Day 28 - Breakfast Bar, Dixie Quick's and Lotsa Corn

Alright, so here's where we break down the wall between writer and reader, it's time to get real. We're home now, we've been home for a few days, and we're all tired. We've decided to start sleep training now: I go back to work in a month (more soldiers for the war), Gord's sleep schedule is all messed up anyways, we have some events later this month that will require (or at least be WAY better) if we can give him to a Grandparent and have them put him down to sleep. So i'm not going to write log blog posts anymore. The trip home had two real highlights, Chicago (read up later) and the wedding of our friends. So I'll give you the Cole's notes (or the Cliff notes, if you prefer).

So we slept ok last night. A big king and a dry roof would seem like reasonable expectations of a god night sleep, but then there's a baby. Gord refused to go down last night, and that means nobody (especially Theresa) sleeps. We think we 'missed our window', but our clearly tired little man fought with everything he had. And he had a lot it seems. In the end T won the row and we all woke up around 7:45 with plenty of time to spare for continental breakfast! Now I remember staying at many hotels as a growing boy, with parents who liked to be away from home more than anything you see the insides of lot of hotels, but they never had no continental breakfast like this (vacation, remember)! The same staples were there: bagels, yogurt, pastries (donuts and cinnamon buns usually), muffins, cereal (hot and a few choices of cold) and some non-descript fruit. And of course juice, milk, coffee and tea. Not bad, but nothing to get too excited for. But now, these 21st C hotels, these Septmber 12th inns, these new world order refuges, have upped their game. The self-serve waffle bar was again present. As well as the hard-boiled eggs, and this special place had scrambled eggs as well. The coffee was good (if scant), the waffles were outstanding, the yogurt was Greek. We had a great start to our day. 

Make your own waffle station is a game changer at continental breakfasts around the world. Write to your member of parliament and write another one to Bay Street, let North America's hospitality industry hear this demand. 

After breakfast we headed East on, you guessed it, I-80. What can I say? We drove through he rest of Nebraska, past the capital (Lincoln) and into the largest city, Omaha. Across the Missouri R and into Iowa. You wouldn't know it by the landscape, but we were in our 8th state and 13th state/province.

We had a line on lunch in Council Bluffs so we got off our asphalt friend and found our way to the bar-crawl where Dixie Quick's Public House.

What a great place! Attached to the RNG gallery the atmosphere was easy and fun at Dixie Quick's. their menu is on an old school black board, so people gather to pick their food. 

A funky spot to eat the day away.

The menu changes daily because they do their shopping every day. Food blog, food bog. Food blog food blog? Anyway, it was great.

On a diet? I had the chilaquiles 

 

After lunch we stopped by the gallery to say hi to a friend, and then strapped the boy into the carrier to see if we could find something sweet and cold before getting back in the car. 

Posing with a friend.

We found a few ice cream joints on the steamy streets of Council Bluffs, but we ended up going with more familiar fare as we three split a shiver from TCBY. After that we made a shirt stop at the bank and hit the road.

T thought this was hilarious, but I didn't want to speak to a teller.

Once on the road we set our sails for Des Moines, the capital city of this state and our home for the evening. So we drove, through Iowa. Here are some pics in case you want to know what you missed.

It's pretty flat, and pretty green most places.

Everything is big in Iowa. The trucks, the windmill pieces, the sodas, the people (those last two could be related).

Another interesting peculiarity in Iowa was the sheer number of crop seeders! There were little planes everywhere, spraying the fields with something healthful I'm sure.

Ultimately we found our way to Des Moines. Once we found or hotel and got settled in our room we went for dinner at the sushi place across the street.

From this picture you can glean a lot about our states of mind, and you can see some resemblance. The good news is that Gord loves sushi and noodles (shocker).

After dinner we had a little time for some shoulder rides, a bath and then a bed. We were almost home, but we had a busy drive into Chicago tomorrow. We needed our beauty rest.

TOTAL FUEL FILL UPS: 10

DAILY WILDLIFE: dogs, cows, horses, pigeons