We’re taking you to our 48th state on our journey to visit all 50 states! We share everything we did in just over 24 hours, including touring the stunning Iowa State Capitol, ‘Sip & Strolling’ the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden, exploring the East Village, visiting the Pappajohn Sculpture Park, enjoying local breweries & restaurants, hearing about the cities spooky past with ghost tour, and stepping outside the city to hike in Ledges State Park. Plus, we cover where to stay, what to eat, and practical tips for planning your own Des Moines getaway.

Highlights: 

• Visit The Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden, take a look at the events on their calendar and consider booking the Sip & Stroll for a guided tour and behind-the-scenes updates
• Hear about Des Moines’ eerie past and folklore with a Ghost Tour with US Ghost Adventures
• Tour the Iowa State Capitol (free self guided tours & guided tours available) 

Hotels in Des Moines we recommend: 

• Staybridge Suites Des Moines Downtown by IHG
• Surety Hotel, Autograph Collection
• Hotel Fort Des Moines, Curio Collection by Hilton 
• Residence Inn Des Moines Downtown

Find a great flight deal to Des Moines with Thrifty Traveler Premium’s flight deals. Use our promo code TSP to get $20 off your first year subscription.

We kept our All 50 States explorations going and went to Minneapolis & St Paul, Minnesota directly from Des Moines, so listen to that episode next!

Des Moines Trip – Episode Transcript

0:34

Insurance and get ready to embark on a new adventure with us around the globe.

Hello fellow travelers.

Welcome to this week’s Just the Tip.

Today you have me, Brittany and Jamal and we’re going to recap our time in Des Moines, IA.

We have a goal to visit all 50 States and by visiting Des Moines, IA we were able to visit our 48th state.

0:55

So I was really excited that we were able to hit this benchmark for us.

We only have two more to go.

But nevertheless, of course, when we think of Iowa, I’m sorry to say, right, not a lot of people travel wise think I’m, I’m going to go to Iowa.

And in fairness, that’s why it’s #48 here on our list, they don’t have a National Park.

1:15

Some of the more remote states that we’ve been to that aren’t really ones that you would think of for travel.

They have national parks.

But I must say, I was actually really surprised with Des Moines.

I did enjoy it.

Am I going to give it a rave review?

Like, Oh my goodness, Des Moines, the best city on earth.

1:31

Let’s be fair, that’s not the reality.

But going to Des Moines, I actually did enjoy it.

And so if anybody needs to hit off 50 states or are you going on a road trip, I do feel like this is a good place to stop on through, especially for several of the activities that we did, which were super, super enjoyable.

1:49

It’s perfect for a weekend trip.

There was a few different things that we did that I really did enjoy and we’re going to share those with you.

We were trying to hold out to visit when the Iowa State Fair was going to go on, but it happens during the middle of summer and we happened to have conflicting plans of summer.

2:05

So unfortunately we weren’t able to make it to the Iowa State Fair, so maybe we’ll be back for that here.

It’s really good.

Yeah, and you did mention that, Brittany, that was honestly something that I had forgotten about how that was our talks to go to that because quite honestly, the Iowa State Fair is one of the top like 5 state fairs in the United States, known to be one of the best.

2:24

And that’s kind of why we did want to go to that.

I would go back to go to the State Fair and enjoy more time in Des Moines because like I said, the stuff that we did, places that we ate really good, it does have like a vibrant culture.

So you hit the nail on the head.

It’s really good for a a weekend trip.

2:40

So if you guys don’t know much about Des Moines, Des Moines is the capital and largest city of the state of Iowa.

It’s known for its welcoming Midwest culture.

People do say Midwest.

Nice.

That is true here in Iowa.

Of course.

They do have a thriving business community and art scene.

2:55

And Des Moines is actually located on the confluence of the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers.

So it’s a major Center for finance, insurance and agriculture.

It is also home to Drake University.

Lots of people think the University of Iowa is out here in Des Moines, but it’s actually an Ames, which is not too far off and far from here.

3:12

So you do also have university culture out here in the city, which I do appreciate, especially being where we come from, our hometown of Woodland.

It was not a university city, but 10 minutes away was UC Davis and it has that type of small town university feel, which I really do like.

3:30

Jamal’s actually been to Iowa before and Des Moines, he was actually there for one of the reasons I just listed, which is they’re big with the insurance companies and Jamal’s in the the insurance business.

So he actually did a conference out there several years back, but hasn’t been back since.

And we hadn’t been together and we don’t count a state as we’ve gone to together until we’ve both been.

3:51

So that’s what made it state 48 for us.

But we’re going to dive into a few tips that we have for you guys and then dive into our weekend that we stayed in Des Moines.

We stayed two nights there.

Yeah, so tip #1 is the weather is unpredictable.

It’s cold in the winter, hot and muggy in the summer.

4:08

But even during those summer times, you can have those random rainstorms come in change of temperature.

So just pack accordingly and know the weather can change on a dime.

Another tip we have for you is you will need a car to get around.

Things are kind of spread out, so if you’re going to different areas, we went to a State Park while we were here, so it’s likely that you’ll need a car to get around.

4:28

And our last tip is to actually stay near the Iowa State Capitol in the downtown area.

That area is East Village.

It’s very walkable with lots of restaurants, boutique shops, etcetera.

So that’s really kind of where the lively areas are going to be happening.

So going to be completely honest with you guys, when we first got to Des Moines, our first few hours weren’t the best.

4:48

And this isn’t us complaining, we’re just storytelling with you guys, just kind of like that banter.

So we’ll get into a little bit of that, but things weren’t looking good for the first few hours.

So we actually landed on a Thursday.

It was our first night.

We flew into we flew into Des Moines from San Diego.

5:06

We did have a layover in Las Vegas and Las Vegas actually has a lot of different lounges and we’re going to do a mini episode on a lounge called Sidecar, so look out for that.

But we picked up our rental car.

I had booked this months in advance and I had booked A4 door sedan and the goal was to pick it up in Iowa, spend 2 nights in Iowa, drive up to Minnesota and then drop off the car in Minnesota.

5:32

So you know, we just needed a small practical car.

Well, when we got to the airport and and rented, they were like, oh, we don’t have any more of the cars that you rented left.

You’re actually getting a minivan.

Yeah, and I don’t want to drive around in a minivan #1 no hate on people who have minivans, right?

5:49

But for two people, that’s a little overkill.

And we were going to be Rd. tripping, like Brittany said, up to Minnesota and Minneapolis to hit state #49 and definitely with gas being as expensive as is now, we didn’t want a big car that we really didn’t need.

6:05

So when?

Brittany said things weren’t looking good.

It wasn’t necessarily a knock on Iowa, more so a knock on the trip itself and how things were going.

So we were stuck with the minivan.

They said they were out of rental cars and smaller vehicles.

Even though when we got to the lot, we did see several smaller cars and small compact SU VS.

6:27

But to your point, Brittany, of why you said I had been out there before, She said there’s an insurance conference in town.

Lots of people rented cars, so a little annoying with the the rental car company that when we booked well in advance and have status with that company as well, they left us with a minivan.

6:44

So that was just kind of like knock #1 starting off the trip.

And then we went and checked into our hotel.

We see it at the Staybridge Suites Des Moines downtown by IHG.

And the reason why I booked this hotel specifically is we do have the Chase Reserve card and they were giving $250 off in approved IHG hotels and this happened to be one of them.

7:03

And so with the discount, we only ended up paying like $120.00 dollars for two nights here, which I thought was a steal.

And with the Chase Reserve, you do get platinum status for IHG.

And so we did check in, but because we technically had to book it through the third party Chase to get that credit, they didn’t honor any of our status, didn’t offer an upgrade because we booked it with a third party.

7:25

So that was knock #2.

Yeah.

And again, that’s a hotel knock that we have.

But nevertheless, minus that, lots of hotels these days and chains don’t give you the points or status credits if you booked through a third party.

So that’s just the general rule of travel for the most part now.

But regardless of that, I would recommend staying here.

7:43

It was a very nice hotel, very centrally located.

It had a full refrigerator, mini stove.

So if you’re going to be there longer for any reason, you had all the amenities that you would need.

But most importantly, it is in that central area close to the state capitol building where we were saying that you should stay because there’s lots of good coffee shops, restaurants around that are within walking distance.

8:06

You’re by the state capital, which was actually one of our favorite things that we ended up doing when we did a tour.

We’ll talk about that a little bit later on, but great spot.

Yeah, it was a really good hotel and Jamal just said it was walkable to different restaurants.

So we actually did end up walking to dinner.

We were actually really excited to go to dinner because the place that we went to had been featured on a whole bunch of different TV shows.

8:29

Like restaurant wise, they were featured on Food Network and a whole bunch of things.

And so they were famous for their pizza, kind of Asian style pizza.

But this was knock #3 because what we got, which is like the most recommended thing, we actually didn’t enjoy.

8:45

Yeah, I don’t know if I really want to say the name of the place.

We won’t.

We won’t, right, Because I wouldn’t want anybody to rain on my parade either, or talk badly about me.

We could have just gone on an off day.

But if you go to Des Moines, do your research.

9:02

Top pizza places, this one’s going to come up, especially when you see that Asian fusion style pizzas that they do.

But what a let down it was.

It wasn’t not that just the expectations were so high and it was just OK.

It wasn’t good.

9:17

Like Brittany and I both looked at each other feeling like we can’t even eat this.

It was that unpalatable.

Well, we did eat it.

But we did eat it.

We didn’t finish it.

We took the leftovers just in case, but we were like, we don’t even have the type of hunger to want to eat the leftover.

So the entire time we were in Des Moines, we didn’t even touch it.

9:35

In fairness, though, though, their actual Chinese food that we ordered, not the pizza, was really good.

But even when we asked locals, and we did mention how we were going up to Minneapolis and Minnesota for state #49 when we did a food tour up there, which we’ll talk about in the upcoming episode, we met someone who was from Iowa and we asked them what did they think of this place?

9:57

And they’re like, Oh my gosh, I love it.

So we could have gone on a bad day.

Do your research if you want to try it yourself.

Asian infused pizza Food Network rated, you’ll find it.

You’ll know what we’re talking about.

But we would give it a hard pass.

So we were just kind of like, oh man, our time in Des Moines so far, like hasn’t been great.

10:14

But then we ended up going to the Papa John’s Sculpture Park.

The Papa John’s Sculpture Park is an outdoor art experience in the heart of downtown.

It sits on about four acres and it has about 30 large scale contemporary sculptures by internationally acclaimed artists.

10:30

And this was actually pretty cool.

We had a few that we really loved of the sculptures.

Yeah, You know, and it’s one of those things, too, where I was really intrigued by this because we live here in a big city, San Diego.

We have Balboa Park, but we don’t have anything like this.

We’ve been to lots of other big cities and gone to their famous parks, but very few places really do have sculpture gardens.

10:52

And I’m not too big into art per SE to really like, critique it, right?

But there were some pieces in there.

And of course, you could see the piece in the part.

You can see the sign that says what it is, what the name is, a little bit of information about the piece and artist.

11:07

But some of them were just so abstract that I’m just like, how do you even come up with this name?

Like, what is this?

But in fairness though, they had some pieces in there that we absolutely really loved.

And I just kept looking at and was very much intrigued.

By which was your?

Favorite had to be either the giant spider, which I thought looked like a Black Widow.

11:26

They had a rabbit that was sitting on a rock with its big ears that is titled thinker on a rock.

And they had one from a Japanese artist titled white Ghost, which kind of looks like those Japanese style nefarious figures, which I thought was really cool.

11:43

So they do have some very interesting pieces, but they also have a couple pieces as well that are just like what is this?

And it’s not that the piece is bad, but then you see the name.

It’s like, what is the artist thinking?

Like that’s the type of art that I don’t understand, but it gets you thinking.

And I did appreciate it.

11:58

And this is a beautiful park, great place to go.

My favorite one was called Nomad and say 27 foot human figure constructed from latticework of steel letters and you can actually walk inside it.

I thought it was really cool and intriguing and you can actually see the downtown Des Moines in the background from this park.

12:16

So I was like OK, things are starting to look up.

After we went through the sculpture park a little bit and we decided then to go out for some drinks and and the night on a high.

Yes.

So we went to Bartown Brewing and Brittany really wanted to go to this place.

This is in West Des Moines, so it’s not in downtown area.

12:34

So of course, tip that.

We said you will need a car.

Of course, if you don’t have 1, you could take an Uber if you wanted to.

But Brittany really loves beer sours.

That’s probably her favorite style.

And very recently, she was actually in Louisville, KY and went to a brewery that had really good and she just came back like raving about it.

12:54

This place, Bartown Brewing, is also known for their sours, let alone really unique flavors.

So Brittany wanted to try it.

We came out.

Yeah, we ended up getting a flight that had four different flavors.

We got the strawberry whip, the peanut butter and Raspberry cheesecake, the pink Sun Blast, which is kind of made after a pink Starburst and a sour patch of buddies.

13:15

And it was like a blue Raspberry sour patch kid.

And then we also got a 16 ounce of the Peach and Chong, which was just like a Peach cobbler.

Yeah, You know, these flavors you don’t think would really go with beer when you hear them.

And most sours are just really simple fruit flavored ones, not really mixed or unique or eclectic like these ones.

13:34

But they were all really, really good.

And I just remember the first time I took a sip of the Peach and Chong, like it really smelled like a Peach cobbler coming out of the oven, right.

And it tasted like one as well.

And all of their other ones, the peanut butter Jelly one that they had, delicious.

13:51

Again, you wouldn’t think that beer, but super good.

Yeah, I highly recommend this place.

It was probably my second favorite brewery I’ve ever been to in the US, which is saying a lot.

So I really did enjoy it.

If we do find ourselves back in Des Moines again, I would come back here for sure and try some more of their sours.

14:07

I wish they had a location that was closer to downtown Des Moines because this was in West Des Moines, so it was probably about 20 minute drive.

But I really did enjoy it and I do hear their food is good.

We had just eaten though, so we didn’t get anything to eat.

Yeah, major disappointment.

I would have loved to eat here because the food one, look delicious and two, if you’re not into sours, they of course have other beer other than their sours ranging from loggers, Ipas, pale ale.

14:32

So you can find any beer preference you want at Barn Town Brewing.

So the next day we decided to get out of the city a little bit.

We were actually able to trade in our minivan at a different location for sedan.

So thank you so much to that other Hertz location.

14:50

They were so friendly and nice and they definitely helped us out.

And then we drove our new sedan up to Ledge Estate Park.

Ledge Estate Park is about 45 minutes outside of Des Moines, north of it, and it’s one of Iowa’s most scenic and beloved outdoor destinations.

15:05

It has dramatic sandstone cliffs, deep wooded valleys and a picturesque view of the Des Moines River.

You know, when I had been to Iowa before, when I went on my business trip, I remember it just being flat and seeing of course, fields of corn.

And I really didn’t know that Iowa had anything like this.

15:23

And I say that in a very good way.

I was really pleasantly surprised when we came out here to the State Park.

If you’re a nature person, you will definitely enjoy it.

We did a 1.8 mile hike doing the Canyon Road and Table Rock Loop and again, just a completely different landscape than you would expect of what you think of Iowa.

15:43

Yes, it’s flat, but in this area we went up some hills, ledges, there’s creeks and rivers flowing in between.

This one is actually like really hilly with lots of steps, so you go up and down.

It’s not too strenuous, so don’t necessarily worry about that if you have too much of a physical limitation, but nevertheless come out to Ledges State Park.

16:04

Yeah, So we just did a nice little hike.

It took us about an hour then we drove back into to Des Moines.

We were then ready for lunch so we went to Lachelle’s Fine Food for lunch and they’re known for their smash burger.

