Many people have asked me why I stopped in Okoboji on Sunday night since it sounds so random. I had to stop twice between Milwaukee and Yellowstone because I’m trying not to drive more than 8 hours per day. That meant that I had to stop somewhere around the intersection of South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. I’ve already been to Minnesota and I had planned to stop in Keystone, SD the following night to see Mt Rushmore, so I decided that I should stay in Iowa to cross that state of my list. I saw that there are lakes near the northwest corner of Iowa and I figured that random lake towns are better than random no-lake towns. Okoboji had better hotel prices than other cities around the lake, so that’s how I ended up there. I’m really glad I did.

I was only in Okoboji for a night, but the people there won my heart. Everyone was so nice! The hotel I stayed at was small and since it’s the low season there were very few guests. The receptionist, Misty, had to leave before I arrived so she told me where she left my key so I could get into my room. She also told me that she left paper and a lighter in case I wanted a fire that night.

Earlier in the day, I had seen The Frozen Parrot, an ice cream and gelato shop, pop up on Google Maps. I forget what I was searching for, but it wasn’t ice cream. Google said that they used local dairy and made the gelato in-house, so naturally, I had to try it. I arrived at my hotel at 8:40 pm and The Frozen Parrot was closing at 9 pm. Luckily, it’s a tiny town, so I was able to get my luggage out of my car and make it to the shop by 8:50 pm. There were two people there, who I later learned were Andrea and John, the owners of the shop. Since they’re only open on weekends and it was 10 minutes to closing time on Sunday, they had run out of every gelato flavor except 3. I tried all 3 of them and as I ate my gelato I chatted with Andrea and John. I told them about my road trip and they told me that they started the ice cream shop a few years ago when they were both burned out and quit their jobs. They started with just popsicles at farmers markets and a few years later they moved into their physical location and added gelato. They told me to keep them posted on my road trip, gave me recommendations for dinner that night and breakfast the next day, and didn’t let me pay for my ice cream.

I had dinner at Nautical Bar & Grill. While I was eating, I talked to the bartender. I didn’t get his name, but he asked me about my road trip and recommended that I drive through Badlands National Parks the following day on my way to Keystone, since it was only a short detour. He told me that he wanted to move to Colorado or Washington, but hadn’t gotten around to it since he’d been in his house in Okoboji for 15 years and didn’t want to go through all the stuff he has accumulated. He offered to give me his bartending job and continue my road trip for me. Unfortunately, that offer wasn’t good enough for me so I had to turn it down.

The next morning, I had breakfast at O’Farrel Sisters, the oldest restaurant in Okoboji. Many reviews said that I had to order their giant cinnamon roll, so I did. It was the size of two mugs if you turn them onto their sides. I later realized that eating half a ginormous cinnamon roll was a bad idea, since the sugar crash made me really sleepy, which isn’t a good thing when you have an 8 hour drive ahead of you. But I made it through the crash without falling asleep at the wheel, so all was well in the end. And I still had half a cinnamon roll left for dessert that night. What could be better than that?