Des Moines

The thing nobody tells you about Des Moines is how gold it goes at sunset. Lia and I were driving in from the west, tired and half-arguing about where to eat, when the Iowa State Capitol’s dome caught the low light and simply blazed, twenty-three carats of real gold leaf flaring against a bruised prairie sky. She stopped mid-sentence. I pulled onto the shoulder. We sat there like a couple of fools watching a building glow, and any grumpiness we’d carried in evaporated on the spot.

Under the Gilded Dome

The Iowa State Capitol is, honestly, absurdly beautiful for a Midwestern statehouse, and gloriously it is free to wander. We climbed toward the rotunda the next morning, necks craned, taking in the mosaics and the sweep of the grand staircase. A volunteer guide, a retired teacher named Don, adopted us for half an hour and pointed out the details we’d have missed, the scale model of the USS Iowa, the law library with its spiral iron stairs that Lia photographed from every possible angle. The gold dome is the largest of its kind, and standing beneath it I understood why Iowans are quietly proud. It is grandeur without pretension, which felt very much like the state itself.

A Field Full of Giants

I did not expect to be moved by a sculpture park in Iowa, but the Pappajohn Sculpture Park undid me a little. It’s a downtown block of open lawn scattered with monumental works, and it’s free, and it’s just there, part of the city’s daily life. Office workers ate lunch beside a Jaume Plensa head made of white steel letters. Lia walked straight into a giant spider by Louise Bourgeois and laughed out loud. We spent an hour we hadn’t budgeted, drifting between the pieces, and I kept thinking how generous it was, all this art set loose in the open where anyone could stumble on it.

Covered Bridges and Back Roads

We gave a full day to Madison County, just southwest of the city, chasing the covered bridges made famous by the book and film. The roads out there roll gently through corn and soybean, and the bridges appear suddenly, weathered red timber spanning quiet creeks. We ate pie in Winterset, the county seat, at a diner where the waitress called us both “hon” without irony. Standing inside the Roseman Bridge, listening to the creek and the wind in the beams, Lia said it was the most peaceful place we’d been all trip. She wasn’t wrong. Iowa hides its beauty in plain, patient sight.

Getting There

Des Moines International Airport lies just a few miles southwest of downtown, well connected to major hubs, and a rental car or short taxi puts you in the city center in ten minutes. Like Omaha, Des Moines sits on Interstate 80, so road-trippers pass right through, and Interstate 35 crosses it north to south. The downtown core, capitol, and sculpture park are compact enough to explore on foot, but you’ll want wheels for Madison County’s covered bridges, which lie a scenic forty-minute drive southwest. Give yourself an unhurried day out there; the pleasure is entirely in the slow roll of the back roads.