Des Moines Isn’t Boring, Really, I Mean It

by Kevin Burton

   Did you know there is a Memphis, Missouri?

   Fewer than 2,000 people live there. We came perilously close to joining them on vacation two weeks ago.

   We had planned to see the big Memphis – the BB King-Jerry Lee Lewis-Johnny Cash Memphis – but a flood warning for the Mississippi River at Memphis sent us to plan B, which turned out to be Hannibal, Missouri.

   Hannibal lacks the all the musical heritage and much of the barbecue prowess of Memphis, but turned out to be a worthy pinch-hitter when we needed one. The tiny Memphis is 91 miles from Hannibal, but we got even closer than that as we left Mark Twain’s hometown and drove up highway 61 north on the way to the Iowa border.

   My brother-in-law Mike, who had contributed to our things-to-see-in Memphis list, told Jeannette and me that Memphis is still there. I haven’t had time to verify this, but I am confident he is correct. So we’ll get to Memphis is due time.

   We briefly thought of making our vacation a Hannibal-Memphis trip, but the flood warning for Memphis was extended and upon further reflection that wasn’t a good plan anyway.

   I want a week to explore Memphis, at least a week.  And once we left Hannibal we only had four cat-sitter days left before we needed to be home.

   Hannibal made all the tourism sense in the world. But the rest of our itinerary was based on short driving distances between cities as we meandered back home to the Wichita area in Kansas.

   That’s how Des Moines became a stopping point for us. If we ever go back through the area we will stay in Ames, 34 miles due north, which is smaller, but with more charm and even a bit of swagger.

   “What are you doing in the area? Des Moines is not usually a destination,” said the clerk at Choices Christian Bookstore, which for us was one of the highlights of Iowa’s capital city.

   Both Jeannette and I found gifts for relatives at the bookstore. We also found some Bible studies in Acts and about the end times, that we plan to add to the studies were are already doing.

   Both before and after the bookstore, we found out why Des Moines isn’t a big tourist stop. But the whole trip was a celebration of our 13^th wedding anniversary, so we were going to be in high spirits no matter what.

   My first editor said there are no boring places, only boring people. This is true, and we were never truly bored there. But you’ll find Des Moines far down the exciting cities list, below Hannibal and far, far below Memphis.

    Parking in downtown Des Moines is a problem. A woman at the front desk of the Comfort Inn recommended the Angry Goldfish   restaurant. That made me wonder what would make a goldfish angry, and how could you tell if he or she was?

   It looked like a quaint little eatery once we found it but there was no way that we could see  to park there. We were similarly shut out from another place before we decided to do our shopping and eating in West Des Moines and avoid downtown.

   That strategy paid off when Jeannette found Jethro’s Barbecue and Jambalaya, a place with a truly dangerous menu. Somehow I managed to order just the red beans and rice meal and not order 60 percent of the menu.

   Even better was the Rib Shack, where Jeannette ordered a turkey leg, which turned out to be three or four times the size she had expected. I finally got my half slab there and it did not disappoint.  So maybe a future Ames stay will include a jaunt down to Rib Shack.

   We were not sad to leave Des Moines Thursday for the short trip to Omaha. We stopped at the Union Pacific Railroad Museum in Council Bluffs Iowa, only because we had time to kill before we could check in at the Comfort Inn Omaha. But the museum turned out to be great fun.

   We learned about the transcontinental railroad and how its construction fostered national parks, the telegraph, standard time and dozens of American communities. Thanks to the museum, we were able to relive the golden age of passenger travel, without getting a sore back.

   The woman at the front desk said the tour guides had all called in sick that day but we got plenty of information from some picture galleries, where by pushing a button you got audible captions explaining what those old timers were doing.

   Abraham Lincoln was the founding father of Union Pacific. At the museum we saw the Union Pacific desk he never got to use because he was shot to death by an assassin.

   We stayed at Comfort Inns throughout our vacation because of good rates, amenities and customer service. We were amazed to have this turned on its head at the Comfort Inn, Omaha Central.

   It’s at 7007 Grover Street in Omaha. Don’t stay there. I promise you had this been the first Comfort Inn I ever stayed at, it would have been the last.

   We got there and were presented with a room that did not have a microwave or refrigerator, two things we were promised when we booked the stay. Worse, it was dirty, simply not fit to be presented to paying customers. We waited in that fifth-floor room while they brought us keys to another, as it turned out, the room next door. That was better.

   We wondered that there was no ice bucket in the room, but got clarity later, finding no ice to be had on the second or sixth floors. Yes, two, non-functioning ice machines for what (I believe) is an eight-story hotel.

   Tables in the restaurant were rickety. Bathroom stalls were broken so they wouldn’t lock or even close. The staff seemed indifferent and clueless, the worst of which follows:

   On Thursday night in Omaha, threatening storms came though. Twice we responded to warnings on television, the second time accompanied by the actual sirens and we headed for basement.

   Except there was no basement. So we asked the front desk clerk what the designated safe place in the hotel

   “You can go back to your room. It’s safe, no worries,” this clerk said as the sirens blared a warning familiar to all Midwesterners.

   We knew better, and found a long hallway with no windows. We learned which counties are to the west (Saunders) and south (Sarpy) of Omaha (which is in Douglas County)  so we could make sense of the storm reports.

   “As many as six tornadoes might have touched down in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa  on Thursday night, including a confirmed EF3 tornado that hit areas of Washington and Douglas Counties,” reported the Omaha World Herald on Saturday.

   One of those tornados passed eight miles north of our hotel before reportedly touching down in Iowa.

   The hotel’s shabby conditions were shocking for a chain I have learned to trust and favor. But this man’s telling guests to ignore tornado sirens is uncontainable.

   We went home Saturday, road warriors and survivors, with a truly impressive haul of leftovers, souvenirs and memories good and bad.

   As I write this, there is rain in the forecast again for Memphis, the big Memphis. Nevertheless we still have plans to go there, some sweet, sunny day.