Tag: Menlo

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Steam Engine Train Ride a Loud Thrill

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We met our cousins in Menlo to enjoy a train ride on a steam engine one Saturday morning. It was a fundraiser for the local fire department. We watched the train pull into the village. There is no station for the Central States Steam Preservation Association to stop, but there were plenty of people in town to watch the steam engine arrive, or to photograph it as it passed through the countryside.

It is fun to ride the train, but it is loud and dirty. We thought because the smoke was blowing away from the windows we were fine. We quickly realized our mistake as everything was soon covered with a fine layer of soot. The conductors explained that if we got a cinder in our eye to cry it out, not to rub it.

The Chinese built QJ steam locomotives that pulled our train are truly global in design and construction with connections to USA, Soviet Union and China. They appear so romantic in Harry Potter movies and so on, but the experience gave me renewed admiration for my great grandparents who traveled by train across country to California in 1900. Easier than covered wagon, still, I’m glad to fly Delta home from Des Moines.

 

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In Search of Pie: Coffee Cup Cafe and More

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A slice of peach and a slice of blackberry pie at Coffee Cup Cafe in Sully, IA

Whenever I travel I brake for pie. When I travel in Iowa I make a special effort to seek out pie. Before I left I found an on-line feature by Michaela Kendall, “10 Places in Iowa Where You Can Get the Most Mouth-Watering Pie.” (February 21, 2016) I looked these restaurants up on Google maps to see if I’d be going near on my road trip. Alas, only one was close enough to ask my cousins to go with me to try the pie.

The Coffee Cup Cafe in Sully, Iowa is somewhere my cousins know well. We made it part of my tour of Pella and surrounding countryside. We had to work up an appetite for lunch before we got to Sully. I learned a lot about the Vermeer tractor manufacturer, and Goalsetter basketball hoops. It was great also to see the golf course where my cousin Jerry plays and the reservoir where the Army Corps is retrofitting hydroelectric power. (With wind power, Iowa is getting very green!) .

IMG_8632Then we arrived for pie in Sully. Sully has another claim to fame: a Freedom Rock by Ray “Bubba” Sorensen II. The artist is creating a rock painting to honor veterans in each of Iowa’s 99 counties.

The Coffee Cup Cafe had a group of Vermeer employees arrive for pie just before we walked in. These hungry gentlemen almost wiped out the white board of pies available. We quickly ordered pie, whew! We enjoyed our lunch and pie and continued on our way.

Cousins also recommended that we try the Menlo Cafe in Menlo, IA. It is a cafe owned by the city and leased to a caterer so the town will always have a breakfast and lunch place for people to gather. Fortunately, the caterers also bake good pie. Tevis and I tried their breakfast buffet and I ordered a slice of rhubarb pie. It was excellent and the waitress complemented me on my breakfast choice of pie.

RAGBRAI is going to roll through Menlo and Stuart in a couple of weeks. I highly recommend you try the pie at Menlo Cafe. My cousin Kathy bakes a terrific pie and she lives in Dexter/Stuart. I thought for sure she’d be baking for a pie fundraiser for her Catholic church when RAGBRAI rolled through. Too bad for the cyclists, the church as decided to bake and sell cookies. Lucky for me, she brought a gooseberry pie and her famous black raspberry pie and I got to try a small slice of each at our family reunion.

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Saving the best for last! Kathy’s black raspberry pie and gooseberry pie.