Day Six (4/3/03)
We found the bike ride after a little initial confusion. They've kind of built a mountain bike course into some rolling terrain. Imagine a skate park, but for mountain bikes, with twisty singletrack winding through lots of skinny trees. They've got poison ivy here instead of oak—and it was plentiful—but we both managed to avoid it. It was a nice little ride. Val did well, despite saying she thought for sure she was going to fall a few different times.
After cleaning up and packing, we left for Des Moines. Val's friend Laura (who's wedding we're here for in the first place) was supposed to have a bachelorette party, but it turned into a program preparation evening instead. They still kicked us guys out, so I went with the groom (Barry) to eat dinner and shoot pool at the local bar. Turns out that Iowa thinks it has the best pork in the country, so I had BBQ Pork for dinner, and while I don't know about the best in the country, it was a fine dining experience.
A little before midnight, just as we really got started playing pool, I got a call from Val saying that they were wrapping up. What a bachelorette party! Done before midnight! I told her we'd be home in a while. She called again 15 minutes later to check on us, and then Barry started getting calls. I guess they were afraid that we were going to get into some trouble. ;)
We stayed at Barry's house just outside of Des Moines, in a small town called Waukee.
Day Seven (4/4/03)
Friday sucked big time. Val had convinced me to wait until we got to Des Moines to get my suit dry cleaned, so I set out to do that first thing. Val had a nail appointment with the other bridesmaids, so I set off on my own to look for a 1-hour cleaners or something. Barry wasn't much help, but he pointed me to the local Hy-Vee (a supermarket chain that has all kinds of stuff in it, like a cleaners, a post office, etc.). Of course, they couldn't do it. A couple of stops later, it was apparent I needed to head into Des Moines proper, which I don't know at all, to find one. After trying like 10 places for two hours or so, I finally found one that could do it.
I was supposed to follow Barry from his place in Waukee to the rehearsal dinner (which was at 5), so I went back to Waukee to meet up with him, get my clothes for the evening ready, and so on. He arrived late, got ready, and I started to follow him. He took off like a shot, and I got behind a slow woman who decided to stop and fix a trash can that had rolled off the curb into the street. I couldn't pass, so I had to wait while she did it, Barry disappearing into the distance.
I knew the place was in Des Moines, and that it wasn't Catholic, and Barry had told me that it was on Ingersoll, a big street I was familiar with. So I went there, and there were a couple of churches. The one that I thought would be it had a real bride, groom and party coming out of it, with photographer shooting and everything. Can't be it. I looked all around the area for about half an hour and couldn't find anything. I needed gas and stopped to fill up. I pulled out my Treo, remembering that they had a website. After looking it up, turned out that the first place I looked at was it, and they were in doing the rehearsal right after the other wedding. By the time I got there, the rehearsal was done. Pissed by now, I was happy to see that there was a bar at the dinner. ;)
Dinner was nice, and I met about a thousand people whose names I'll never remember. We went back to Barry's to crash afterwards, and I was happy to have the day be over.