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| Crossing into Muscatine Iowa. |
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| A warm Iowa sign welcome. |
We left the Blanchard Island campground on the Mississippi
River in IL early in the morning and headed to Muscatine, IA. We crossed the Mississippi which was a thrill
(although scary because there wasn’t much shoulder).
We stopped in Muscatine and had some breakfast and then went
to get some groceries at “Wallymart”. In front of the Walmart was a fellow
named John who was giving out tootsie rolls for donations to help people with
intellectual disabilities. He gave us a
few for the road and had a long chat with David as I shopped. After contending with the fray at the Walmart,
we headed to Wilton, IA where we planned to spend the night.
It was a little tricky as the road we were supposed to take
was closed. We rode the detour for a
while but it was on a heavily traveled state route with big rigs going 80 MPH
and it had a small shoulder with rumble strips.
We got off the road and decided to see if the closed road was
passable. It was fine and empty except
for the few workers we saw who said nothing to us.
It took longer than I expected – it was further and again we
had the headwind. So it was after noon
when we rolled into Wilton. We rode
through the center of town and stopped to get a cold drink. As we were stopped, we saw a red truck that
said “Candy Kitchen.” (Those of you who
know me know I have a very keen sweet tooth.)
Thelma, the woman, who came out of the truck told us that The Candy Kitchen
was the oldest ice cream parlor in the world.
It was established in 1856 by an Irish immigrant and has been in her
family for 102 years. She worked there
washing dishes since she was 10. She is
over 80 and her husband, George who is 92, worked there even longer. She told us to come by.
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| Thelma greets us outside the supermarket in Wilton Iowa. |
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| Butterfly seat outside our motel. |
We went to the little motel in which we were staying. It is inexpensive but very clean and so much
better than the tent. (It actually costs
just a tad more than the more expensive camp grounds!) After we settled in and dropped some of our
bags, we went back into town to do our laundry and go to get ice cream. (The
laundry mat was across the street from the ice cream shop.)
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| The oldest working ice cream shop in the world! |
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| It's been here forever.... |
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| Brooke Shields was here among other celebrities. |
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| George makes the best ice cream dishes. He is 92. |
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| George and Thelma are "THE TEAM". George is hilarious! |
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| A great photo poster of George and Thelma from back in the day. |
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| Really a wonderful couple!! |
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| So much memorbilia inside the shop. |
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| The banner says it all. |
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| A landmark on the national registry. |
When you go into the ice cream shop you feel like you have
been transported back 50 years or so. We
ordered chocolate ice cream sodas which were served in old fashioned glass soda
glasses. Thelma had said that George
makes the syrup himself, and you could tell by the taste.
George and Thelma were a comedy team. Thelma was the straight “man” and George
always had a zinger. Everything that
came out of his mouth was a wise crack. We
were amazed at their fortitude at their ages.
What a gem of a place!
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