Saturday, July 2, 2022- Riverside, the Amana Colonies, and Pella, Iowa

"I'm from Iowa.  I only work in outer space."

...Captain James T. Kirk, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

     Captain's Log- Stardate July 2, 2022.  We left the hotel this morning and laid in a course for Riverside, Iowa, ahead, warp factor two.  Scott hadn't told Julie where we were headed first except that it was kind of like a historical marker.  Kind of.   But she managed to guess before we got there.  The town of Riverside, Iowa, claims to be the future birthplace of James Tiberius Kirk.   He is supposed to be born there in March 22, 2228, 206 years from now.  When Scott read that there was a marker there for this event, he knew he wanted to see it and get a picture there.  Signs in the town proclaim that it is "Where the Trek begins," and we passed a parade-float model of a starship named the U.S.S. Riverside.  We didn't stay long, but Scott had fun. 

     We had gone a little way out of our way this morning, but it was a nice day to be out.  Julie likes the rolling hills of the countryside here in Iowa and thinks this area is pretty.  Almost as soon as we had left Riverside, we found ourselves in a Mennonite region, and saw several horse-drawn carriages.  It put us in the right frame of mind for our next stop- The Amana Colonies.

     There is an important tie between West Seneca and Iowa.  The "Community of True Inspiration" left Germany in search of land where they could found a  communal religious community filled with believers in their own brand of Christianity.  They began settling in what is now West Seneca in 1843.  Their leader, Christian Metz, lived in a house that still stands today in front of 14 Holy Helpers Church, near the corner of Union and Clinton Roads. As Buffalo grew in size and importance, the so-called "Ebenezers" looked for a place where they could live in more isolation, and from 1855 through the time of the Civil War, they packed their entire community up and moved to Iowa.  Over 1,200 people were part of the relocation.  Their new homes became the communal villages of the Amana Colonies.

     Today, the seven villages of the Amana Colonies are known for their quaint shops and German heritage.   We spent all of our time in the main village, known simply as Amana.  Our first stop was the Amana General Store, which is attached to the International Christmas Market.  Julie later said she was expecting an Amish-type general store, but instead found a store that was more like the Marilla Country Store.  (She loves both.)  It was full of handcrafted knick knacks, locally made food, German imports, and souveniers of all kinds.  We spent a while looking through.  The Christmas side was almost as big and beautifully decorated.  "Christmas!" said Abby when she was in among the lights. "Ho, ho, ho!"  Scott got a pin for his German hat and Julie bought some cheese curds for the car.  We then went next door to a toy store called the Little Red Wagon.  Abby had an armload of stuffed animals at one point, but we got her to finally choose one.  She left with a white lamb with soft fur.

     It was almost 11:00, so we crossed the street to the Ox Yoke Restaurant.  We loved the German food that they had here.  Scott got the day's special- a cheese brat with sauerkraut and a side of homemade chips.  Julie got a brat too, but had German potato salad and a pair of potato dumplings.  Emma had a cranberry and pecan salad.  Even Abby got a plate of spätzle. But there was a lot of sharing and sampling amongst us.  Scott also got a sampler of three craft beers, two of which were brewed in Amana and the third from nearby Iowa City.  It was at the Ox Yoke Restaurant that we decided that the Amana Colonies felt a lot like Frankenmuth, Michigan, but less commercial.  It was also here that Julie and Emma went through the map of the stores to pick out the ones that they didn't want to miss.  Before we left Julie and Abby shared a banana cake.

     Since we now had a list of stores that we wanted to see, we headed down the main street.   Bakeries and dessert spots were still high on the to-do list.  At the Amana Colonies Bakery and Cafe, Emma got a piece of German chocolate cheesecake, and Abby got an M&M cookie, and they both ate the treats on the front porch. Julie got a loaf of German white bread made in Amana, hopefully for a future picnic.  At the Haus Maus, nearby, Julie got a t-shirt for herself with the words to the Schitzelbank song on it for herself and one for Abby that says, "You may be kind, but German children are always Kinder."  (Get it?)    Julie was glad that we stopped at the Amana Colonies today, but was sad that we didn't have our own car.  Because we have to fly back at the end of this trip, we had limit the types and amounts of our purchases here.  "I could have done some serious damage here," she said, remembering several large ornamental items she had seen that she would have liked to have in our yard.  

