A Day of Quests, but Not Quite the Holy Grail

So what to do in Des Moines when you have the whole day?  (Melisa was working)   Well, it's extremely cold out, so nothing outdoors, though we did take a walk to the nearby really cool sculpture park.
After that, we ate lunch at the Des Moines Art Museum.   This is a lovely museum.    Small, but spacious, with some very cool collections.   Lunch was wonderful--excellent soups and salads.   I, Pat, wandered into the gift shop, and lo and behold, found quest # 1!    I have wanted a new Menorah for a while;  i've wanted one that is both unique and practical.  I've been looking for one that isn't one piece, because the typical ones don't hold the candles well, drip like crazy, and are a potential fire danger!   Well, i didn't find the one in my mind, aka The Holy Grail of Menorahs, but i did find one that is very unique, and will actually hold the candles safely, and will handle the drips!

Quest number 2---we forgot our pillows in AA, and decided to replace our old ones anyway.  We wanted the temperpedic, but yikes, $100 is alot to spend!   We found a Younkers and lo and behold, quest #2--we found 2 temperpedic like pillows for about $30 each!





One quest left, we thought--to eat at a Maid-Rite.   As we had time to spare, i suggested we drive to Ames, Iowa, the home of Iowa State U, and very nearby.  Now i've been to Ames before, and remember liking it.   It was on a Bernard trip out west, and we stopped in Ames for the night on the way back from Wyoming.   We all loved Ames, though i couldn't remember why.  I called my brother, Jim, Mr. Encyclopedia, and he remembered.  It was 1960, and we had been driving in Nebraska and Kansas.   We stopped in Ames and were estastic at how green it was, after passing one wheat field after another.
So we drove there, it was a nice town, but the road there, Hwy 35, was full of cars in ditches from the blizzard the night before.  We counted 50 cars, a few semi's, and a number of them were upside down in the ditches! We did think of one of our followers, Jim VB, and took this picture for him.

Memory lane, Jim!

Alas, we could not find a Maid-Rite there, so we returned to Des Moines, and did find one;  lo and behold, it was right in the Younkers Mall we had been to earlier!



Quest #3 was satisfied.   Again, this is NOT the Holy Grail of fast food--it's basically a loose hamburger.    Oh yes, we found another sort of quest, a continual quest on my part--we found a Jazzercize class!   I really wanted to join it, but it was really not the time.   Interestingly, the instructor was a man, and not a young man.
As we got ready leave to leave the food court, Dan spotted some cargo pants back at the Younkers.   So in we trotted, and, lo and behold, he found Quest #4, a good cheap pair of cargo pants.
So, all in all, a successful day in Des Moines.

Oh, we also found the jazzercise place in Des Moines.