Jun
17
2009

Warsaw to Ames to Iowa

(Add / View Comments) (0)Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 11:30:32 pm
(Posted Under: Travel, )
Despite the fact that I've been struggling to not sleep in lately, we woke up around 5:30 and got ready to hit the road. After showering and cleaning up we hit the road just before 7, which was slightly later than we'd planned, but still pretty good at the end of the day.

While we had printed directions, Irv had also given us Buller (the old GPS) which turned out to be quite handy. We took Chris' VW bug which has auxiliary input for using an iPod, and I must saw, being able to take / use an iPod on a road trip is the best thing ever.

The drive through Missouri wasn't that eventful, just in that it the route was largely the one we took to get here, just in reverse, from Warsaw to Kansas City.

From Kansas City it was about a three hour drive through Iowa to Ames. Despite Missouri looking somewhat like what I remember Iowa to look like, the difference was noticeable today, very flat and less trees in comparison to Missouri.

We rolled into Ames around 12:30 and headed to ... to meet Brad who took a lunch break to catch up with us. Although over the years I've seen many a photo of Brad, obviously, it was weird seeing him in person, because I still remember him as a 12 year old. After hugging his sis, he came up and put his arms out and said "we can hug, we're brothers now". Ahh, the Jensen love. [smile] Having lunch with Brad was really cool, and I'm glad we'll be seeing him again soon for 4th of July.

After lunch with Brad, Katie took me for a tour of Ames, her college town. Despite the heat, it was a lot of fun to see her first dorm - which is luckily (for now) still standing (two of which have been demolished) and then the apartment she lived in after the first year. We then headed down to the Iowa State campus, which was both impressively big and quite beautiful. There were a lot of chipmunks running around campus, which I think is the first time I've seen a chipmunk.

Walking around campus we couldn't help but talk about how Katie's Melbourne University experience wasn't necessarily what she'd expected - and without a doubt, although it is by far the most prestigious university in Melbourne (arguably Australia), university in Australia just ain't done on the same scale as it's done in the US. Even just going to the bookstore and looking at the range of apparel was a vast difference from trying to get Katie a Melbourne University t-shirt - which is weird to think was only a few weeks ago.

After the tour of the campus, we drove past Brad's fraternity (Phi Delta Gamma) and then to downtown Ames, we which illustrated the university part of town is quite literally a separate self contained town next to the non college part of town.

After a bit of a drive around, and a stop to check the tires on the bug we headed back out of Ames, headed for Marshalltown. On hitting Marshalltown it was annoying to me that I didn't have the Dead Hot Workshop song on my iPod, which seems like really dropping the ball - but oh well.

We got to Krissy's around 5 o'clock and unpacked the car, then went for a tour of the metropolis of Marshalltown, Iowa. It was funny to me, Kristin's tongue in check comments about the 'bustling metropolis of Marshalltown', given that it's actually much bigger than Warsaw. If I lived in Marshalltown, I'd make the same tongue in check comments, sure, but still kind of funny to me, since we're staying in the middle of nowhere. After the tour of Marshalltown (and sitting way too long at a railway crossing before giving up and turned around) we headed out to a Mexican restaurant to meet up with Kristin's sister, brother and in-law and niece, all who were really nice. From there we drove out to their house and about 9 headed back to Kristin's apartment to crash on the floor for the night. Despite the heat & humidity, lightning flashing through the window, the sounds of emergency vehicles and the frequent freight train (ahh, the dulcet tones of Marhsalltown [wink] ) I think I fell asleep around 12.

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