     Somewhere around the Visitor Center, and the restrooms there, we decided to split up.  Scott went to the museum run by the Amana Heritage Society, and the girls checked a few more shops off of the to-do list.  While he was walking to the other side of town (really, just a short distance), Scott passed the home that was built for Christian Metz in 1857.  We pass his older home in West Seneca all the time.  In fact, Christian Metz was the "charismatic leader" of the True Inspirationists in both places.  One of the key parts of their version of Christianity was that one of them was chosen by God to literally deliver His message to the community, and when Metz spoke in what was supposed to be God's voice, there was always someone nearby to write down what was said.  Scott continued on to the museum and saw a lot of things that tied the community to West Seneca.  There was a video that covered the community's life first in Germany, then in West Seneca, and finally in Amana.  It also talked about the break up of the communal life style, that apparently came around the time of the Great Depression.   Scott loved a couple of the items in the museum and wished he had better copies of them.  There was an illustration that showed the group's journey from Germany to West Seneca.  There was also a poster that advertised the sale of "Ebenezer Land" in both English and German, from the time that they were leaving New York.  Scott ended up buying a book about the life of Christian Metz.  

     After that, the girls decided that they were seeing a lot of the same things in the shops by then.  It was hot, and we decided to drive on to maybe give Abby a chance to sleep in the car.  When everyone seemed to have had enough of the Amana Colonies, we got into the car and headed to Pella.    

     In our YouTube searches before this trip, we discovered a little town called Pella which is famous for its Dutch heritage.   When we got there, it was getting late in the afternoon, but was still before 4:30 and some places were still open.  Pella had been on our possible list of places to go tomorrow.  It's a good thing we saw it today because we found that many of the stores are closed on Sunday.  We parked our car by the park in the middle of town.  It has a huge “Tulip Time” clock tower, which must be the focal point of their tulip festival, and also an information booth shaped like a windmill.     Our first stop was the Jaarsma Bakery.  We’re not sure how to pronounce that, but there were certainly a lot of people there.  The staff in the bakery were wearing Dutch girl and Dutch boy hats.  They were selling a lot of baked treats including “Dutch letters” which YouTube had told us to try.  The gift shop had a large assortment of Dutch souvenirs, including Blue Delft items and such.

     The Dutch letters that we bought at the bakery were sweet flakey pastries that were shaped like a letter S and filled with an almond paste.  Julie spotted some S-shaped benches and they seemed like a good place to eat the letter.  We soon realized that the benches were there to view the town’s Klokkenspel (or what the Germans would call a Glockenspiel).  We happened to arrive just a few minutes before it was scheduled to perform.  Like all such clocks, it was pretty slow moving, but even so, it didn't tell a story in its tableaux.  Instead, it featured a few characters from Pella's history (including Wyatt Earp, who was a boy here) and the town's Dutch Tulip Time festival.  The clock was two sided, and presented half the show on one side and half on the other.  Abby only saw the second side, but she said, "Abby like it" as she watched.  

     For dinner we had pizza at a busy place called George's.  By the time we were done there it was after 6:00 and any of the remaining shops were certainly closed by now.  We made our way to our hotel in Des Moines.  We were a little shocked that there was no elevator and we had to carry our stuff up to the "third floor."  It wasn't as bad as it sounded at first, because it's really only one flight of stairs and we're here for two nights anyway.

Post script from last night: As we were in the pool, Scott was asking Abby what the letters and numbers were on the side of it.  "What's this letter?"  he asked.  She correctly said "F."  "What's this letter?"  She said, "T.'  Then she had enough and said rapidly, "What'sthiswhat'sthiswhat'sthiswhat'sthis???" while she waved her hand back and forth across the letters.  We started laughing hard at the way she had mimicked Scott.  She was shocked at our reaction at first, but a moment later she started laughing hard too, and repeated "What'sthiswhat'sthiswhat'sthiswhat'sthis???"  All of us were laughing and got to laughing even harder as she laughed along too.