So I got their original Lachelle burger with the seasoned tots and Jamal got the world class burger and he upgraded his fries to chili fries and man they were delicious.

16:27

But.

They were chili cheese fries.

Brittany, you’re holding out a little bit here.

They were chili cheese fries.

And the Mr. World class is just like a simple bacon cheeseburger.

Of course, these are all smash burgers.

This is a very popular spot.

There’s not a lot of places to sit.

16:43

They do have two locations.

We went to the one that’s closer to the downtown area, even though it is not in downtown, but really excited that we went here because this was a step up from the place that we went yesterday.

And we’re like, all right, Iowa food starting to turn around.

Really enjoying the food scene and drinks out here.

17:01

So I would recommend coming out to the Shells.

It’s one of the more popular spots and places to go that everyone knows about.

And even when we were asking people who were from the area that we just happened to be talking to, when they said where did you go?

And we told them the shells, they’re like, oh, it’s great.

17:17

Or if they asked and we told them like, oh, I haven’t been there yet, but I hear such good things.

So this is a great spot.

And it was busy too.

We went during lunch and there was a lot of people there.

So it is small location but it worked out great.

Then from there we decided to go to the Iowa State Capitol.

17:32

We actually planned on doing a self-guided tour, but when we got there and went through security, they actually had said group tour just started if you want to join in, they’re just up these steps.

So we’re like, OK, why not?

We’ll join.

And I’m so glad that we did.

I’m really glad that we did as well.

A lot of times when we go to capital cities, we always like to go see the state capital.

17:51

For whatever reason.

This was the first time that we actually decided let’s go inside, let’s do a tour.

Thankfully, like you said, Brittany, we did get on the guided tour.

Our tour guide was Kayleen and you wouldn’t think like a state capital.

OK, you see it, how much information you could have.

18:07

That’s going to be like fascinating.

But I was truly fascinated by this tour, this building, the history that they tell you, Iowa, when they made this capitol building, because it wasn’t their first or original one, they really wanted to stand out, really wanted to be grand.

18:23

So they go into the history of that, talk about how there was a fire here at one point in time, just a couple years after they completed the building, how the governor had to rally the citizens to come in and help put out the fire because the fire department couldn’t do do it alone.

18:39

But even beyond that, cool building, cool history and information that we.

Learned Yeah, it’s probably one of the most beautiful capitol buildings we’ve seen and it does have a gilded Dome.

The gold gets replaced on it about every 30 years, which I think is really cool.

But our guide, Kayleen, she was fantastic.

18:55

It was so engaging.

We got to see the Iowa State Senate chamber.

We explored the historical law library, which literally looks like you’re walking into like Beauty and the Beast library.

And we got to see the former Iowa State State Supreme Courtroom and visit the Whispering Gallery on the 3rd floor, which you can only do with a guide.

19:16

Yeah.

You know, growing up in Sacramento or Sacramento area, we did a capital tour at least, of course, did it in elementary school as a field trip.

But I don’t even know if they have a Public Library that’s open.

This is a law library that’s open to the public.

19:32

As long as you have a library card in the state of Iowa, you can come in.

You can check check out books here.

But it was actually so grand.

You say Brittany was like stepping into Beauty and the Beast or just imagine going into a room from the movie National Treasure or something like that.

19:49

I mean, it was really majestic.

It’s 4 levels tall.

They have opposing spiral staircases that go up to the different levels.

So you can check out books.

Really, really cool design.

And also the state supreme courtroom that you were talking about.

20:05

Lots of places have a separate state supreme.

Supreme Court building up until very recently, Iowa did not.

It was in the Capitol building.

They have since moved out and have their own Supreme Court building, but they keep this one here as a room to use.

20:21

And for the history.

They were talking about the artist who actually carved the entire judge’s desk from one piece of wood and has just this intricate carvings and things and that.

So just really cool history and little tidbit of facts that you get while you’re doing it.

20:38

Really great tour.

If you guys find yourself in Des Moines, I think it’s worth doing a tour.

It’s free, it’s open to the public, just look at the time frames online and join one.

