May 21, 2022
This morning we took the first of two hikes for the weekend. We wanted something close as we had an appointment at Wells Fargo at 11:00, so this trail fit the bill perfectly. Google Maps initially pegged the trailhead at less than 10 miles away, for a 20 minute drive.
Too bad we went the completely wrong direction.
I was up early, as usual, made some coffee, took Ash out and worked on more cleanup on this very website. (In case you haven’t noticed, and you likely haven’t, I’ve added a “Featured Image” to every one of my trip reports, completely reconfigured my Photo Diary, and added an Adventures by State page (that is still a work in progress…))
Brandy woke up much earlier than I thought she would so after I put some coffee in her, she got up, got ready, we put Ash away, and we were out the door at 7:30.
Wrong Turn
It’s a good thing we left early.
I plugged my phone in to the car and got the map going. It took us a direction away from the way I thought we’d go. I trusted Maps though so just went with it. We drove for about 18 minutes on the streets before crossing over I-80, which is like a block from our house. I thought, “why didn’t Maps have us just take the freeway?”
Then I remembered, for reasons too complicated to explain here, I had set Maps to give directions avoiding highways. Ah well, we were close enough to the destination given so we kept driving. We got to the middle of Iowa Highway 1 in Newport, Iowa, when Maps told us we’d reached our destination. There was nothing around that even resembled a trailhead.
What the hell?
I pulled over and went back to AllTrails to see where we should have been. Yeah, the trailhead was 20 minutes back the other way. In Newport Township. My thought is that I plugged my phone in and it was connecting to the car right when Maps was pulling the directions up and glitched and only caught the “Newport” part. It did not fail to give us directions to Newport, Iowa, but that’s not where we wanted to be. We got the right directions and started heading down the road to the correct location.
It was another 20 minute drive to the Sugar Bottom Recreation Area. We made the turn off Mehaffey Bridge Road through the winding path when we came upon a sign announcing the Cedar Valley Trail. We were still a ways away from the destination on the map so we continued on. Soon enough, we passed ANOTHER sign for the trail, but we still hadn’t made it to the trailhead marked on Maps. Did my GPS do me dirty again?
We kept on and right before we got to the gate leading into the Sugar Bottom campground, there was our destination, the proper trailhead for Cedar Valley Trail.
Trail Stats
AllTrails lists this hike as a moderate 2.5 mile out and back hike with a 259 foot elevation gain. As we drove up, Brandy said it looked like there was no trail, that it was overgrown with grass and weeds. Sure enough, the first few feet were on grass but just beyond that, the grass died off and there was a narrow dirt path leading into the woods. We strapped on our packs and started down the path.
So Green
On our last hike, I noticed how much more green the hike in Iowa was than the hikes I’d take in New Mexico. Not that the hikes in New Mexico weren’t green, there was plenty of green to be seen, but they are a darker, deeper green. The hikes here are much more bright and vibrant green, and cover more of the landscape than the green in New Mexico.
We headed through the thick foliage and almost immediately headed down a fairly steep slope. Brandy reminded me that we were going to have to climb back up that on our way back.
We continued on through the rolling up and down landscape. We periodically caught glimpses of the Iowa River through the thick growth of trees.
The trail was being encroached on by the low brush on either side of the trail, the green leaves brushing up on my exposed ankles and calves. I wondered if any of the flora we were interacting with were poison ivy.
We took periodic breaks to snap some pictures and made it a little more than half a mile into the trail, so about half way to the end when we decided to turn back.
We headed back the way we came and about 45 minutes after launching into the trail, we were back at the car.
To Iowa City
We had a couple of hours to kill before our appointment at Wells Fargo so we decided to head into Iowa City to try to find a place to have some breakfast. Neither of us had eaten breakfast. Brandy found a place called Goosetown Cafe right in the heart of the University area. We aimed the car and headed into town.
We passed by a row of fraternity and/or sorority houses with big, Greek letter plastered on the fronts of them. There is a huge building of dormitories nearby and the City Park across the river from the road.
We eventually found ourselves at the corner of East Market St and North Linn Street. We headed in to the cafe and I knew immediately we were out of our element.
I didn’t even know what “shirred eggs” were until I just now looked it up (they’re also called “baked eggs”, eggs that are baked in a cup…) This isn’t the type of fare I’m used to eating. I’m a biscuits and gravy, eggs and bacon, comfort breakfast food kind of guy.
I went ahead and ordered the Brioche French Toast (that apparently is made with bee pollen??) and Brandy got the Eggs Benedict.
The food came quick enough and I was not sure how to handle what I was given. It was two slices of brioche that were fried up, assumingly in an egg custard, and was drizzled with a slight amount of the lemony crème fraiche, with a bit of streusel sprinkled on top. There was no syrup served with it and when I took my first bite, it was incredibly dry. When our server came back around, I asked if I could get some syrup. I never in a million years thought maple syrup would make such a drastic difference in the taste of the food. Suddenly I tasted the egg custard that the bread had been soaked in and the texture was exceedingly improved. I was rather pleased with it. Was it $15 dollars good? Eh, I wouldn’t go that far…
Meanwhile, I took a bite of Brandy’s eggs benedict and holy cow, that Hollandaise sauce was LEMONY! It was good though. Not the best eggs benedict I’ve ever had, but still pretty good.
We paid the bill and headed out to our appointment at Wells Fargo. We got done what needed to get done there before beginning our drive home. We decided to take an alternate route home, just to kind of explore a little, before we came upon a donut shop. As we got closer, Brandy realized it was a donut shop she recognized called Hurts Donut. Clever play on words. I’d never heard of them but Brandy said they were SUPER good. I made the last minute decision to stop and get myself a Boston Cream and an old fashioned.
Oh boy, were they good! They were HUGE and super fresh. It’s a damned shame they’re so close to the house though… I’m going to be there regularly.
We made a couple stops at Stuff, Etc. then Goodwill in search of a couple household things before heading home.
Conclusion
It felt good to get back out for the second weekend in a row, and knowing that we’re going back out tomorrow really makes me happy.
While I do love the visits to nature, I’m eager to do a little more urban exploration. I want to make a true visit to Iowa City’s downtown district and see what they have to offer, and eventually make a trip to the state’s capitol of Des Moines (the S’s are silent) for some exploration there.
In the meantime, just getting out of the house is a huge step in the right direction.
I hope to get the trip report for tomorrow’s hike posted just as quickly as this one is. In the meantime, check out all of the pictures I took from today’s outing below.
As always, I really appreciate you stopping by to see what I’ve been up to. I really do appreciate you.
-Phil
