Des Moines is the new Disneyworld.

On a Sunday afternoon I should have spent cleaning my house, folding socks (yeah mmm, about that...perhaps later), shopping for essentials, and being an All-Around Responsible Citizen, Ben and I totally decided instead to goof off. Art museum, steakhouse, book store, golf store, movies. Eating dinner at 8:30 p.m. Watching Maryland beat Carolina in the women's Final Four. Diet orange soda. Sudoku. New pajamas. Finally getting to the newspaper. Bed. Yay.

It was a good day -- a good day to cruise around Des Moines in the Trusty Wonderhonda and accomplish absolutely nothing. Des Moines is a pretty cool place to do stuff.

And I am not the only one who feels this way.

As Ben and I were wandering through the Des Moines Art Center's museum shop after looking at the Richard Tuttle exhibit (Ben was smart enough to enjoy it; I was baffled and went back to drool over the Grant Wood), we overhead a family talking to the museum shop clerk. It was the same family I'd seen parading through the center, looking at many of the same things we were. They were adorable. Black father, white mother, gorgeous children carefully dressed in Gap Kids attire and outfitted with neat little color-coordinated backpacks. The good ole American family. I remembered seeing them and thinking that it was nice of them to spend an afternoon out together.

But that wasn't it.

"We're just having a great time," the father told the clerk. "We went to the Science Center this morning, which we didn't get to do last time."

Last time. Last time they were here. On vacation.

I quickly gleaned that this family is from the Twin Cities, and they were spending their family vacation in Des Moines! Not only that, they had already vacationed here and were coming back for more.

"We're going to go next to the mall," the father said. "I know we have a mall up by us [Says me: yeah, like the biggest, most family-friendly mall in the entire world], but we're on vacation and we just don't go there when we're in Minneapolis.

"Tonight, we have tickets to see the Lion King," the father went on. "We're so excited!"

Des Moines. For vacation. I guess we are getting pretty cool.