Before I start forgetting stuff, I thought I'd do a quick recap of the highlights of our trip to Iowa. Elizabeth and Drew and I went along with my mom and dad, and we stayed at my sister's place with her family (along with my younger sister, who was visiting from Chicago). Much food and drink was consumed, and a good time was had by all.

And best of all, Drew turned out to be an excellent traveler -- I was very worried about him and his poor ears (he was just coming off ear infections in both ears), because of the changes in pressure from the flights. We had a total of four flights, and he was a champ on all four, even the last one, which was at ten o'clock at night. He slept through them all, just waking every now and then to grin up at us.

Some of the places we visited included the Fourth Street Elevator in Dubuque on our first day, which is the "World's shortest and steepest railroad." We also hit the Field of Dreams, which is just outside my hometown of Dyersville, Iowa, along with the basilica in town, a beautiful church that dwarfs most churches around here except for the Duke Chapel.

On Friday (missing SarahP by just hours, I'm sure) we went to Iowa City, where I attened the University of Iowa from '88-'92, and of course I forgot my camera. But the campus was lovely as always, and I got to visit various sites from the end of my SF novel (the Wannoshay mothership crash-lands there, next to the student union, of course). There was a jazz festival just getting underway in front of the Old Capitol, so we got some good Indian food at one of the stalls set up on Dubuque Street, and then we headed to Prairie Lights bookstore, which was quite awesome, and even had a handful of books from Prime Books (but not mine, alas!).

The funniest moment was when we drove past my dumpy old house I lived in for a year (after I helped insulate and drywall the rooms of the once-condemned building), and the place hadn't changed a BIT in the past 15 years! It was still the same shade of blue, with crappy cars parked in the alley behind it. Ah, memories...

We also did lots of driving around -- I'd not been back in over a decade, and I'm glad to report that the area is much prettier than I remember it. Lizzie couldn't get over how green and hilly the area was (I'd described it as flat and boring, which was my memory of it -- maybe I was thinking of my time in Nebraska instead!)

Drew got to meet his great-grandma for the first time, which was really cool, and he met lots of cousins and aunts and uncles as well. We saw fireworks on the third and the fourth (though Drew slept through 'em both times). And we spents lots of time just chilling out on the back deck, talking and drinking and laughing (usually at Drew, who's turning into quite a people person).

Of course, we took tons of pictures, so go check 'em out if you like. A huge thanks to my sister and her family for letting us crash at their place! And now we're back, and I have tons of things to do... Later!