Southern Iowa, visits to family cemeteries and Dad’s friends

We got started early today.  I knew that it was important to get going as we had a long drive ahead of us so I was up and we were on the road at 7 am.
Dad was telling family stories while we traveled and we stopped in Washington for breakfast at the Frontier Family Restaurant just off the square on N. Iowa Ave. 
This is the second time we have been there and the food didn’t disappoint us.  Dad had a biscuit with sausage gravy, Denny and I shared an omelet with sausage, cheese, green pepper, onion and sausage gravy on top with two pancakes.  Boy was it tasty.  You can’t beat a local small town restaurant.
We continued our journey to Keosauqua and crossed the Des Moines River to Pittsburgh.  This is where Dad’s maternal grandfather was born.  They helped to settle the area and had a general store and blacksmith shop there.  The Carruthers brothers took covered wagons full of whiskey to the gold fields in California during the gold rush and came home a year later with enough money to purchase farms for each of them.
They lived in Pittsburg, Iowa across the Des Moines River from Keosauqua, Iowa.  The family had to wait on the Keosauqua side of the river when they first came to Iowa because of a cholera epidemic in Pittsburg.
The cemeteries are located in Pittsburg, Lebanon, Troy, Pulaski and Milton with a stop at Oak Point Cemetery between Lebanon and Troy.
We visited graves for members of my ancestors with the names of Raush, Carruthers, Cassatt, MacNabb and Spraker. 
It was nice hearing family stories from my Dad and we will be able to pass the information down to our children and grandchildren. 
After stopping at the Milton cemetery to visit Dad’s parents and brothers we moved on to Cantril, Iowa ant the Dutchman’s Store.  This is a store run by the Amish.  They have everything from food, spices, tools, clothing, seeds, plants, fabric for quilts and the quilts themselves. If you can’t find what you want here you should stop looking. 
They have everything and of course Dad is hooked on their candy by the pound and baked goods.  I purchased some spices, fruit and Sterzings Potato Chips.  You can only get these chips in southeast Iowa.  Yummmm!
It was a bit past lunch so we went across the street to the local cafe.  Denny and I had the “small” tenderloin and fries.  Dad had the wild rice soup.  We chose the “small” tenderloins because our experience has been that if you have a choice between small and large in small town Iowa cafe’s the large will feed up to four.  We should have shared our sandwich.  I wish I had taken a picture.  They were amazing. 
I asked the owner if he pounded and breaded his own tenderloins.  He said, “No, when I opened this place I opened with the K.I.S.S. method.  If someone else does it well, I don’t have to.”  I had to ask where he bought them.  He said it was at a meat market about 20 miles away in Farmington, IA.  He gave us directions and we drove to the meat market. 
The tenderloins are sold by the pound and we bought a large package of ten small and another of four large tenderloins.  We plan to take the large package to my brother-in-law in Wisconsin.  He loves good tenderloins.
We drove on home to the rig in Davenport and then back to Bloomington the next day.  Loved our adventures today and hearing the family stories.
Can’t wait to see what new adventures are coming in the next weeks.