Sheraton West Des Moines

... navigating us through Des Moines to the hotel. Tomorrow, head over towards the Quad Cities, see my aunt who just got diagnosed a couple days ago with stage 4 cancer that had spread to the brain, and then work towards home for a late night arrival. Sigh, there have been many things that have made us wonder if this vacation should have occurred, but yet we survived and life with hectic and chaotic once we get home, Sigh

... and it was ****! I had been feeling ill since Thursday night and this didn't help things any. The three of us took it easy this morning as we didn't really have anywhere to go in the morning and we had got up too late to head down to Knoxville (a trip I wanted to take). That and Mark was still trying to arrange to meet Amanda, a uni friend of his from Des Moines who happened to be in Australia the same time as Alicia. Finally Amanda found some time free and we headed off to ...

... I were moving to a motel while Alicia had to pack for her honeymoon in Madrid. Nate arrived home around midday so he, Alicia, Nate's best mate Chris (who had come up from Indiana) and myself went down to the Indianola Country Club to set a couple of things up for the reception. An hours hard work and the boys headed back while Alicia took me on the grand Indianola tour to get my bearings. I saw Simpson College where Alicia studied as well as Smith Chapel (where Alicia and Nate were to ...

... got up and jumped on the computer so he avoided slacker status. The plan for the day was to do the grand Des Moines tour so we got our stuff together, bode farewell to Nate (he had to work) and headed off.

So there we were, myself, Alicia, Mark and Kym... and whoever was on the other end of Alicia's phone at the time (she was ringing ALL day much to her annoyance). The first stop was the Des Moines Capitol building (which works cos Des Moines is the capital ...

... little tougher than I imagined, but not horrible. We then showered and hit the road towards Des Moines. We arrived and parked downtown. After walking around for about 15 minutes, we felt like we had seen all we wanted to see, haha. It was a little bigger than Knoxvilles downtown, but it seemed like noone was smiling and there wasn't anything around except buisnesses. Maybe we were in the wrong part, but oh well. We left after grabbing a bite to eat for lunch and started towards Nebraska...

... middle a gurgling stream is an enclosed bridge (as seen in the movie) stretching across. There are several of the bridges around town, we saw a few but our fav was probably at the town park where they also had a castle like structure and a big garden maze, fun! And to add to the appeal of this town it is also John Waynes birth place. They have the house he was born in ...

I thought I should provide a little background info about my journey. A lot of people have asked me why I wanted to travel in Southeast Asia. Here's a list of reasons:

-SE Asia is cheap
-European tours are so cliche
-I love Asian food
-Ancient temples
-World-class SCUBA diving
-Volcanoes
-Cultural ...

... Energy basketball team; and Iowa Barnstormers arena football team. The building’s construction is notable for its open design, which incorporates views of the Des Moines skyline.

The concert program showed the breadth of the Choir’s musical range, which includes hymns of faith, classical choruses, folk music of the world, favorite inspirational show tunes and patriotic favorites. Excitement built throughout the evening, meaning the audience became more vocal in ...

... rings were OK but I concentrated on trying to finish my sandwich first while keeping an wary eye on the weather outside. Check one off my food list!

I was then finally on my way to Buffalo Center where my parents and I were staying at Lola's Cottage - a nice little rental house in town. It's a very odd feeling returning to my homeland but not being able to walk into my old room at our house on the farm. While Dad still owns the farmland ...

What's not to like about a trip to scenic Maine and colorful Nova Scotia. Of course, other than the 6:00 AM flight out of Des Moines to Portland Maine! Not to fear, it was painless and after securing our rental car, provided an entire day to reach our first destination of Bar Harbor Maine. With only 10 days to see and savor each location on our agenda, we hit the road!