I don’t mean to judge, but…

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I’m trying to plan our big family trip to Iowa this week (not a word; not a single word) and finding it a bit, um, challenging.

Between the town where we’re staying and the town where we need to be for Spouse’s cousin’s graduation, there is one park. Three hamlets, and one park. Now, I know that when the countryside is beautiful and people spend a lot of time outside, they don’t need designated parks and playgrounds and mini golf and whatnot. But I can’t bring a tricycle on the airplane (TSA regulations against liquids are loosening, but they’re cracking down on carried-on, three-wheeled  vehicles because the pilots are totally done with little people ramming the cockpit doors after a long ride down the center aisle [oh, wait, that’s me], and I don’t want to pay $25 both ways to check it). I don’t see just wandering the street(s) of a small town working out for my particular three year old. Maybe yours would tolerate five days of aimless sightseeing in towns where the population is smaller than Spouse and my ages added together, but mine won’t.

Maybe I underestimate his attention span, or our collective interest in Iowan architecture, but still. He’s awake and in need of activity (else he is a self-starter on the whole ‘breaking stuff in wild bursts of unguided energy” front) approximately 12 hours a day (meals and calm time take up at least 3 of his waking hours, for a grand total of “go to freaking sleep!”).

I did find a state wildlife area reasonably close, though the only online information (which was damned hard to find) involves how to not get shot at in a wildlife area. Um, maybe we’ll stick to walking the street (that’s not a typo) in the three nearest towns…

6 thoughts on “I don’t mean to judge, but…”

  1. if you’re going to dubuke, i know for a fact that there used to be a mall there. there’s always the mall…

  2. Oh, J, we’re talking *nowhere* near a city. Which is glorious for all involved. We’ll have the necessities: cards, dominoes, stickers, crayons, chalk, bubbles, and cars. We’ll be fine. But really? The only info on the wildlife park is about shooting? Yuck. Not even “we have a picnic area, but don’t get shot.” Nope. Just “don’t get shot.”

  3. I always forget about Iowa.

    I didn’t realize people who weren’t born there went there for other purposes.

    Fascinating.

    • hey, ck, don’t tell, but I was born there. Nowhere near where we’re going. I lived in a town so small in Nebraska that when I was born my parents had to drive more than an hour to Iowa to get to the hospital.
      Nice. Spouse has family in wicked rural Iowa. Don’t tell, again, but it should be a blast. In that “punch and brownies after church” kind of way.

  4. I remember going to Indiana as a kid and wanting to walk across the state line out of shere boredom. They HAVE TO HAVE parks. Did you google earth it? And what about school playgrounds after schools are out? Good luck! (Maybe you’ll have to go to McD’s for a playground. LOL. Come on, that was funny!)

  5. My college roommate was from Iowa, and we took a road trip one time. Best road trip ever! Seriously, it was a blast.

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