Iowa State Days

Stop 1 on our road trip was a whopping 2.5 hours from Rochester, MN where we spent Sunday night. We spent the afternoon strolling through campus of our alma mater, Iowa State University.

We walked all around campus and checking out the new construction and expansion of campus. ISU has a record enrollment this year; exceeding 29,000 students. Glenn hasn't been back since we graduated and me since 2006. We walked through central campus, my favorite part of campus, and reminisced.

"I had French in that building!"

"Look how nice the new chem building is. We were stuck in the old basement."

We had lunch on Welch ave. the location of our favorite bars and many a drunken college night. The bar where Glenn and I first met, People's, is sadly closed and changed to a restaurant.

Before we left, we look a family picture in front of the campanile, ISU's iconic clock tower, and stocked up on Iowa State gear.

It was not to be nostalgic of our college days. We both had a wonderful college experience an found each other at the end of it.

Luckily, we spent the evening with a close college friend who lives in Des Moines and we talked about our college days even more. All while oogling over her 2 month old baby. I guess times have changed, but it was nice to remember where we started.

Feeling Nostalgic

For my Wednesday English class today, I brought my Iowa State University alumni calendar to show them pictures of campus and to talk about what college is like in America. I haven't sat and talked about Iowa State and told stories of Lake Laverne, the zodiac, the campanile, Polar Bear plunge, and Elaine & Lancelot in a really long time and wow do I miss it! My students loved the stories about campaniling (kissing at midnight under the clock tower) and mass campaniling during Homecoming.

I guess you never know how great something is until it's gone. It's really hard to believe that it has been 4 years since we graduated. What a happy and carefree time college was. Not that I'm stressed out now, but things are different. I worry that Glenn is safe, not about doing my homework.

Most of my students in these two classes are 60 or 70 (or 80) years old and they all made comments about how beautiful Iowa is, especially the flowers, but the Japanese have a thing about all the different flower seasons, but I never really thought about it until today. Iowa was a spacious and beautiful place to study for 4 years.

College was a great time and I feel very lucky to have enjoyed it as much as I did. I think the best things I got from ISU though were these gals:And of course this wonderful man: