08-19-2020 Pella, Iowa

Another easy morning.  It’s so cool how easily we all fall into a rhythm and function around one another.  Today Ginger and I will be going back into Pella while Bonnie stays home and makes reservations, reviews a paper that friends want to submit for publication, and takes care of all those things that pile up when you have company.

 We head into Pella around ten and Ginger checks with her friend, Connie, to be sure that will work for her.  It does, and Ginger drops me off at the Pella Public Library , the Bibliotheek.  I settle into the same spot I had the last time and begin catching up the blog.  I work away, quite happily, until Ginger texts me to see if I’m ready for a break.  Indeed I am!

 

We walk across the street and down the block to the Liberty Street Kitchen.  It is the restaurant of the Royal Amsterdam Hotel.  We have a great table outside under a canopy and the menu is full of good choices.  We start off by agreeing that we need water instead of the milk stout that sounds so appetizing.  After much discussion we decide that we’ll eat have the corn chowder and split the beet salad wiith chopped romaine, pickled and roasted golden beets, svocado, sunflower seeds, fresh herbs and green goddess dressing.

 

Our masked server brings the chowder first and it is scrumptious, thick and creamy and loaded with corn, potatoes, and bacon.  When she brings the salad, it is already divided into two plates and it is quite a lot of food…and delicious!  The people who built the hotel wanted something with a more European feeling for their friends who would come to visit from the continent.  All the red-brick buildings have Dutch fronts and there are flower baskets hanging on the lamp posts and even a “canal” running through the street.

 

We walk back to the library.  Ginger has been in touch with her friend, Lisa, and it is cool for them to visit again this afternoon.  That will give me time to finish catching up the blog and clean up some of the hundreds of junk emails that have built up in the past several days.  The timing is perfect and I’m ready to go when Ginger returns.

 

While we’re here, we make another stop at Jaarsma Bakery and at In’t Veld’s meat market for some goodies to take home and one last Dutch letter to split.

 

We stop off at Central College so Ginger can walk some of the campus and it is quite lovely.  There are students just getting out of classes, so they must be doing at least some classes in person.

 

Home to Bonnie and the RV.  Bonnie is fixing a noodle dish with sausage and snow peas and there is a beautiful salad already in the fridge.  A glass of wine, or two, and then, after dinner, after I wash up, we adjourn to the fire pit to watch the flames and listen to day three of the convention.  So many wonderful speakers are on the agenda – Hillary, Nancy Pelosi, Barack, Kamala!

 

In the morning we’ll pack up the car and head for Iowa City to have lunch with Ginger’s friend, Steve, who lives in Cedar Rapids where the Dereche caused such devastation.