A Room With A View

During my exploration of my soon-to-be hometown this past weekend, we camped indoors in my new apartment (recap here). On Saturday, we woke up at a respectable hour and made our 'bed'.

It was spritzing out, so we decided to do some indoor type activities while we waited for the weather to clear. We breakfasted at an awesome coffee house that uses free-trade coffee and has an excellent house blend. I also had a nice strawberry rhubarb scone. The fiance, who had eaten a cold piece of pizza for breakfast (we had Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner...another perk of having a full kitchen), had a turkey sandwich. Evidently he was hungry!

After breakfast, we drove around town. The town is right on the Mississippi, and it is surrounded by bluffs. We decided to see if we could find our way to the top of one of them.

Score!

This old river town has a lot of factories and mills, and I actually am living next door to one of them...so, when I get lost, I just make my way down to the river and look for my towering factory.

 Check out those beautiful views! We totally don't have things like this in central Iowa! I am soooo happy.

There were some hiking trails at the top of the bluff, so we went traversing around. We saw some amazing old trees.

And some climbed some stairs...100's of them!

It was a magical experience!

We also did a test-walk from my house to my office. It's a little bit of a trek - 0.75 miles each way - but it'll be a very focusing journey. Plus, my bank, my property manager's office, several bars, and a grocery store are all along the way, so I can just drop in and get stuff as I see fit. Plus, it's super safe. Something crazy happened on our walk...people stopped their cars to let us cross the street - and not even at crosswalks or just on residential streets. They stopped their cars on EVERY STREET. I've lived in the midwest my whole life, but this is craziness to me. I'm kind of excited...and thinking I might invest in some rubber boots and a bit umbrella to prevent sogginess on my walks to work....dorky? yes. But that's totally me!


Ok, one more tale of adventure is coming...and some great pictures of the mighty Mississippi!