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Iowa off the beaten path

jbindm

jbindm

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Dec 2, 2010
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Des Moines
So today my wife and I took our kids (8 and 3) on a day trip from Des Moines to Clear Lake for a kite festival. We ended up having a really good day, and it got us to thinking about other things to do in Iowa that are basically a day or short weekend trip. I'm reaching out to you, CF. Hit me with your best short trip destinations in Iowa for a family with little kids. We came up with Maquoketa Caves and Decorah and kind of ran out of steam after that. Southern Minnesota and anywhere else within around two hours of Des Moines are also fine if you know of any good places or events.
 
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CyCrazy

CyCrazy

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Dec 17, 2008
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My youngest went to the the kite festival with grandma today. Didn't know it was a thing until today.
 
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jbindm

jbindm

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Dec 2, 2010
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Des Moines
CyCrazy said:
My youngest went to the the kite festival with grandma today. Didn't know it was a thing until today.
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Yeah, me neither. I can see how it could be pretty miserable in worse weather conditions but a day like today was about as good as it gets. Got a little cold right there on the lake but it was a nice atmosphere. I've been making more of an effort to embrace winter instead of letting this time of year bring me down, and there was a real sense of that attitude there. Good time, nice little town.
 
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JP4CY

JP4CY

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jbindm said:
I'd like to swing a trip up to NE Iowa in the fall and maybe catch a show at Codfish Hollow, maybe the Garp Festival or whatever it is that Nathaniel Rateliff has a permanent slot reserved.
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Codfish is neat. If you see a show during the hot summer it gets smelling like BO fast.
 
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ISUTex

ISUTex

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jbindm said:
So today my wife and I took our kids (8 and 3) on a day trip from Des Moines to Clear Lake for a kite festival. We ended up having a really good day, and it got us to thinking about other things to do in Iowa that are basically a day or short weekend trip. I'm reaching out to you, CF. Hit me with your best short trip destinations in Iowa for a family with little kids. We came up with Maquoketa Caves and Decorah and kind of ran out of steam after that. Southern Minnesota and anywhere else within around two hours of Des Moines are also fine if you know of any good places or events.
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Effigy Mounds, Pike's Peak. Yellow River. Hiking trails are outstanding. Trout fishing around Decorah. I love NE Iowa.
 
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jbindm

jbindm

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Dec 2, 2010
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Des Moines
ISUTex said:
Effigy Mounds, Pike's Peak. Yellow River. Hiking trails are outstanding. Trout fishing around Decorah. I love NE Iowa.
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Yeah, I went to college in NE Iowa. Unfortunately I wasn't very interested in spending a lot of time outdoors at the time so I missed a lot of cool opportunities.
 
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NWICY

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The Dirty Dodge has the Fort Museum, Blanden Art Museum and 2 nice state parks with Brushy Creek and Dolliver. A nice county park out at Kennedy Memorial park. Fort Dodge also has a fairly nice set of city biking/hiking trails. 2 good breweries River Hops (Wed-Sat) and Shiny top (Mon-Sat?).

The city pool Rosedale Rapids looks pretty nice though never been there.
 
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