Who doesn’t love an American Road Trip? This past August I rallied the troops and we went on a road trip to the Iowa State Fair. I had never been to a state fair or even a country fair, so I wanted to go to one of the big ones to cross it off my bucket list, and Iowa did not disappoint!
For this adventure, I needed some companions for the road. It is always good to bring people who have different travel skills to bring to the table. I was joined by Vanessa (Quilter with high stamina for driving long distances) and Macy (Craft Queen and Food Researcher Extraordinaire).
On our way to and from the state fair, we stopped to see a few sights around eastern Iowa. Because that's just what you do on a road trip!
One of our best stops was the National Pearl Button Museum in Muscatine IA. In the early 1900s this small river town would make 1.5 billion mother of pearl buttons annually using muscles they dug up from the Mississippi river.
Once we were done with our side quests, it was off to the state fair! We spent 12 hours roaming the fair grounds taking in everything we could see. We bopped around from barns to craft displays reviewing 4-H projects, Miniature Houses, Quilts, vegetables and flowers. All the while, stopping to try all of the food on Macy’s list of fair food we must try.
There is so much to take in at the state fair, I couldn’t show you everything and it has taken me weeks to process everything I saw. It's so amazing to see beautiful places and learn the quirky histories of people and small towns. It has always been a huge inspiration to my art work. I have been having fun scribbling away in my sketchbook and working on some paintings inspired from the trip.