Day 10: Missouri and Iowa

Today was another one of those long drive days... partly because we drove up and down the same 10 miles of highway about 4 times trying to find Shatto Milk farm. We almost gave up, but Lisa really wanted to taste their flavored milk. Plus, we affectionately started calling it Shatto Saint Missori (Seattle joke) so I couldn't just not go. We stopped by a store to ask for directions and were told that we were on the wrong road, entirely. Stupid Google Maps!


Finally making it to the farm with a sigh of relief, we walked into the store where 20 girl scouts were guzzling their banana milk and staring at us as we tried to squeeze past them. The tours were all booked, so we just lingered until someone offered us some free milk samples. Besides banana, they had strawberry, orange, chocolate and rootbeer flavored milk and all of them came in super cute glass bottles. I wanted to buy every flavor in every size of bottle, but I settled for a pint of chocolate and also convinced myself that I didn't need one of their amazing ice cream sandwiches or wedges of cheese. It was tough.



We made friends with the woman handing out samples and she told us to sneak through the door to see the old milk truck. She didn't have to tell me twice.


We barely made it to Des Moines, Iowa because we were pretty hungry, the milk wasn't filling us up as much as we had hoped, but we were in luck! The World Food Festival was taking place in downtown Des Moines so we got to see a lot of local flavor. We watched a little baking demonstration from the "chicks from the sticks" and got to sample their goods and check out their cookbook.


Random note, Iowa is crazy windy! I thought for sure the tent was going to collapse on top of us and I'd have to eat brownies for days until someone could dig us out.




Anyway, lots of fun at the Food Festival! We got out of there before anyone tried to feed us more bacon flavored things and cruised some old country roads through the historic Amana Colonies. This old german colony was so cute. Also, I was very excited to when we drove by the Whirlpool facilities and realized that Amana appliances come from Amana! What?!




We played with some barn cats and then ate some tasty german food and locally brewed beer then settled in Cedar Rapids for the night. Tomorrow, we're off to Hartford, Wisconsin for a friend's wedding. Getting up bright and early!