It was probably my highlight of Des Moines for sure.

But we still did enjoy a few other things while we were here.

20:53

We did end up going into the East Village area.

We strolled a few vintage shops.

We grabbed a midday pick me up at Daisy Chain Coffee.

I ended up getting a meal latte that was iced and it was made with honey and cinnamon and it was so good.

21:09

I slurped that down in like, I don’t know, less than 5 minutes.

It was so good, Yeah.

Really good and it was warm that day so an iced coffee was really nice.

But they do make craft specialty coffees and a really good spot to go.

And after the coffee of course.

We just roamed the area, checked some of the boutique shops.

21:25

We’re looking for our Christmas ornament and other things, so this is a nice area to stroll.

We were thinking about possibly doing something else in Des Moines.

We were considering the Des Moines Art Center or the State History Historical Museum of Iowa.

We just didn’t end up having a chance because we did have an engagement later in the day and so we just didn’t have the time.

21:46

But if we do find ourselves in Des Moines again, perhaps we’ll stroll one of those museums.

But we did just wanted to grab a quick bite to eat because we did have a packed afternoon.

So we went to Exile Brewing for their happy hour.

Yeah, An Exile Brewing is in the downtown area.

22:02

It’s locally owned and the brewery is known for its craft beers, more particularly its German inspired loggers, and they do have lots of seasonal releases.

But the food here was really good and their happy hour was just amazing.

Happy hour, 450 pints, so any pint that you get only 450, what a deal.

22:21

And all of their appetizers are half off.

So we ended up getting their fried Brussels sprouts as well as Buffalo chicken bites and they were delicious.

We saved these leftovers and I can assure you we actually did eat these leftovers.

They were really good.

They were good.

We ended up getting three different beers that we split.

22:39

Jamal got the Maria, which is like a Mexican style lager similar to Corona.

I got the Tico Time which is a tropical wheat and then we did try the Moon Taxi Double IPA which had apricot notes.

Yeah, that was really good.

Brittany is not really an IPA fan.

22:55

She was intrigued by it because it had the apricot notes in it.

She did like it.

But of course if you are an IPA drinker or ever tried an IPA, you know they can be a little bit heavy.

So I was more so the one finishing that up.

But all their beers and food were delicious.

So if you don’t happen to venture too far out of downtown Des Moines area, Exile Brewing is a great spot to go for drinks and food.

23:17

From exile we then went to the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden and this was another highlight and something that I was really excited to do while we were in Des Moines.

The Botanical Garden is a lush 12 acre non profit urban Oasis along the Des Moines River and you can’t miss it because it has an 80 foot geodesic Dome and you just can’t because it just stands out when you’re looking at the skyline.

23:40

Yeah, and the Botanical Garden, of course, it does have the Dome.

But if they do have beautifully landscaped outdoor garden areas, and we’ve been to botanical gardens, but what we did here was actually really unique.

We’ve never gone to a Botanical Garden and have a guided tour.

23:56

And what they do here at the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden is on certain evenings, they do what’s called a sip and stroll where you have one of the workers or botanists that work at the garden give you a guide.

Did Stroll tell you all about it?

But there’s the sip part that I said wine.

24:12

You get to sip on either some red wine, white wine, or if you don’t want any alcoholic beverages, they do have alternative options for you.

But you can drink and have a nice leisurely cocktail as you’re strolling the gardens and getting a guided tour.

And I thought that was just really fun because a lot of times if you go to botanical gardens, you’re just looking at it yourself, you’re reading about it.

24:34

It’s cool, it’s nice to see, but always a tour aspect.

You learn a lot more and it makes it more engaging.

Yeah, I was definitely impressed with this.

I’ve never done anything like it.

Nice little sip and stroll.

Didn’t know what to expect before the tour actually started.

We got to explore the Dome a little bit, which was really cool.

24:51

The Dome, it’s like a tropical Conservatory, so it is a little warm in the Dome because they are keeping tropical plants alive.

But you can actually go up onto the second story as well and like look over everything, which was really cool.

