The Ambitious Odometer: Des Moines

Thursday, June 29, 2017

{Road Trip} Day One - A Presidential Start

Sooo, we didn't exactly get out of town as early as I had wanted to (Wednesday night). It was actually more like 6 hours later (earrrly Thursday morning)... Sadly, we had to cut most of our planned stops en route to Des Moines, Iowa, but...

amidst several rounds of both the ABC Game and the License Plate Game, and after 3 audio books and a movie later...

{our well loved license plate game}

we did make time to stop among the miles and miles of cornfields in the middle of nowhere Illinois at the birthplace of President Ronald Reagan in Tampico, Illinois...

and I've decided that this little spot with just under 800 residents is just about the nicest little town ever in the middle of the cornfields in Northern Illinois...

So, we knew we were rolling into town a couple of hours after the "museum" had closed for the day, but I just wanted to stop and take a few photos outside.

{the window to the room where President Reagan was born in 1911}

President Ronald Reagan was born in an upstairs apartment above a Main Street bakery in tiny Tampico, Illinois. Over the course of time that the Reagans lived in the upstairs apartment, the bakery closed and reopened as a bank.

Well, I guess that this much action on Main Street on a Thursday night in Tampico can cause quite a stir...

Soon, we'd met the owner of the restaurant next door who informed us that pretty much everyone that volunteered at the museum was inside for a party (probably pretty much everyone that lives in a 5 mile radius, too) and he was sure someone could come over and show us around.

Well, of course, we wanted to go inside the building where the president of my childhood took his very first breaths, but we certainly didn't want to cause anyone any extra trouble!

Before we knew it, another person came out of the restaurant asking if we'd had a tour yet, and she assured us that so and so was just playing dominoes, but she could certainly come give us a tour if we didn't mind waiting a bit. So, while we waited, we met another couple who shared their surefire way to repel bugs with Listerine in a spray bottle (file that away for Alaska) and how they were "doing" an outdoor wedding recently and had sprayed all the hostas and it just worked like a charm!

As soon as they disappeared into the restaurant, a car pulled up and out popped our tour guide!

I mean, the nicest ever... It was like 6:00 at night and we got the FULL tour of everything!

{in the room where President Reagan was born}

B even got to step on a rug where President Reagan once stepped...

AND, got to climb through the window into the apartment next door, just like President Reagan did as a child!

So did, M...

Fun Fact: We also learned that in 1872 Admiral Joseph M. Reeves was born in Tampico, as well. I hadn't heard of him before, but when our tour guide mentioned that while at the Naval Academy in the 1890s, he was credited with inventing the modern football helmet, a certain someone's ears perked up!

After leaving Tampico, we hightailed it on to Des Moines for the night and grabbed dinner at Zombie Burger + Shake Lab. It has a very weird vibe, and the zombie decor totally creeps our kids out...

but I've been thinking about the breaded portabello mushroom "burger" that I got last time we were in town ever since, and it didn't disappoint, yet again!