.
There is a lot of cool art here and even though there are signs posted to not touch the pieces, it is really hard not to. We had to keep reminding the kids and ourselves to look but not touch. It didn’t always work. You’ll find things like giant, creepy spiders, huge hollow busts made out of metal letters, metal trees that look unbelievably like real wood, crazy heads and many other works of art.
When we arrived at the LOVE sculpture, the is a smaller version of the one in Philadelphia, Jill and I had to reenact a moment from when she interned in Philly years ago and I came to visit her. It was the moment we switched from being “just friends” to being something more again after a long break in our relationship.
Zombie Burger
Once we had our fill of art, we headed to Zombie Burger. Charlie ate there once at a girls weekend with my mom and sisters and has brought up how great these burgers were at least once a month for the last 3 years. So now that she had made it to state archery, we had to get her her favorite burger!
The place has wall to wall creepy zombie stuff, which Mattix didn’t really like, but I think it is done in a cool way. The burgers were great, and we got a shake to go, which was really good as well.
Hotel Time
After our lunch, we headed to the hotel to swim with the rest of our archery family. We had a great time throwing the football in the pool and just being kids… me included.
We got some pizza for dinner and the kids went swimming yet again after we ate. They wanted to run around in the hotel by themselves, which made us parents quite nervous. It was at this moment that I decided it probably would be a good idea to get Charlie a cell phone. Shhh, don’t tell her though.
Next Day – Tournament Time
After a night of all 4 of us sleeping in one king bed, we got some breakfast and headed to the Iowa State Fair grounds for the tournament. Charlie was super nervous and really just wanted to be left alone. It was hard to do since, as a parent, I wanted to coach her up, but we respected her wishes for the most part.
She shot well, but it was pretty far from her best score, so she was pretty upset. We cheered her up with some chicken and tacos from Fuzzy’s tacos and since it was still super beautiful out, we took a hike at Ledges State park near Boone, Iowa. Ledges has large canyons and towering sandstone walls. We hiked about 2 miles around the park dodging cars and creeks at the bottom of the canyon.
Maybe it was all the fresh air. Or maybe we are finally getting through to our kids, but they were super well behaved on this trip and we couldn’t have been more proud. We actually stopped and told them how good they were being several times. It’s moments like this that fills my heart and makes me feel super connected to my family.
Love Live Connect 