• Flickr set
  
• Iowa Caucus Trip 1/1/08 Part I


• Iowa Caucus Trip 1/1/08 Part II


• Iowa Caucus Trip 1/2/08 Part I


• Iowa Caucus Trip 1/2/08 Part II


• Iowa Caucus Trip 1/3/08 Part II


• Iowa Caucus Trip 1/4/08

It was another day with a ton of free time. I had decided to go downtown to visit the Iowa Historical Center (location of the Clinton event the night before) and the capitol. Organizer managed to find a place where the Obama folks could make phone calls and do some canvassing. I was pretty sold on going downtown so I declined (but was assured "this is YOUR trip, you do what you want to do"). One of my roommates expressed interest in going downtown. Turns out we were graduates of the same high school--11 years apart! She showed no shock at my advanced age, but did eventually decide not to go with. I headed to the lobby to get a shuttle and found that Casino, who found that the local casinos did not offer shuttle service, was going downtown as well.

We started at the Iowa Historical Center which had a current exhibit about the Caucus. I didn't learn anything I didn't already know but it was a fun exhibit anyway. There were two Asian journalists and a guide a few steps ahead of us so it was definitely uncrowded. There were, however, these life-sized representatives of different figures involved in the caucus process that kept freaking me out.

Swag--Dean had the best:


Signs (wait, did Quayle REALLY run?):


Caucus math is very confusing, as I would see first hand later that night:


Visual representation of a sample caucus (one of these is a real person):


The rest of the museum was interesting as well. The requisite museum items--stuffed dead animals, native american artifacts, state history--and something I didn't expect: Civil War history! In Iowa! There was also a nice cafe where we had a slice of supersweet cake. I was sorry I'd eaten the provided sack lunch because they had some gourmet items that made my mouth water.

There was also a temporary exhibit of items from a predominantly African American part of the city. There were many ties to Nashville and the South within this exhibit which I found interesting. Either the collector of the items or his father was a printer so lots of old school prints that made my little heart go pitter-pat (I desperately want my own printing press).

Also present was a small exhibit of vintage wallpapers. There are no pictures of this because there was no way they'd turn out as well as they looked in real life.

We then headed up the five thousand steps to the state capitol.



You cannot possibly imagine how beautiful this capitol is. If you get a chance, check out the flickr set.

Rotunda:


Des Moines skyline from the capitol building:


This is in the law library. If you watched the CBS news with Katie Couric during the caucus you saw this. I had seen it the night before and had to find it for myself:


We walked back to meet the shuttle. It was going to be a long wait so we did some Locust St shopping. Lots of cute, locally owned shops including Sticks where I considered running up my credit card. We stopped in East Village Books as well; the kind of bookstore I could have spent hours in!

Shuttle picked us up, took us back to the hotel. It was time to freshen up so we could go to the caucus location. We had been told we were going to an elementary school, but instead we were going somewhere more familiar...

Labels: iowa, politics