{"id":189,"date":"2008-07-27T04:34:16","date_gmt":"2008-07-27T09:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/?p=189"},"modified":"2023-03-20T11:09:03","modified_gmt":"2023-03-20T16:09:03","slug":"des-moines-ia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/2008\/07\/27\/des-moines-ia\/","title":{"rendered":"Des Moines, IA"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m off on Leaf 2!<\/strong> Or, I should say, we’re<\/em> off. My friend Jong-hun from Korea is accompanying me for the first couple weeks of my trip this time around. Awesome. Opportunity to see America, gas subsidization, positive emotions all around.<\/p>\n

On our way to Des Moines, we saw signs for… a windmill!<\/p>\n

A windmill!<\/p>\n

Why not? It was 6 miles off the beaten path (by which I really mean the paved, controlled-access path), which isn’t far due to modern inventions like the car.<\/p>\n

\"Jong-hun<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking of cars, the Lovemobile has been doing a great job of carting me all around the country. Here we are, veterans of Leaf 1, next to… a windmill!!<\/p>\n

\"Guess<\/a><\/p>\n

So, following the exciting trip to see a really old windmill, we drove to Des Moines and met a guy who has a great horned owl living on his property. It was my hope that I could record this owl hooting or squawking or whatever it does.<\/p>\n

The guy was Nathan Stueve, cool guy and motorcyclist. We followed him<\/p>\n

\"Follow,<\/a><\/p>\n

to his house<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

and went to his backyard,<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

where we proceeded to listen for a large owl sound. Nathan was a good storyteller and kept us all entertained while we waited for the owl to squawk. We also enjoyed some fine brats and beer, freshly grilled outside (meaning the brats).<\/p>\n

We listened<\/p>\n

and listened<\/p>\n

and listened<\/p>\n

but no sound did a great horned owl make. We heard plenty of owls, but Nathan waved his hand in dismissal, calling them “puny grey owls” and claiming they were a “dime a dozen… they’re everywhere in Iowa.”* Needless to say, I definitely did not record those insignificant owls, but kept waiting for Mr. Big Guy.<\/p>\n

Mr. Big Guy kept us waiting, which is stylish, but he never appeared, ever, which is totally not stylish at all. By 9:00 or so we packed up and left. But our thanks to Steve and his awesome girlfriend Erica for offering their owl to us.<\/p>\n

Then it was off to meet my host, Aaron Wiese. Aaron has cool stories from touring around with a rock band. What would be cool is if his band name was The Windmills. But it wasn’t.<\/p>\n

Aaron lived in a house with like 6 other people, but they were evidently in and out at all times and there were only ever 4 people sleeping there, so by and large that translates to free beds. JH and I slept on various free sleeping-type places throughout the house.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

JH and I had a great time chilling with Aaron and his roommates and random friends that would come over. The next morning, Aaron and JH and I were off to eat lunch with Julie Courraud, a charming girl from Nantes, France. We had a fine meal at El Bait Shop, which is kind of like a Mexican BBQ\/seafood joint. I had tilapia tacos. FACT: it was awesome. I’ll stick a picture here if Julie sends it to me.<\/p>\n

“What happened next?” asks a nearby onlooker.<\/p>\n

Okay, that was a totally unneccessary narrative device. I was just about to say<\/em> what happened next.<\/p>\n

“So… what was it?” he asks, continuing to look on.<\/p>\n

*sigh* Next, Aaron and I recorded some guitar!<\/p>\n

\"Aaron<\/a><\/p>\n

Aaron came up with a sweet part for one of my songs, and then it was time to move on to Chicago!<\/p>\n

NEXT: Chicago. Or, something else.<\/p>\n

* Those quotes are actually paraphrases but make for better storytelling as quotes.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m off on Leaf 2! Or, I should say, we’re off. My friend Jong-hun from Korea is accompanying me for the first couple weeks of my trip this time around. Awesome. Opportunity to see America, gas subsidization, positive emotions all … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,3],"tags":[81,83,84,82],"class_list":["post-189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sessions","category-tour","tag-aaron-wiese","tag-des-moines","tag-el-bait-shop","tag-windmill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1310,"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions\/1310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}