We had a nice night at the Best Western Plus Dubuque
Hotel & Conference Center. It is a large hotel with a large old
fashioned pool and atrium. So large that I got lost on my way back to the
room from breakfast in the morning. It was a little more than I wanted
to spend, but I had a couple of Best Western gift cards to use and earned
another for the stay. It was probably the largest room we had during the
trip. The breakfast was still modified for Covid and was minimal.
Thursday we crossed diagonally across Iowa, with a stop
in Newton where we had lunch at Midtown Cafe. This is a nice little
restaurant and I wish it was in Kansas so I could add a page about it to
my other web site, KansasTravel.org.
Midtown Cafe is only open until 2PM and over half of the menu is breakfast,
but we found good choices for lunch as well.
Linda had fried catfish and onion strings. It was a whole
deep fried catfish, complete with bones and fins, something we haven't
seen in many years. The onion straws were great!
My tenderloin sandwich was huge. This is the first time
I have had a pork tenderloin on two buns. I cut it in half and found room
for half in my cooler. The tenderloin was very good in the restaurant,
but didn't reheat well. The buns were very good. Midtown Cafe has a Tenderloin
Challenge, where if you eat two of these tenderloins and a pound of French
fries, your meal is free and you receive a $10 gift certificate of a T-shirt
and your picture on their Facebook Page. Otherwise it is $18. I checked
their Facebook page and the most recent winners posted were in November.
Fried catfish and pork tenderloin
The reason I had selected a restaurant in Newton, is because
I wanted to revisit the Maytag Dairy Farms store. There are no current
tours because of Covid, but we bought their famous blue cheese, cheese
spread on other cheeses, rearranging the coolers to squeeze the last ones
in. The farms are owned by members of the same Maytag family which owns
the appliance company with the same name.
Maytag Dairy Farms store
Cheese Counter
We got home by 5PM.
|
About the Author
Keith Stokes has lived in Kansas for over 35 years, but
he was born and raised in Mackinaw City, less than a block from the Mackinac
Bridge and he was on the bridge during its construction when he was only
3 years old. While attending college he was on the interpretive staff of
Fort Michilimackinac in Mackinaw City, dressed in period clothes and giving
tours, musket & cannon firing demonstrations and working in the blacksmith
shop. He still visits the Straits of Mackinac every year, taking literally
thousands of pictures. Keith is the webmaster of MightyMac.org
and the Mackinac
Bridge & Straits of Mackinac Facebook Page.
Keith also has a website devoted to his adopted state,
KansasTravel.org,
which is the definitive source for things like zoos, waterfalls, grassroots
art and unique locally owned Kansas restaurant. Keith is the TripAdvisor
Destination Expert for Kansas, Mackinaw City and Mackinac Island.
Keith's photography is avialable at keith-stokes.pixels.com.
He also has other travel reports online. |
