ok, ok, enough pictures of our hotel room!  on to the sights.  sunday was spent at the living history farms just outside of downtown des moines.  it’s an interactive museum of three working farms (a 1700s indian village, 1850 pioneer farm, 1900 horse-powered farm) and a replica 1875 town.  everyone working on the farms or in the town was dressed and acted how people did in their era.  truly an experience found only in the midwest.    but it was FUN.  i felt like we were taken back in time and found ourselves in laura ingalls wilder’s or anne shirley’s towns.

the town of walnut hill

exchanged pleasantries with some townsfolk

inside the mercantile

mikey getting ready for some book learnin’

outside the home of the wealthy family living in town instead of on a farm. 

we walked in the house and immediately smelled some yummy home cookin’ and found the ‘servants’ eating dinner (lunch) together in the kitchen.  beef stew, boiled potatoes, yeast rolls with butter- all cooked on the iron stove!

ok, so it was H.O.T hot that day.  thankfully, not too humid, but still very very warm.  here’s mikey taking a water break.  right behind him, some goats were resting in the shade.

after visiting the town, we went on to see the 1900s farm.  it ended up being waaay too hot and too long of a day to see the other farms (we’ll have to save it for another trip), so we saw just the one farm.  according to phil, ‘ehh, what’s fifty years in farming?!’ 

mikey was fascinated with the animals he saw.  he kept wanting to stay and watch them.  here he is with daddy in the chicken coop.

you can’t go to corn country and not see corn, so here it is- children of the corn!

actually, right after we left the twin cities, fields upon fields of cornstalks grew on either side of the freeway.  it’s about all we saw the whole drive!

finally, after a long day of sightseeing, we stopped in at the machine shed for a hearty lunch.  there was SO much food, we ate ourselves silly!  funny though, the first thing they brought out was a big basket of bread, cinnamon coffee cake, coleslaw, and big ole bowl of cottage cheese!  we couldn’t figure out what the cottage cheese was for, but it sure tasted good anyway.  we both ordered pork dishes and oh my, sooooo yummy!  nothing like corn-fed, free-range pork to fill up an empty stomach!  btw, the corn was scrumptious, too!

after our big meal, we made the drive back home and had three big boxes of leftovers for dinner.  mmm…