Alright, Iowa!

This is the obligatory post-Iowa trip post. I had hoped to blog fairly frequently during our trip, but I was unable to, so now you have to suffer one long all-inclusive post. To see pictures (and there are only a few) you'll have to read this whole thing (or scroll to the bottom!).

• Left home just before 4 pm last Thursday. I essentially walked out of my Thursday afternoon class, drove home, loaded the car, and left. After we accidentally missed our exit and took what I like to call "the scenic route" to find our way back to the right road, we made fairly decent time to Lincoln.
• Stayed in Lincoln on Thursday night... slept in a KING SIZE bed (which is always a highlight for me). We were able to sleep in a little bit on Friday since the next leg of our trip was shorter and we didn't have a real pressing time we needed to be in the Quad Cities. Our hotel offered a fantastic hot breakfast, so I took full advantage.
• Rolled into the Quad Cities at a little after 3 on Friday. We stopped off at Joel and Pam's. We greeted Joel and Micah (Pam was gone and Gabriel was sleeping) and checked out the in-progress Cornhole set Joel was working on for us.
• Headed to Elizabeth's parents house, where we'd be staying for the duration of the trip. Visited briefly with her whole family. Her parents had an obligation Friday night, so we went out with Clay (Elizabeth's super fun brother). We had dinner at Bennigan's and then went to the cheap movie theater and saw Salt (really good movie).
• Saturday Elizabeth and I were joined by her dad on our 9-mile run on a beautiful path through Davenport. The weather, by the way, was aMAZing for our trip. Highs were between 65-75, and no humidity the whole time. Reminded me of Denver weather with Iowa scenery. Kinda weird, but incredibly great.
• Saturday afternoon we attended the wedding of one of Elizabeth's best friends. It was a really great wedding, with a fun reception, great food, and we got to spend (all-too little) time with a couple of other friends of Elizabeth's from high school.
• Sunday we went to Northridge for church, where we met up with Jase and Rachel, Joel and Pam (obviously), and Jaron and the friend he brought with him from Texas. My grandparents and aunt cousins were there too. It was SUPER great to see everyone! I sat in between Jaron and Jase during the service, which turned out to be a not-so-good idea. We're all too big to fit comfortably on normal-sized seats, so we were quite friendly with each other. At one point, Pastor Doug made a comment that made Jase and I giggle, and we eventually both just lost it. I could not contain my laughter. Every time I giggled my body shook a little, so even though I wasn't making any sound, Jase would feel my laughter and that would get him going too. It was a cycle that could not be defeated.
• After church we all went to Joel and Pam's and hung out all afternoon. We played a little catch outside, had a really fantastic lunch and dessert (thanks, Pam!), and sat around chatting. Then we got Tropical Sno and then went disc-golfing in Long Grove. Turns out I'm awful at disc-golfing. I'm pretty sure I hit every tree on the course at least once... including one throw where the only tree anywhere near the path toward the hole was about a foot and a half tall and it was about 50 yards away. I hit it. It was actually an incredible shot.
• Sunday night Elizabeth and I had dinner with some of her extended family. We had brats and chatted with everyone.
• After dinner we headed back to Joel and Pam's where we all played Loaded Questions and laughed our heads off... almost literally.
• Monday morning was the "Run with Carl." Elizabeth and I were supposed to run 3 miles for our marathon training on Monday, so we had signed up, along with her dad, to run the 5k "Run with Carl." Joel drove into Bettendorf and ran it with me, which was incredibly nice of him to do. I really enjoyed it -- this was the first real "race" I've ever been in. I was more or less satisfied with my time, and I felt really good all during the run, even though it poured on us for about 10 minutes of it.
• After the race we showered and then went back to Joel and Pam's. We all decided to have lunch and dessert, but in reverse order. We drove to Whitey's for ice cream, then ordered some Casey's pizza, which we ate while watching Wipeout on the computer.
• Shortly after lunch, Jaron and his friend took off back to Texas, and then Jase and Rachel had to get going back to Ames. I was in desperate need of a tough-to-find journal article for one of my classes, and the nearest library that had it was in Dubuque, so Joel and I dropped Elizabeth off at her parents' and drove north. I had a really great time hanging out with Joel on our mini road-trip... but then we got to Dubuque and they didn't have the article (even though all signs indicated that they did). The student worker at the desk didn't seem to have much of a clue, either. We went to two other higher-education libraries in Dubuque where we struck out twice more on the article. So we headed back to the Quad Cities, having failed our quest -- but enjoying our time nonetheless.
• Monday night Elizabeth and I had a redbox night with her family. Turns out The Backup Plan is an awful movie (Joel and Pam warned me).
• Tuesday we took a 5-mile run in the morning. After lunch Elizabeth went shopping with her mom while I did some homework. In the afternoon Elizabeth and her mom and I had chiropractor appointments in Clinton. After the chiro we stopped at a few more stores to do some shopping. We went back to her parents' house for dinner, then we headed to Joel and Pam's one more time to pick up our finished Cornhole boards and say good-byes (thought I had a picture of the Cornhole boards Joel built us, but I don't -- I know for sure he has a picture of us with them, so he'll have to post 'em for you. They're impressive!).
• Wednesday morning we were on the road at 7:00 (Central Time), and we got to our place in Denver before 6:30 pm (Mountain Time) for a total of less than 12.5 hours on the road.

Some other tidbits:

• Elizabeth counted and determined that in 4 full days in Iowa I ate 11 desserts and drank 6 soda (for you Californians)-pops (for you Iowans). So I'd say my marathon-training diet is looking pretty great. But I'll have you know that it was worth it. My 11 desserts included TWO Tropical Snos (fabulous), and multiple different kinds of ice cream including home-made (YUM!!) and Whitey's (YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).
• We really got to know our new Camry on this trip. We put almost 2,200 miles on that thing in less than a week.
• Came pretty close to hitting two possums, a couple of deer, and a cat (just missed it) while in Iowa.
• While on our way back through Nebraska on Wednesday, we had to call 911 to report a drunk driver. When we called we weren't sure if he was drunk or falling asleep, but he kept drifting out of his lane really badly. Nearly hitting a couple of other cars, and almost driving completely off the road. Right after Elizabeth hung up with the 911 dispatcher, the guy DID drive completely off the road and down into the median. Rather than it jolting him awake and scaring him and making him reconsider driving while impaired, he drove right back up onto the road and kept going. That's when I got especially nervous -- and pissed off -- about the guy. Oddest part? He was in a company truck. Elizabeth has called the company to not-so-kindly ask them to get their deadly drunk drivers off the road so that my life can continue to be lived.
• At the Run with Carl on Monday we ran into a couple of college friends we hadn't seen in awhile. That was fun.
• Funny moment: At one point Joel looked out the window of his house and noticed that a little boy and his teenage sister were approaching his door to try to sell him something. He began to groan about it, but then in an instant his eyes lit up and he raised his finger in an I-have-a-great-idea kind of way. He exclaimed, "Quick! There's a gorilla suit in the closet!" Both he and Jase sprung off the couch and flew down the stairs. In just a matter of moments Joel was dressed like a gorilla... and that's how he answered the door. It made me laugh pretty hard. We're a weird family.