On Saturday we drove out and dropped off the girls at my parents so we could go to the Des Moines 80/35 Music Fest. We got to see my parent's new house just outside of Des Moines and the massive lawn they have to mow now, haha.
It was surprising to see just how much Des Moines has changed since we lived there and driving through our old neighborhood brought back a huge rush of memories. The whole neighborhood has changed and all the old buildings nearby have been torn down and replaced with fancy condos. The place has gotten all hip and trendy with bicycle rental stations throughout the area and lots of little hipster cafes and stuff. So weird. My old workplace has expanded and the Drake neighborhood has seen a lot of improvements as well.
We've been wanting to go to Zombie Burger downtown for a while, so we finally got the chance to do that and it ROCKED. That is the coolest place and the burgers are awesome. I ordered a "They're Coming to Get You, Barbara" burger (which was a two-patty burger with two grilled cheese sandwiches for the buns, caramelized onions, cheese, and bacon... sooo good) and Cynthia ordered the Pittsburger Romero (ham, egg, cheese, fries, mayo, coleslaw). Some of the wait staff were in costume, too, and the survivalist vibe they had going on was super cool. The windows are boarded up from the inside and there are a lot of decorative elements from zombie flicks throughout. BUT here's the best part: after our burgers arrived, a dude wearing a fedora and a long-haired dude came and sat at the table next to us. Isn't that great? Oh wait, but the dudes were Rivers Cuomo and Brian Bell of Weezer! A few minutes later the rest of the band joined and they sat down right across from us. They seemed cool and Cynthia got to talk with Pat, who seemed like a really chill dude. So that was our Zombie Burger experience.
We spent some time at Gray's Lake and watched a couple of nerds working on their katana sword fighting moves, then we went and rented a couple bicycles and rode around Woodland for a while.
The music festival was crazy and super crowded, but we ran into a couple of people we knew there, which was cool. It was so hot pushing through all those crowds of people and the buildings all around reflected the heat and sunlight, so we cooled off in the shade for a bit before the show:
Weezer played almost all of their blue album and pretty much covered all their hits as well as a couple of songs we hadn't heard before. By the time the show ended at 10:30 the whole crowd was a mass of sweaty, slimy people and our clothes were sticking to us from layers of sweat and gross. We took off out of there and stopped to get a bite to eat before going back to my parent's house.
The next day we took Rose to Pine Lake Camp in Eldora. Her friend Lila went, too, and Rose was really excited. Rose gave Lila a tour of some of the buildings and then we went to the camp store to buy some stuff and then got in line for burgers. Rose barely had time to say goodbye to us before she was off running around and talking with her friends (there were a couple other kids there that she knew from previous summers).
The trip back to CR would have been long and boring, except that Emily talked our ears off the whole way because for once she didn't have to compete with Rose's onslaught of chatter, haha.
