I Love Prosciutto

August 27-29, 2019

Cuttys Des Moines Campground, Grimes, Iowa

Day 74-76

Love the backroads! Took state roads for almost 200 miles, except for the last 20 when I had to get on the interstate. What a wonderful difference; even though the scenery was not as gorgeous as Montana, it was still so much better than the highway.

Stopped in a little town called Northwood for coffee but stayed for lunch, because the café owner was so easy to talk to. She told me her story. They moved to this small town here in Iowa to raise a family, and I can see why. Small affordable town with good, not too fancy, homes. People love to mow their lawns with tractors here. The town is clean and people greet each other by name or a wave. Simply nice.

Weather is clear and around 75F. Now the scenery is mostly corn fields and some soybeans or possibly potatoes, not sure. Land is lush with soft rolling hills and ravines. Gas is $2.38 😊. Just noticed, no bird crap or bugs on my windshield? It must be because of all the chemicals used on commodity crops. Yikes.

Even though this leg took twice as long as the interstate, it feels shorter. I drove thru so may nice small towns. Great places to raise families. Affordable and wholesome, livable and honest. Heck, maybe I could even consider living here. Homes are less than $100K. Granted, grocery/produce is not the same quality as SF. I've passed a lot of “sweet corn” for sale signs, but only 1 produce stand. Who knows what kind of grocery stores they have out this way. I hope there are a lot of home vegetable gardens.

Drove thru a super cute town called Mason City. They have one of the last Franklin Lloyd Wright houses (closed today). Buildings in downtown are mostly brick and stone, and date back to the late 1800’s. Also passed thru Ames, a college town, which has a cute downtown too, though the rest is pretty commercial.

Eventually got to camp around 4pm. This place is huge; they can host up to 500 rigs. I’m told there is only 1 other Airstream here – will try and find them to say hello, if I can. My spot is marginal. It’ll do for the 2 nights I’m here. What they do have is a huge, green grassy off leash dog area – 5 paw review! The best one yet. We play for a short time then head over to Herb & Kathy (La Quercia) for dinner.

Crap, I almost broke the truck. I just missed their house on GPS so turned around in a neighbor’s driveway. The driveway was at an angle, and I got my hitch stuck for a moment. That was scary. I didn’t even think about that being an issue because the truck is pretty tall. Now I'll never forget to check driveway grades. It would have been horrible to damage it. Glad I didn't damage the driveway too.

Dinner was great. I’ve known them for well over 12 years, and it was wonderful to catchup. They made killer pork chops, of course. Fortunately, Daisy their lab and Sparky got along so he didn't have to stay in the truck.

Day 2 – Started off the day with a tour of the La Quercia factory! I left Sparky in the truck. Kathy did the tour and then hooked me up with some sliced prosciutto and some of their new salami sticks. I was really excited because though I have been on a lot of food manufacturing tours, I hadn't been in a prosciutto factory. She showed me all the different aging rooms, which had different aromas and, of course, different size hams based on water loss during aging. They said they currently have about 90,000 hams aging. That’s amazing! Several months ago, Immigration raided them and, they lost a lot of workers. All their paperwork was correct, but the workers scattered like mice and found other jobs. It took them a while, but they are back up to speed; it’s hard to find skilled knife labor in these parts.

They suggested I checkout the Des Moines sculptor garden and the East End district, as well as the Prairie & Neal Smith refuge outside of town. Downtown was a pleasant surprise. It reminded me of Boise, but with less trees. The state capital is up on a hill overlooking the City and the East End – the newer section of town that has condos, art galleries and restaurants. It was clean, and I didn’t see one homeless. But I did have someone ask me for money. It was lunchtime and a lot of people were out walking. There was some diversity and, for the most part, people were fit.

The Prairie Wildlife Refuge is a restoration project about 45 minutes from downtown. It’s hot today and I can’t leave Sparky in the car. This is a federal building, so he can’t go in. I had to skip the video and opted for the short path around the center. There's a lot of prairie restoration going on in these parts. It was fascinating to learn that the roots of these plants go down as tall as they grow. Some of these flowers are 6’ high! Though there were flowers in bloom, I just missed peak prairie flower time in late July. This park does have a “few” buffalo and elk - they have a tiny wildlife refuge area and was told I would be lucky if I saw anything. Not to worry I say, I have seen my fare share recently.

Last stop today is Pella. Yes, just like the window company – they're actually headquartered here. This adorable/charming Danish town dates back to 1847 when the Dutch fled the Netherlands to avoid religious persecution. Later thru the homestead act, more came over. Wyatt Earp was born here. Best known for their tulip festival, this cute town has windmills, small colorful historic homes and lots of shopping. Even though they get about 150,000 visitors every spring for the tulip festival, this is a very livable town. Clean, wholesome and spattered with businesses for the community.