I wish I had cool pictures of Iowa, but I just don't. Too bad, because I thought it was beautiful. Our drive through Iowa was a little foggy and
rainy, but smooth. I was surprised. I guess I always
expected to find all Mid-western states created fairly equally, but I was
particular taken with Iowa. It was so
green with beautiful rolling hills. We
took a little detour near Des Moines to go see some of the covered bridges of
Madison county. The bridge we found
wasn’t as picturesque as I might have hoped, but fun, nonetheless. We drove a little through the countryside
near there and it reminded us a little of Sankt Stephens, Switzerland; vibrant
green fields, old rustic barns, lots of cows and a low hanging fog. It was gorgeous.
We stopped in
Ottumwa briefly in search of dinner. I looked up restaurants online
and found that the Canteen Lunch got pretty good reviews so we headed
there. We parked and found the place
tucked back almost in an alley. When we
walked in we found a tiny diner with only bar stools and a counter to sit
at. We were also greeted by some pretty
awkward stares. The kind that say,
“you’re not from around here, are you?” or “we don’t take kindly to your outsiders here.” We felt unwelcome to say the
least. After a moment, one lady handling
a large amount of unappetizing ground beef, asked if it was to stay or to
go. We said to stay and saddled up at
the counter.
“What'll it be?” she asked.
I scanned the menu that seemed to contain only a handful of items. “I’ll have a cheeseburger.”
“Whadya want on it?”
“Umm… lettuce, tomato…”
“We only have ketchup, mayo, or mustard.”
Nope. I’m
not spending five dollars on a naked burger, thank you. As politely as I could, I said I’m not really
interested and we left. Afterwards we
couldn’t stop talking about how strange that experience was. Everyone in the restaurant just turned and
stared at us. So weird.
3 comments:
Thanks for documenting the adventures, it's so fun to follow along!!
you dont know what you missed by passing up on that meal. :)
Your exaggeration of the price of a Canteen with cheese at the Canteen in Ottumwa, pretty much sums up you're who story about them...exaggeration.
A Canteen with cheese costs $3.75.
They haven't stayed open since 1936 because they are "Unappetizing!"
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