We were smart enough to take the day off after we returned to Iowa, and we recommend this to everyone! The day after we got back, we headed down the hill from our house to Captain Roy's on the marina, and saw some really weird-looking swans.
(We knew they weren't swans, but wondered if maybe they were cranes?)
We later found they're migrating pelicans, stopping through on their way north for the summer. They stuck around for nearly a week, paddling around the marina with their huge feet faster than a lot of the boats manage to. A few flew overhead - we have a lot of nesting bald eagles along the Des Moines riverbanks, and the pelicans looked quite a bit bigger than them.
April 15th, less than a week back from the fields of daffodils in Ireland, brought us a last fling with snow. The winter temps kept up for another 3 weeks while we watched London go through a heat wave and hit 75º the same week!
Some people know how to get a good laugh on their sandwich board.
We are inquiring about royalties with this cartoonist for using our how-we-met story.
Towards the end of April, we headed to Cedar Rapids for a quick weekend getaway to celebrate Coco's birthday! Dinner was at Cobble Hill Eatery & Dispensary, a wonderful chef-driven restaurant featuring local and in season ingredients.
One of the guard-lions on Lion's Bridge, leading to the National Czech & Slovak Museum, an amazing cultural resource to have available in Cedar Rapids. The museum shop features a lot of cut glass from the region where Waterford recruited craftsmen to build their cut-crystal business.
The next day, we returned to Des Moines in time to attend the Around the Table's fourth dinner! This group was a pioneer in hosting popup dinners in our city, and while there are a few others doing the same now, we'd been wanting to get in with this group for a year while they were taking a break. It was a great night of delicious bites, conversation with people we might never have met otherwise, and creative presentation and design. It was also a great reminder that we have some awesome people in Iowa who are trying new things and making our city a lot of fun, without having to travel very far at all.
Finally, on May 6th, our tulips caught up with their sisters in Ireland from a month earlier. Hooray for spring!
Spring brings a shower of bright pink from the crabapples on our front "lawn". These have been such a nice part of our view out the windows each year, during the week that announces spring has arrived. A few days later the petals turn the sidewalk and street into pink carpet. Surprisingly, no royalty appeared to walk on the petals.
To really seal the deal, we hopped on our bikes and rode up river a few miles. Hopefully this will keep the snow at bay till next year.
We're pretty sure we're going to keep posting here, it's been a nice alternative to Facebook and Instagram and the rest after enjoying two weeks off the grid in the UK and Ireland. Let us know what you think and if you have any trouble getting the site to work on your computers or phones.
Bye for now! Thanks for following us on our travel adventures!
-Brian and Colleen