Better Late than Never

Long time no see!  Okay, so it's been 10 days, but who's counting?!  The truth is, I've been blessedly busy. As you know from previous posts, I went back to work full-time, I still work part-time from home, I shuffled my kids back and forth from their yearly trip to my parents' house, and, of course, there's the never-ending cycle of errands/house cleaning. Amongst all that, I took a girls-only trip this last weekend with a dear friend of mine from high school. 

We had originally planned to hit up the Wisconsin leg of the Mother Earth News fair, but with me starting the new job (and a new schedule along with it) we knew we wouldn't be able to make that far of a journey work. Rather than scrap the whole weekend, we decided on somewhere closer to home: Des Moines, IA.

I hadn't been to Des Moines in years, and I was pleasantly surprised at how far it's come along. So, here's my girls weekend in picture form. Enjoy!

On our last night, we took a walk around Grayslake Park. The sun was setting, and we both paused to capture the moment.

On our second day, we drove north out of town aways to Ledges State Park. It was gorgeous and we hiked over 5 miles in it.

The Ledges are so named for their sandstone 'hills'. We hiked some of the various trails in and around the hills.

This picture kind of sums up the trip. From top left corner going clockwise:

*Our first night, we enjoyed drinks at the Jasper Winery.

*After a few more drinks at a local bar, we were ready for some tattoos. I got my kids' names on my arm (we went simple or we would have had to come back for an appt) while my friend got "All those who wander are not lost" around her ankle.

*A self-portrait of our hiking trip at Ledges.

*Some very delicious, albeit very tiny, vegan tacos from Tacopalypse.

*A view of Des Moines skyline from Grayslake Park.

We also had some delicious vegan Vietnamese food, which made me wonder why in the world I had never eaten Vietnamese cuisine before!  

Have a great day!  -H.A.