Driving tour of Iowa

We had a conference over the weekend in Coralville IA, for Tony's work. We also had planned on the kids going to see my parents while we were gone. After assessing the state of the womb with my sister-in-law who is due to give birth to her 4th {!} child any day now, my parents decided to stay closer to home. This meant that instead of meeting them at a campground on Saturday morning, we were driving to Clear Lake to exchange children Friday night....this also meant a lot of driving over the weekend.

So we decided to stay the night in Clear Lake and head toward Coralville/Iowa City from there. This meant we would save about 60-90 minutes in drive time. It also meant we needed to find a fun place to stay.

And find it we did! The South Shore Inn // The Landing was a hotel right on the lake with a bar and grill as well. We were able to get a room last minute and enjoyed this view from our patio. 

We had a great time watching the boats come and go, listening to the live music, and having a few drinks. 

The room was fine, nothing special. It was clean and the bed was comfortable. It was a very pleasant stay and I would stay here again in a heartbeat. 

After breakfast the next day, we headed out on the road toward Coralville. 

We had a hotel in the Iowa River Landing area, and it has some cute shops and restaurants. We had a quick bite and drink at Vesta {http://www.vestaiowa.com/} before getting ready for the conference, and ended our night on a rooftop patio of 30 Hop {http://30hop.com/}! Both were great. 

I had water, coffee, wine and a cocktail to get me through the dinner and program portion of the evening. 

Meanwhile, I got these photos sent to me from my mom.

The kids had a great time, and we were so very excited to see them on Sunday. 

Overall I think we spent 8-9 hours driving this weekend, but a good time was had by all!