Ciao Readers!

Geez, it’s been a long time! I hope you all have been well. I kinda think blogging is going the way of the dinosaurs – takes way more time to produce and absorb than a TikTok – but yet the mood struck me to blog this morning, so here it goes…

The last trip about which I blogged (2022) came about through a random decision on an evening walk to find a Counting Crows concert to attend, which just happened to end up being in Milan, Italy! My recent first trip ever to Iowa came about in the exact same way – a random search one night to find a Counting Crows concert at which to celebrate the end of too many summer jobs. And so I found myself in Des Moines, Iowa. I’m not sure if the story here is more that Des Moines had more to offer than I expected, or that I think the new way I will plan my “spontaneous” trips in life is through the Counting Crows…

In any case, if you’ve never been, the highlight of Des Moines is for sure their farmers market – I have been to many in my life, including ginormous ones in Portland, Oregon and San Diego, California, and I have to say that the one in Des Moines is larger by far! According to its website it has 300 vendors and is the second “best” in the country (don’t ask me how they came up with that). In addition to what you expect – corn – there were many things you might not expect, like the largest variety of eggplants I have ever seen and food stalls from all over the world including Peru and Bosnia! The photos below don’t do it justice as I went super early to avoid the heat (OMG that humidity makes it HOT!!!) – by the time I left the place was packed! In addition to the market, I checked out their botanical gardens (which are nice, but tiny) and the state capitol. And, of course, the pièce de résistance – the Counting Crows concert!!! I was a bit of a rock star myself as all the folks around me could not believe I came all the way from Albuquerque, NM on a whim to see a concert in their town (the concert was actually at Vibrant Music Hall in the nearby suburb of Waukee). A bit of my all time favorite, A Long December, below (great view, no?). Until the next time….