By Rebecca Schweitzer | Des Moines, Iowa
Not every piece I write is about policy. Some are about place. This is one of those.
Rebecca Schweitzer is a Des Moines, Iowa writer who has lived here long enough to know this city by season. And summer is her favorite.
There is a moment every year in Des Moines when the city exhales.
It usually happens sometime in May. The grey finally lifts. The trees along Grand Avenue fill back in. People start sitting on their front porches again. The farmers markets come back to life. And something shifts in the air that is hard to name but impossible to miss if you have lived here long enough.
Des Moines in summer earns it.
The Farmers Market Is Where Des Moines Shows Up
If you want to understand Des Moines, go to the Downtown Farmers Market on a Saturday morning in June.
It runs along Court Avenue in the East Village every Saturday from early May through October. What you find there is Iowa made and Iowa grown in every direction you look.
Local honey. Handmade soap. Fresh baked bread. Iowa made jams, sauces, and salsas. Locally roasted coffee. Flowers grown in Polk County soil. Artists and craftspeople who have been waiting all winter to get back out there.
I grew up on an Iowa farm. When I walk through that market I am not just shopping. I am thinking about the people who planted it, made it, and hauled it into the city before most of Des Moines was awake. That connection matters to me. It always has.
Gray's Lake, the Trails, and RAGBRAI Season
If you have not spent a summer morning at Gray's Lake Park you are missing one of the best things Des Moines has to offer. The loop around the lake connects to a broader trail system that stretches across the city and Des Moines has one of the best urban trail networks in the Midwest.
Every summer RAGBRAI training becomes its own community ritual here. You see it on the trails. You feel it in the cycling culture that comes alive when the weather turns. It is one of those Iowa summer traditions that connects Des Moines to the rest of the state in a way nothing else quite does.
Waterworks Park nearby hosts outdoor concerts and events through the summer months that are worth building your calendar around. Live music outdoors on a warm Iowa evening belongs in a category of its own.
The Blank Park Zoo
The Blank Park Zoo is a Des Moines summer institution and deserves more credit than it usually gets. It is one of the best zoos in the Midwest for its size and draws families from across Iowa every summer.
It also reflects something I appreciate about Des Moines generally. It is a city that invests in quality of life in ways that are not always loud about it. The zoo, the trail system, the farmers market, the parks. These are not accidents. They are the result of a community that takes seriously what it means to be a good place to live.
Jasper Winery and Valley Junction
For a different kind of Des Moines summer evening, Jasper Winery is worth your time. It produces wines made entirely from Iowa grown grapes, hosts live music through the warm months, and has a community vibe that feels genuinely local rather than manufactured.
The Valley Junction neighborhood nearby is worth a walk on any summer evening. The shops, the restaurants, the neighborhood energy. It is the kind of place that reminds you Des Moines has personality in its bones.
Always Something to Do
The reality of a Des Moines summer is that the calendar fills up faster than you expect. Outdoor concerts at Waterworks Park. Farmers market Saturdays. Zoo trips. Trail rides. Iowa Cubs games at Principal Park downtown. Art festivals. Live music at venues large and small.
Des Moines in summer is a city that is fully alive and the people who live here know it even if people elsewhere do not.
The Nights Are What Get You
Des Moines summer nights are underrated.
There is something about a warm Iowa evening that slows everything down in the best possible way. A walk through Sherman Hill or Beaverdale when the light is going golden. Music drifting from somewhere nearby. The sound of the neighborhood settling in after a long day.
Not everyone chooses to stay in Iowa. I understand that pull. I have felt it myself.
But there is something about a Des Moines summer night that makes me glad I did.
Why This City Keeps Me Here
I have written a lot this year about what is wrong with Iowa. About legislative decisions that grieve me and policy choices that make me worry about the state my nieces and nephews will inherit. I write about those things because I believe Iowa is worth fighting for.
But fighting for a place requires loving it.
As I wrote in my piece on why Des Moines will always feel like home, this city got into me a long time ago. Summer is when I feel that most clearly.
Iowa is complicated right now. But summer in Des Moines is a reminder that the place underneath all of that is still worth showing up for.
Go to the farmers market. Ride the trails. Catch a concert at Waterworks Park. Stop by Jasper Winery. Visit the Blank Park Zoo. Sit on your porch.
Summer in Iowa does not last long enough to waste.
About Rebecca Schweitzer and Her Work in Iowa
Rebecca Schweitzer is a Des Moines, Iowa writer covering politics, education, and public accountability. Her work analyzes state policy, elections, and issues impacting Iowa families across Des Moines, Polk County, and communities throughout Iowa. Her work has appeared in the Des Moines Register and The Gazette.
Read more at iowaraisedrebeccaschweitzerunfiltered.com and follow along on Medium, Substack, X, Bluesky, About.me, Muck Rack, and Gravatar.
