America's Bar

We can thank Thomas Jefferson and his Louisiana purchase from the french  that towns like Fort Madison, Iowa have bars like Faeths. Pulling in from a long day fighting some persistent headwinds, we wanted to find a spot to to have a drink, (If someone is reading this to grandma tell her I had orange juice). I usually don’t take bar recommendations from pot bellied and toothless men who sit on park benches without purpose, but I figure that I've taken bigger risks.

Walking into Faeths is if your alcoholic uncle who smokes too much started a business because he couldn’t find enough space to store his wide gun selection. The big sign out front proudly displaced that they could meet your guns, bait and beer needs. They couldn’t probably decide on what exactly to display their business as, so there was a second sign. Faeths Bar: Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. I can think of one government agency that may just be interested in this place..

The bar is a a family affair. I like to think each generation added a different vice to the list of their services. The owner was bill, an eighty year old man. I know this because above the bar was a cheaply made banner that said happy 80th birthday bill. I said as he slowly walked by, a box of ammunition in his hand,

“Happy birthday bill!”

“Oh no its not my birthday.. He said in passing as if he’s heard it to many times”

“ That sign has been up for two years” his daughter casually explains.

So  I guess bill is 82.

I sip my beer and notice that the moose head on the wall is missing an eye, the deer head beside it has a layer of dust from years of inattention. I’m not sure if they service a decorative purpose, or rather are advertisements to show what could be yours if you quite literally turned around and bought one of the rather large guns that surrounded the large wall. I’m not usually one for shooting moose, meese? Moosen? .. but i’m sure if they would have offered me free whisky, they would have made more than there money back with drunken gun sales. So thank you Thomas Jefferson, without you, Fort Madison would have been serving croissants and foi gras along the shores of the Mississippi rather than alcohol, tobacco and firearms.

We decided to not pitch out tents, but rather sleep in a gazebo. Cody said picnic tables make good sleeping quarters. So I guess I gave it a try. I’m not sure if anyone else has tried sleeping on a picnic table as a thunderstorm rages around you while freight trains pass every 10 minutes blowing there horn, but let me tell you a secret. Sleep will be hard to find.