November was a fun month, as it should be. We went some places and did some stuff and even took pictures of some of it.
The first week of November I spent in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The fall colors were at their peak while I was out there and I wish I could've taken more pictures because it is difficult to take a bad picture out there. Driving through New Hampshire:
It's just a Marriott, but this hotel always looks picturesque:
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... Lily hates affection so, so much:
Check out this awesome November sunset:
What do you do when it's freezing cold outside?? Go to Orange Leaf!
For our 18th anniversary Cynthia and I stayed in a Mad Men-style mid-century house in DSM with all of the period-appropriate furnishings:
I like all the milled wood paneling and this nifty light fixture:
It even had a working fireplace:
This was in the kitchen, I don't know how it got there...
We visited the State Historical Museum of Iowa and discovered that there were SHARKS in Iowa at one time. That's crazy to think about. Seems a little more tame these days with cows roaming about.
The capitol is still there, why wouldn't it be? The East Village neighborhood has completely transformed and the rundown machine shops, old apartments, and boarded-up buildings have been replaced with shops and restaurants. That area is barely even recognizable now. Gentrification!
Even though we lived in DSM for over five years, we never checked out the governor's mansion, so we took a tour of Terrace Hill while we were visiting. It has an interesting history and the guy who built it in the 1860s was a con artist who ended up losing the house. Eventually the house became the governor's mansion after changing hands a couple of times.
The first and second floors of the house are exactly the way they were when the house was built. The governor's family lives on the third floor which has been completely remodeled and is apparently very contemporary. The house overall was well cared for and never needed to be restored. Many of the pieces of furniture are original from when the Hubbell's lived there.
This stain glass window was replaced at one point because the second owner (the Hubbell family) didn't like the original window that had an inscription on it. No record exists of what that inscription said.
Kim Reynold's office. Since she wasn't in her office during our visit (she had just returned from Japan the night before and was presumably sleeping) we got to poke our heads in and look around. What I would give for the chance to leave some thumbtacks on her chair... (shakes fist)
Good times!
We visited all of our old stomping grounds (except Gray's Lake because we ran out of time), visited Peace Tree, and stopped in at the Drake Diner, too. The food is always good:
I found this in a box of vintage postcards from the 1930s at the Brass Armadillo:
Game night! With all the stuff going on in the evenings we don't get to play games together very often. Emily will destroy you at Connect 4 and Rose pulls the red pegs out of her ships in Battleship, so... might not want to play against either of them. I'm good at Mad Gab because mumbling is kinda my thing. And Cynthia will beat anyone at trivia.
