We are coming to Grinnell for one of the Sun/Mon accepted student visit programs, but because of the way our flights worked out, have some extra time on each end – arriving in Des Moines Saturday night / leaving Tuesday morning.
What I’m trying to figure out is whether we should just spend all three nights in Grinnell, taking time to scope out the area before the programming begins and maybe lingering after, or if we should set aside some time in Des Moines either before or after. We wouldn’t have the opportunity to do a lot, and accommodations in Des Moines are generally speaking more expensive … just trying to sort out what’s worthwhile.
Advice welcome.
Same question. We are arriving Des Moines Saturday afternoon and have a flight out Monday evening. Currently have a refundable reservation in downtown Des Moines. We are coming from NY and have never been to Des Moines before.
I’m sure there will be some excitement to see Grinnell right away, so maybe that day in Des Moines is a throwaway, but on the other hand, might be nice to see what there is to offer there.
My mother is from Des Moines, and I’m familiar with the area… Honestly, from what I remember Grinnell is a very small town without a lot to do. Unless you’re going to attend other events at the college, I don’t think it’s worth spending another day there. Instead, I would recommend checking out Des Moines and the surrounding area.
Recommendations:
Pella, Iowa is an incredibly cute slice of Holland. They have cultural events throughout the year, including an annual tulip festival every spring that is absolutely breathtaking. There’s also a great Dutch bakery with amazing cookies. It’s about 45 minutes south of Grinnell.
Des Moines is quiet (especially compared to New York) but it’s very nice and clean, almost like Scandinavia. In downtown there’s lots of cute restaurants and shops (which might be closed Sunday/Monday) that have more of an urban, hipster feel. Raccoon River Park to the southwest is really pretty and has awesome bike trails, so if you can get a bike, I would recommend riding through. Actually, you can ride most of Des Moines on a bike; there’s a lot of trails that criss-cross the city. Inside, the Science Center downtown is pretty cool, and they have one of the only dome IMAX in the country. I saw the Dark Knight Rises there a few years ago and it was amazing. You can also tour the capitol building - it has a beautiful gold dome. Google image it, you’ll be impressed.
In downtown, you’ll find Zombie Burger, my favorite restaurant in the city. Lots of cute apocalypse-themed food. The B-Bops chain on Euclid is Iowa’s response to In-N-Out, and IMO it’s better (but I’m biased). Jethro’s BBQ is great and authentic, and Fong’s Pizza is a cool mix of Italian and Chinese food.
Des Moines is a great city, if a little quiet. Not nearly as backwards as some people would think. I’ll be there on the 10-11 for the accepted students day, so I might meet your daughter.
Following up on something @starkly mentioned: most theaters that call themselves IMAX are not showing real, 70mm IMAX film but are instead showing very a high quality digital that that carries the IMAX brand. I don’t care about the difference but to special effects film geeks like my son, it’s apparently a big deal. He’ll be impressed that there’s a real IMAX within road trip distance of Grinnell and I’m sure he’ll find many of his people at the school to share this appreciation.
Son will be at the 10-11 event too. Don’t know his schedule yet or if I’m going to be able to make it with him, but I appreciate the tips on what to do in Des Moines!
Go to Des Moines. You will go out of your mind in 3 days otherwise.
Agreed on some time in Des Moines. When we flew in for New Student Orientation we checked out the Capitol building and the surrounding area which were very nice (the Capitol building is quite lovely). If you do decide to spend all of your time in Grinnell, I recommend a walk around Arbor Lake Trail (I think that’s the name). It’s very pretty and will give you something to do.
A wise friend told me the same thing, but I’m laughing, because clearly the kids manage to survive four years there and parents are crawling the walls after two days. (Yes, yes, I know, much happens on campus.) But still, funny. And informative.
@porcupine98 that’s too funny (but true!). There is plenty to do during Admitted Students days, but I also highly recommend getting your kid to go off without you for the student only events. My D got a lot out of them.
Hi, I’m a Grinnell student. I think that a prospective Grinnell student might enjoy spending more time in Grinnell, although it might be more boring for their parent. Grinnell keeps the prospective students on a very tight schedule during admitted students weekend and it’s a bit stressful. I think your student would get a better perspective of Grinnell by staying a bit longer. When I was a prospective student, I was able to visit 3 different Grinnell classes because I didn’t leave until 3pm on Monday. This allowed me to make a more informed evaluation of Grinnell’s academic quality.
An extra day would allow your student to visit more classes, explore the art gallery, visit the greenhouse, or maybe even attend a yoga class. There is always something to do at the college so it might be more fun to stay and get a better feel for Grinnell life. There will likely be an interesting talk somewhere on campus Monday night (there will be flyers up all around campus advertising different events) that parents and students would like. Grinnell students also get excited about prospective students so it wouldn’t be a problem to find someone who is willing to show your student around campus for an additional night. I would also recommend visiting the Conrad Environmental Research Center for a short hike if the weather is good and your student is interested. If you want to eat out, the fancy restaurants in town are Prairie Canary and Relish.
Thanks, @WiseStudent - that’s very helpful! I think we’re going to split the difference.
Since we’re flying in to Des Moines on Saturday evening, I’ve decided that given the possibility of a late arriving plane, it make sense to just stay in Des Moines that night, poke around downtown a little if we have time, and then take off towards Grinnell in the morning.
Official programming runs 3pm - 3pm Sun/Mon (with a campus overnight), so we can leave Des Moines early or late morning depending on whim, and still be there in plenty of time to grab lunch and wander around for a bit before everything starts.
After everything’s over on Monday, we plan to spend the night in Grinnell before returning to Des Moines for a mid-morning flight. I figure my kid will either be totally burned out and eager to crash, or will have caught wind of more stuff to do on campus, so we’ll have options either way.
Thanks for the restaurant tips – I’ll look into them!
@porcupine98 I think we are going to do just about the same. We arrive into Des Moines at 2pm on Saturday. There’s little reason for us not to at least stay the night in Des Moines, walk around, have dinner. We can explore a bit more the next morning and then head out to arrive to Ginnell by lunchtime and wander around prior to the start of the program. We have a 6pm flight out of Des Moines so we can stay the full program on Monday, but not sleeping over there Monday.
Thanks for the great info on Des Moines, @starkly. We just went to Admitted Students program, but we drove down, so just stayed 1 night in Grinnell and did not get to Des Moines. Maybe we’ll check it out in August, during the move-in visit. We have an S17 who might look at Drake University, while we are in the area.