Peaceful Sundays

I love Sunday mornings. Especially this time of year. The weather has finally reached that winter feeling; the air is crisper and lighter and they sky is light gray, promising snow. Radio stations that I don't normally get seem find their way through the thin air to my car and I get to listen to crackling Christmas tunes of the past as drive down country roads, peering through the barren trees for deer. Ponds have begun to freeze over and gaggles of geese choose between floating in icy water or standing on thin ice. Everything seems at peace; the first huge snowstorm hasn't hit yet and chilly winds haven't taken over. Probably the best thing about Sunday mornings this time of year is breakfast with JJ at Gabby's in Prole, Iowa.

Gabby's is a fantastic little hole in the wall cafe in a town who's only other business is a post office (which shares a building with Gabby's). If you blink when you're driving down Highway 28, you'll miss it. The food at Gabby's is just like what your grandmother would fix - eggs cooked in plenty of butter, toast made fresh in an aged toaster, perfectly cooked bacon and loads of hashbrowns...the perfect start to a chilly, quiet Sunday. The clientele at Gabby's makes it as comfortable as a home kitchen. The sound of local farmers chatting over their coffee about new equipment, hunting ground or the ensuing weather harmonizes with clinking coffee cups and the sound of bacon frying. Rarely is there a person who isn't clad in Carhartts, mud covered boots or camouflage. The walls are clad with old painted pictured of covered bridges and yellowed, framed newspaper clippings of the restaurants achievements. JJ always orders his standard six eggs, hashbrowns and toast (which he mashes all together with Tabasco sauce) and I like to have plenty of coffee with toast, eggs and bacon. A copy of "The Exchange" usually sits on the corner of the table, its pages askew from me browsing through the adds for trailers, tractor parts, livestock and guns to find the seemingly random things people have for sale.

It would be easy for me to close my eyes and wish myself into a Caribbean paradise with my toes in the sand on a Sunday morning, but it would only be a distant second to the comfortable findings of small town Iowa.