Iowa City

A trip to University of Iowa for a Big Ten conference was a long road trip for me in 2003. Since there were four of us, driving a university van was cheaper than flying everyone to Iowa City, but it did take about eight hours.

We stayed on campus at the university hotel. Contrary to my expectations, Iowa was not flat. Along the Iowa river, the university campus was hilly and green (of course there have been major floods of the river, including one a couple years ago that severely impacted the university). Other than that, it was a typical college campus.

The best thing about visiting Iowa was that I got a chance to see a friend. T had been a graduate student in political science at Michigan State and a co-worker of mine when I worked in a bookstore in East Lansing. All these years later, he'd completed not only the Ph.D in political science but a J.D. as well, and now was a professor at U Iowa. He'd asked me to bring him some Spartan gear but told me when I got there that he wished he'd asked me to bring him some Vernors as well. (Vernors is made and sold in Michigan but apparently not in Iowa.)

I met T for dinner at a Chinese restaurant near campus and then T showed me his office. We had a great conversation. That was probably the best part of the trip.

On the way back, somehow I ended up being the driver through the Chicago-Gary stretch of Interstate 80 - not recommended. I've driven that stretch several times and I always hate it. It isn't only that the traffic is heavy, always - though it is. The worst thing is that there are so many semi tractor-trailers that I always feel claustrophobic. It's very stressful.

But all in all, a good trip. Road trips with work colleagues are always fun.