This photo essay is on a day in the small town of Des Moines. I live very close to Des Moines and visit often, so I wanted to do an appreciation of it and its small-town charm.

***All photos credited to Juliet Bliss***

The opening picture shows my first stop, a breakfast cafe called Alina’s cafe. If you haven’t been, I highly recommend getting breakfast there if you have the time. I loved going there on my own for the first time and getting a really nice cafe experience. They had ’80s music videos and little booths and amazing food with great customer service.

The next picture is of my breakfast from Alina’s cafe: avocado toast with over-easy eggs and arula, with some earl grey tea. This was one of my most delicious breakfasts of my entire life. I do admit I picked off the arugula, but the rest was perfect; the eggs perfectly cooked and very well seasoned, the avocado and sourdough toast amazing, and even the earl grey tea was shockingly good. I even asked the employee what the brand was.

This picture shows my next stop, Second Love Coffee. I have never been, but it is new in Des Moines and very popular already so I gave it a try. I heard most of the hype is due to the location, since it has a balcony overlooking the Puget Sound, but since it was cold and rainy I stayed inside and drank the good but slightly overpriced coffee.

The other picture is, of course, the coffee at Second Love. It was definitely decent, and I got a vanilla latte, so I can’t attest to their drip coffee or espresso, but I can definitely say that both were more expensive than I would pay for normally.

This picture is of the Des Moines Theater sign, which is fairly new, along with the big black theater it is attached to. I haven’t been to any events, but I’ve been to most of the businesses on the bottom floor, including Second Love Coffee, a beautiful plant store called Iris and Peony, a “bougie dog food store”(as my aunt calls it), and some other businesses. The sign has immediately become an iconic addition to the main street of Des Moines (Marine View Drive).

This picture depicts a thrift store I visited called Nu2u or New To You. It’s a very cool store that I visit pretty often because I love thrifting and also it is part of an organization that donates money and extra donations to charity and their church. The employees are very nice and although it’s a rather small collection, I always end up finding something.

This picture is of a memorial bench. Every time I walk past this bench it makes me think twice because of the words “Make good choices.” Memorial benches are a sort of staple in Des Moines, but this was the only one with some words of wisdom that I wanted to capture. The fact that it is right outside my bank is also interesting to me.

This picture skips ahead a little bit to evening time, and depicts the marina in Des Moines if you drive to the water. It is a very beautiful walk and I love this pier, along with the boats and coffee shops nearby. I’ve never been there in the evening on a cloudy day like that but it was very nice.

This other picture is of the pier, slightly darker outside. I really liked this area for taking pictures because of all the lamp posts and lighting fixtures, along with how blue the air looked, and how mysterious the two strangers looked from far away.

This picture is of the Waterland Arcade’s sign that just says Arcade. I love this sign, and even though it’s fairly new, I think it makes the whole place look great, especially at night.

The other picture is of Waterland Arcade, which I visited last. It is also a staple of Marine View Drive now, and probably my favorite location. I’ll admit, I am biased because my dad actually owns it and made it what it is today, but I swear it is really cool and I didn’t go there just to drum up business. It was very fun to photograph, especially at night.

The picture of the seats of a bus depicts my method of transportation from home to Des Moines to take these pictures. It shows the authenticity of how I really did spend the day being in this town and enjoying walking or bussing place to place.

This is how it is to spend a day in Des Moines. I highly enjoyed making this project, not only because I liked having an excuse to visit more places in Des Moines and share the sights, but also because I got to support all the small businesses in my town.