Utopian Loop

Today was a trip to The Amana Colonies, which is a group of seven villages that form a loop and allow you to tour through them in a circle. Most of the interesting stuff was located in the Amana village. The rest either didn't have much to begin with or everything was closed. 

I just now realized I have no pictures of Millstream Brewing but that was our first stop once we arrived in Amana. While it was a neat place, I was very surprised by how tiny it was. My guess is that Millstream's storage and processing capacity is hardly any bigger than the two brewpubs in downtown Des Moines. Obviously the brewpubs don't have any bottling ability so a real brewery has that going for it. We had a few samples and I bought this Weizenbock which came in a huge 34oz bottle. I don't have anything there for scale, but it's a lot bigger than a wine bottle. Good stuff so far. 

Our next stop was the woolen mill, which is still operating. Lots of neat stuff in here, they had both antique and modern machinery view-able. With the addition of CNC looms, it only takes about two minutes to run each blanket, but that is only after a setup time of 4-5 hours which involves installing 250+ spools of wool yarn. 

This is showing the spools of yarn, getting funneled down onto one large, wide spool. 

After the woolen mill, we checked out a furniture fabrication shop. There was lots of neat stuff, all very well made.

This shop also makes clocks.

A couple shots here of one area in the furniture fabricating area.

After lunch and a little more walking, it was time for some espresso, we checked out this coffee/chocolate shop.

Next we stopped by a winery.

This place has a total capacity of 15,000 gallons. There wasn't much going on at this time as wine is only made from April-November and they'd just finished. Now it's mostly waiting in storage.

On the way through one of the smaller villages before heading home, we stopped at the state's largest walnut rocking chair. I was a little surprised that competition for "largest walnut rocker" is stiff enough that this one is only champion of Iowa.

Mini Hike

Corrine and I made a trip to Red-Rock and got outside for a little while. We hiked on Stu Kuyper Nature Trail next to White-Breast campground. Other than a cold breeze coming in off of the lake, it was a nice day for walking and the sun even popped out for a little bit. 

I think the last time we were on this trail, we were doing some training intervals on mountain bikes. A couple areas have some erosion issues now, with parts of the trail sliding away. Overall a nice little trail that you can cover in under an hour but still see some nice scenery.

Lit-Up

I looked out the window a few minutes ago and noticed that the horizon was blazing away. I sat for a bit to soak it in - home feels a little more like home with a big sky.

Snow-day the first.

As if in response to my previous post, Pella experienced its first snow of the year today along with much of the state. Enough fell to give everything a good coating and temps stayed low enough that it stuck around for a good portion of the day. I'm guessing we had about 1" of accumulation but it's hard to tell because it was extremely wet and heavy. The snow plows were even out working - this cut down on the amount of testing we could do on the car's AWD system but it was still fun, even if we did only drive around on patchy slush.

Around noon, the sun popped out which made for a pleasant afternoon. It's always easier to operate at a high energy level when there's sunshine.

A little gray on top, but lots of fire in the bottom.

Some combination of the visual end of a season that was the snow, and a powerful sunset made me think of the lyric in this Rise Against song which goes: "We raced the sunset and we almost won.."

After the sun's final exit, we're back to blue skies again. 

Transition

It does appear to be that time of year when I arrive at work under a great sunrise nearly every morning, so long as the weather cooperates. With that comes a sense of urgency that this time is not to be wasted, it is slipping away to a day when mornings will be dark, cold and icy. The snow will be flying soon and I must try my best to soak in more of the outdoors until then. That feeling will pass though because winter is fun too - it's somehow fulfilling to fight against the elements and survive, a sense of accomplishment I suppose. The struggle makes everything else better. We'll get there.

Soft-water fishing

Not too shabby for a day which was forecast to be cloudy and windy, at the end of October. Corrine, Sara, Nathan and I took our boats out fishing in Red-Rock's marina cove. Things are pretty quiet around here. One last sail-boat was being hauled out, a couple of runabouts still in their slips, getting lonely.

A fair amount of people were fishing from the floating docks and a few other boats were fishing in and around the area. Everyone seemed to be having at least minor success. I saw one person running double hooks who caught two fish at once. Everything I saw was really small. We ended up moving further into the cove near a creek which unloads into the lake. Presently, the creek appeared to be almost non-existent. Nonetheless, we all caught a few fish here - some white-bass and some large-mouths. The wind stayed calm and the temps stayed mild - it was a great day to be out.

Strolling the waterfront

A leisurely walk to check out the Des Moines river below Red-Rock dam. Water levels are extremely low right now and in several spots, it appears one could easily walk across. It made me excited to think about the upcoming lake draw-down for a year plus to allow for construction of a new hydro-electric plant at this location. Draw-downs here create a huge amount of nice flat shore-line and it should be a blast.