Tag Archives: iowa

We made it to Iowa in mid-December. It was cold, the trees were bare… but there was no snow, much to Nyan’s chagrin. But then… a Christmas Eve miracle! We got a couple inches of light, fluffy snow. Too dry to make snowballs or snowmen, but plenty good for wandering around in and even making a snow angel.

We made sure Nyan was properly outfitted for his alpine excursions, with Star Wars stocking hat, snow pants, sweaters, heavy winter coat and snow boots.

This was actually not his first time in the snow — here he was in Iowa a few years back, and here we are visiting a local indoor snow place in 2016. But the latter doesn’t really count, and he has zero memory of that first brush with snow and extreme cold. And, yes, we had a few light dustings of snow in London, but again, no memory. So we can sort of count this as his first time in snow. So with that, here we go, his first steps in snow:

Some photos of Nyan (and Daddy) in the snow:

He found a stick and decided to go around “whacking” and clearing the snow off of trees and other items.

And he made his first-ever snow angel!

A few days later, it got really cold – like sub-zero Fahrenheit. We didn’t play outside in that, but we did when it was a bit “warmer” (i.e. in the teens Fahrenheit, -10 C). We made sure to be extra bundled up:

It was awfully cold, but pretty. We leave you with a few random scenery shots.

Sometimes the simplest pleasures are the best. Like the day when Nyan, Daddy, Grandma and Grandpa went for a casual hike in the woods. Or at least through a meadow. Grandma and Grandpa wanted to check out the site of a future residential development, and Nyan was happy to go along. He even got into the rural life, happily chewing on a grass stalk. (Nyan wore his camouflage shorts especially for the occasion; the black and white striped shirt, he added, was so that he could be a zebra. A camouflaged zebra.)

Another day we headed up to a place a little ways out of town called the Devonian Fossil Gorge. It’s an area of ancient rock that was exposed a decade or so ago when a nearby river burst out of a dam and gushed for weeks, scouring away millions of years of topsoil and rock. It left behind what was the ocean floor some 375 million years ago, and now is home to lots of clearly visible fossils. We had taken Nyan there a few years ago, but this visit is hopefully one he will actually remember. He certainly seemed to enjoy it.

On yet another beautiful and warm summer day, we visited a place called Trueblood Recreation Area, just south of town. It’s an old quarry that’s now filled with water and has been developed as a place to fish, hike, or take pedal boats out on the water. So that’s what we did. Grandpa and Daddy pedaled while Grandma and Nyan chilled and luxuriated. It was a lovely ride at a beautiful site.