✨ Holistic Healing in Des Moines, IA

Des Moines takes its name and its shape from the river that runs through it. Downtown, the John and Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park occupies 4.4 acres inside Western Gateway Park, opened in 2009 with twenty-four sculptures and four added since, administered by the Des Moines Art Center and holding work by Louise Bourgeois, Jaume Plensa, Ai Weiwei and Barry Flanagan. South of the centre, a 1.9-mile trail circles Gray's Lake, where people walk, run and put small boats out on the water, and Birdland Park anchors the southern end of the Neal Smith Trail, which follows the Des Moines River north to Saylorville Lake and on to Big Creek State Park. The Iowa State Capitol above it all carries a dome covered in 23-karat gold standing 275 feet over the grounds, with twenty-nine kinds of marble and twelve woods inside.