Playing Tourist in My Old Home Town

Today, Chuck got a massage.  Which meant I had a couple of hours to myself to wander around Jefferson, Iowa.  We were there visiting my sister, but it was our home town for about 5 years back in the 90's.  I spent about 30 minutes driving around, and then (once the rain stopped) got out of my car and went walking around the square.  The town is interesting.  It's very much the same as it was 20 years ago.  Even some of the businesses have the same names and the same owners.  But it seems more modern and progressive than it did back then.  They are restoring the downtown area and there are a lot of neat additions. After Chuck's massage with Heidi at Body Masters (she is a good therapist, by the way) we had lunch at the Peony Chinese Restaurant, that has been there since at least 1998.  Still great Chinese food.  After that, we headed south to visit my other sister in Ankeny.  I realized that I remembered the drive down to the Des Moines area more than I remembered living in the town of Jefferson.  We spent a lot of days off driving that road to visit relatives or do shopping.


I took a bunch of amazing photos today of the town square, the courthouse, the new Thomas Jefferson Gardens, and Sally's Alley....an alley through downtown with amazing bird photos...I even paid $3 to go up to the top of the Mahaney Bell Tower and get amazing photos of the area all around Jefferson.  They even have businesses painting on their roofs so that it can be seen from the top of the tower.  Sadly, I managed to delete them before I got them saved in dropbox...so here's all I have to show you:  The "Freedom Rock" at the trailhead in Jefferson.