One funny thing I forgot to mention yesterday, even though Travalon said I could: as we were driving from Iowa City to Des Moines, we saw a sign that said 98 miles to Des Moines, and Travalon said, "But is that only if you're going 75 miles an hour?" When I said, "What??" he realized what he had said, and we both had a good laugh about it.
This morning we walked to the Iowa State Capitol. I remember telling someone many years ago, maybe Tiffy or maybe just my diary Mariah, that it looked like a mosque as built by Donald Trump, and seeing it again, I can kind of see what I meant. Travalon thought it looked a little like a Russian Orthodox church. You can decide for yourself:
This is in the rotunda, looking up at the dome:
The last time I was in the Iowa State Capitol Building, people were in the rotunda selling almond letters for a fundraiser. This was in the previous millennium, around Christmas. The almond letters were all shaped like the letter S and were delicious. This time there were anti-vaxxers in there, telling me why vaccinations are evil. I think I prefer almond letters. Here are some other photos from inside the Capitol. First, flags of all First Nations that are in Iowa:
This is a model of the warship USS Iowa.
This is on the second floor.
This is the House of Representatives. They had been in session at 8:30 that morning, but they were already out of session by then, which was around 9:30. Wonderfully efficient, those Iowan legislators.
This is the view of downtown Des Moines looking down from the Capitol.
As we walked back to our hotel, we saw this mural:
Were we in the gay neighborhood? We stopped into a coffeeshop where the world's least personable barista worked, then we hit the road and drove to Omaha. I had always dreamed of seeing the Omaha Zoo, and a coworker told me on Tuesday that it was one of the defining moments of her life. I can see what she means. It was a cold, snowy day, but that didn't even matter because so much of the zoo is in these cool inside habitats. We got there just after one and had a quick lunch at a cafe overlooking the jungle house. Here are some photos from our tour of the jungle.
This is what we saw at lunch - monkeys!
I just think the tapirs are so adorable.
This is the view from behind the waterfall named after some guy.
I thought this shot of an anaconda was so artistic. (Travalon took all these photos, so I am not talking myself up here.)
This is a little blue frog from the Amazon. The jungle house was split into Asian, African, and Amazon.
This huge fish lives in the Amazon and breathes air instead of water. I don't know if it actually has lungs instead of gills. Fish are strange things, in that the category "fish" describes an animal that swims, but they are not all similar to each other. A tuna fish is more closely related to a human than to a shark. Lots of categories of living things are like that, say "tree" - a palm tree is more closely related to the grass in your lawn than to an apple tree.
The next place we went was a huge dome with desert regions: Australia, Africa, and America. I loved the plants and the animals in there. This is a burrow owl. They were so cute and friendly.
I think this is called a peccary. It's a small wild pig.
It was very loud in the desert dome with bird calls, and I was trying to figure out what bird was making them, and then I realized it was all the doves flying around. I'm not even sure they are officially part of the exhibit - maybe they just got in from the outside. Here is a bird that is not a dove.
This is a mongoose.
This super cute little antelope had a name sort of like klipspringer. Hm, maybe that is exactly right, because Spellcheck recognizes it as a word.
I like this very angry-looking bird.
I like this bird too. He isn't quite sure what to make of us.
I loved the plants in the African part of the exhibit. I think this is an aloe.
I know this is a welwitschia. They are a very unusual, ancient sort of plant with just two leaves that keep growing for the plant's entire life. We had some at the greenhouse I worked at when I was in college.
Underneath the dome was the Night Animal exhibit. Most of those photos didn't really turn out, but this one of the springhaas kind of did. I love this animal - it's soooo cute!
There were a lot of penguins in the aquarium exhibit, some swimming around and some sitting on rocks. This is called a macaroni penguin. No idea why.
These little fish hang out in holes in the bottom of the ocean.
I love this big polka-dot shark.
These, of course, are jellyfish. They are so relaxing to watch - almost hypnotic.
More fish that live in holes in the bottom of the ocean.
This crazy-looking fish is called a long-horned cowfish. Seems about right.
This bonnet head shark looks kind of like a hammerhead shark.
For some reason there was a toucan in one of the aquarium exhibits, hanging out above the fish.
Then we went into the butterfly house. You have to get checked for stowaways before leaving it.
There was a really big, beautiful blue butterfly, but Travalon didn't get any pictures of it. We went to the Africa Safari, which must be awesome in the summer, but this time of year most animals are inside. We did see another klipspringer.
And this optimistic magnolia blooming in spite of the snow. Spring is here, darn it!
The giraffes were inside their own enclosure.
So were the elephants, and this little baby girl was born just a few days after I turned fifty. She's exactly three months old today.
In the Madagascar House, we saw this black parrot.
Look at this cuddle pile of ring-tailed lemurs!
Then we had to go through the ape house to get back. This monkey was very pretty.
The gorilla looked pensive. There were some younger ones that were more playful.
We drove to Lincoln and checked out their State Capitol building. It's... different.
Is that a statue of a Cossack on top of their dome?
Across the street was this beautiful Catholic church called St. Mary's.
We wanted to stay at the Graduate Hotel, since we have stayed at the ones in Minneapolis and Evanston, but they had really jacked up their prices for a Future Farmers of America convention, so we are staying at the Holiday Inn a block away. Downtown Lincoln isn't quite as cool as downtown Des Moines, but we did go to an Italian restaurant about a block away, so that was romantic. Our waiter is studying architecture at the University of Nebraska, so we asked him why Wikipedia says the Capitol is a mix of art deco (that I can see), Neo-Byzantine, and Gothic Revival. He said the Neo-Byzantine has to do with the shape (I guess it is sort of cruciform), and we'll see the Gothic part on the inside. No flying buttresses, that I can tell you. Tomorrow we hope to get inside, so I will try to report back tomorrow night.
Famous Hat
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