Iowa State University Alumni Association| online edition | winter 2006

WINTER 2006
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Cover Story:
Be our guest

Feature Story:
Good food, great service

Feature Story:
A shattered past

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BED, BREAKFAST, BAKLAVA, AND BEYOND

There’s nothing I enjoy more than traveling. It doesn’t really matter where I go; it’s all about the adventure of seeing new places and meeting new people.

For me, part the fun of traveling is exploring local restaurants and finding unique accommodations. It doesn’t have to be far from home. Even a stay at a snuggly inn and sipping wine in a nearby town can be a memorable experience.

Adventures in lodging and dining have always been a big part of my travels over the years. I can still remember staying at my first bed and breakfast. I read about the Old Rittenhouse Inn in Bayfield, Wis., in Midwest Living magazine. The inn looked wonderful, and it was even better in person. I had one of the best meals of my life in the restaurant there – I think it was five courses, and I still remember the taste of
the strawberry soup.

Encouraged by my experience at the Rittenhouse, I planned a tour of New England and booked a different B&B every night. What fun, I thought! Well, I learned a lot about travel planning from that trip, mainly that although New England states are small, they are for the most part mountainous, and the roads are not of the wide, flat variety that I was used to in the Midwest. My husband and I spent most of our waking hours rushing from one B&B to the next, with barely enough time in between to see the sights, or (perish the thought!) relax.

At one particularly lovely inn near Burlington, Vt., our innkeeper joked with us that he saw a lot of fall leaf tourists (“leaf peepers,” the locals call them) who were frantically doing the 12-B&Bs-in-12-days tour. We laughed nervously and silently vowed never again to repeat that mistake.

I’ve gotten better at planning trips since then.

My kids still complain that I schedule way too
compulsively and that I should leave more time for spontaneity and perhaps some down time. But they
admit, after traveling with other families, that our trips are well organized, and we get the most bang for our limited travel buck.

Working on our cover story for this issue of VISIONS uncovered some great treasures in Iowa and Illinois, where Iowa State alumni are running restaurants, inns, B&Bs, and food-related businesses. I’m thinking I gained about 10 pounds between the first place I went (Green Gables Restaurant in Sioux City, where I split a hot-fudge sundae for “research purposes”) to the last place (Cavanaugh’s Bar &
Restaurant in Chicago, where I snarfed down a full plate of pasta primavera, no holds barred).

In between, I sampled a tin roof fudge tart, cinnamon twist pastries AND cinnamon rolls, Grand Marnier crème brulee, apple baklava with cinnamon ice cream, and the best pinot noir I ever drank. Not to mention, I got to tour some of the most incredible lodging the Midwest has to offer.

In fact I was pampered so much at one place, I started to feel like Little Orphan Annie in the musical “Annie” (“We have but one request / please put us to the test” / “I know I’m gonna like it here!”)

It’s a tough job, I know. But, as they say, somebody’s gotta do it.

About the Writer | Carole Gieseke is the editor of VISIONS magazine.