The young man at the Hurts Donut counter in Springfield, Missouri, told us, “When they first started, people were like, people aren’t gonna wait out in a line for a donut.” Yet, two days before our visit, a Sunday morning, there was a line out the door for four hours. What’s all the hype over donuts? One look in the donut cases will tell you. Hurts donuts are the wackiest, most over-the-top donuts I have ever eaten. Read more
Twice this year we’ve had occasion to visit Springfield, Missouri, and on both trips we spent time in the botanical gardens at Nathanael Greene/Close Memorial Park. Neither March nor mid-October is considered an ideal Midwest garden season, but on both visits we found plenty of beauty in the park. Read more
Row upon row of French and English antique china cabinets, dining tables and beds…booths stacked with nostalgic toys that bring back childhood memories…fashion jewelry just right to complete your outfit…the perfect statue or painting to add pizazz to your newly decorated room. Over 500 vendors in 90,000 square feet of space make Relics Antique Mall in Springfield, Missouri, the state’s largest store of its kind. In fact, Relics is so large that it’s a destination in itself, complete with a tea room so you don’t even have to leave for lunch. Read more
Microwave ovens, hair dryers, computers and air conditioning. Can you imagine living without the conveniences we take for granted? Yet, while towns in the United States were electrified by 1930, some parts of rural America were still in the dark in the 1950s. Thanks to the Rural Electric Administration (REA), though, farmer-owned electric co-ops began bringing electricity to farms in the mid-1930s. We recently toured the first power plant that received a grant under the REA bill, the Reeve Electric Association Plant, now the REA Power Plant Museum, in Franklin County, Iowa. Read more
When you begin breakfast with an appetizer of big, fluffy fresh-made cinnamon rolls dripping with sweet white icing and gooey-sweet caramel pecan rolls, you think you hit the highlight of the meal, but the delectable tastes don’t end with Ronnie’s World Famous Rolls at Ruby’s Restaurant in Decorah, Iowa. Read more
Fun City’s family-friendly water park, arcade, go karts and bowling alley, together with bunkbed rooms in the Pzazz Hotel…or Catfish Bend Casino gaming, spa treatment and a boutique adults-only hotel. These two completely different concepts coexist in the Burlington, Iowa, Pzazz! Complex, though you’d never know when visiting one that the other is only a walkway away. Read more
