Iowa State Fair

All Rights Reserved Megan Bannister

Summer in the City: Des Moines Edition

As the snow melts and the trees begin to bloom, there’s a certain energy that returns to the air, especially in a place with harsh winters like Iowa. But no more so than in the early days of summer. As a kid, that meant never wearing shoes, devouring endless books for summer reading, picking raspberries in the backyard, and escaping to the lake for a long weekend.

Even though I no longer have summers off, I try to approach summer with the same sense of excitement. And while I’m not a big fan of the oppressive humidity or buzzing mosquitos that accompany the season, there are a lot of things I absolutely adore about Des Moines in the summer.

All Rights Reserved Megan Bannister

Giant American Gothic

Of all the things to see at this year’s Iowa State Fair, a 25-foot-tall replica of Grant Wood’s famed “American Gothic” was among my favorites. The sculpture, titled”God Bless America” and built by New Jersey artist J. Seward Johnson Jr., has been in Iowa for years, but somehow I’m just getting around to seeing it now…