We got to see some palm trees that have been in there for quite some time that are actually getting ready to be removed because they are starting to hit pretty much the top of the Dome.

25:13

But the sip and stroll just gave us like a behind the scenes look and perspective to hear about all of the news that was going on with the gardens and I thought that was really unique.

Yeah, if we were to go back to Des Moines, I really would go to the Botanical gardens again, do the sip and stroll.

We had a guide named Aaron.

25:29

You could tell how passionate he was and how excited he was to show us around.

And again, that really made the whole event and experience for us with the the sip and stroll.

But afterwards, we did have another activity in the evening.

It was going to be a ghost tour with US, Ghost Adventures.

25:48

I had no clue that Des Moines was supposedly haunted or had some scary lore, so this was also a very fun way to get to know and learn the city through its history.

We had an 8:00 PM tour.

We met our guide Rebecca in front of the state capitol and she was actually holding the Lantern just like the e-mail said she would be.

26:05

And the tour just goes over some of the cities most haunted and historically rich locations.

And you get to stroll around the streets, look at different things and hear about the spooky paths of Des Moines.

Sometimes we were just talking in front of the capitol building about things that happened outside of the city or near the city or in in different areas.

26:24

But it was really cool just to get that folklore of the area.

Yeah, they really did a great job of blending local history with eerie storytelling.

So like Brittany said, we started at the state Capitol building and then eventually walked our way more into the heart of downtown.

26:43

Some of the locations, of course, that we went to did have hauntings or ghost stories that they were able to share with us.

We even got some EMF detectors, which if you’re unfamiliar with what those are, they’re actually electronic devices that are able to detect energy supposedly.

26:59

So as we’re hearing the stories and in front of some of the locations that were haunted or had sightings, we can use those to see if we were feeling any energy or anything coming.

So I thought that was a great, great way to also keep you engaged while you’re on the tour to give us that device.

27:15

Yeah, and I don’t want to be a spoiler of everything we talked about on the tour, but one of them was at the Iowa State Capitol is haunted.

No one died in the fire Jamal talked about earlier, except for a man did fall in from the roof after the fire.

So the fire itself didn’t take anyone, but it damaged the structure.

27:35

And they were on the structure.

They fell through the roof and they did pass away.

And so they do you think the Iowa State Capitol is haunted?

And there are also like 3 different paper boys that disappeared from the same neighborhood.

And so those were some of the stories we heard along the way.

27:52

Yes.

And then also, you forgot, one of the more intriguing ones too was the cavalry of horses.

They used to have a military horse cavalry in this area.

There’s some good stories that we got told with that as well.

Well, that was part of the add on tour that we added because they do have a regular tour, but then you can add an extended tour that’ll take you to a few more locations.

28:11

And that story came from our little extended tour that we had, which no one else joined us.

So we had a private ghost tour at that point.

Yes.

And so we were doing this on a Friday night and again, ended in the heart of downtown.

We heard that Des Moines has a pretty good nightlife and bar scene.

28:27

We didn’t get to experience and check it out, but definitely as we were walking the downtown area this late at night, we started to see things get active and moving.

So if that is your scene, and like I said, it kind of ties into the fact that this is a Universe City town with Drake University and also very close to Iowa State University and Ames, you get that type of atmosphere as well in the downtown area.

28:50

We also heard that they have some good speakeasies.

We didn’t go into any, but perhaps next time we’re in town we might.

And we chatted with a few locals and a few places that they recommended to eat were Luca for great Italian food and Hugo for pizza.

Yes.

So All in all, we did have a really great time in Des Moines.

29:09

Again, when I started this episode and said what I said, it wasn’t supposed to be a rag on it.

But the reality is most of us don’t think about coming here.

But if you have an excuse and find yourself here, definitely don’t think there’s not going to be anything to do or anything cool because this is definitely a great city to explore over a weekend and enjoy yourself.

29:28

Well, that’s all we have for you this episode, Squatty.

So thank you so much for tuning in to Just the Tip.

Make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and follow us on all the socials at Travel Squad Podcast.

And have fun traveling this weekend.