Our Great Iowa Adventure

Jim and I drove to my friend A's (a roommate from college) wedding in Iowa! We started on Jan 1, packed up the car with the dog, the crate, the dog toys, the dog food, the leashes, our clothes, and lots of good music and started driving. The directions were very Bugs bunny-ish- basically, get on 80 and turn right at Des Moines. Easy enough, right?

This was the longest trip we've done with our puppy (and ourselves together!). Shasta's usually pretty good in the car, but it was a bit of a mystery how she'd handle a 14 hour drive. It ended up being 2028 miles of driving.

So we started driving and driving and driving and driving... I-80's a long, boring road that goes through PA (hilly and beautiful), across Ohio (flat as a pancake and boring) past Cleveland and Toledo, through Indiana (quite pretty, actually), through Illinois (full of signs for adult entertainment and gambling and mud), and across the Great Mississippi into Iowa!

We stopped for the night in Bettendorf, which has the greatest name for a city ever, and a wonderful Super 8 that was very very nice to Shasta. Jim didn't realize that the Mississippi River was across the street from where we were staying, which made it pretty funny the next day when we packed up the car, and was like, oh look. There's the Mississippi. Pretty exciting for easterners like us.

We made it to Ames for A's wedding rehearsal and a quick puppy walk, followed by the rehearsal dinner and a late bridal shower at a restaurant with amazing desserts... yum. Sleeping was good though that night :-)

The next day was the wedding! It was a beautiful ceremony and touching ceremony, with a very nice afternoon reception, during which A's new husband K surprised her (and everyone else) by performing a song that he had written for her! Awww.... Congratulations to A and K and we wish them the best for their future!! We're excited to see them again at our own wedding this summer!

It was great also to see our friends T and M with their baby, who's six months old already! He's adorable! He spent most of the time staring at us as though he couldn't quite decide what we were and pulling our hair (or beard)- it makes us make such funny noises when he gets a good yank! He's quite skillful.

The drive back was verrrrrrry long- car trips are like that I think- they're completely bearable and exciting when you're heading out and when you're trying to go home they last forever. Plus, we'd been eating restaurant food for 4 days and were having trouble finding food that wasn't fried in the mid-west, so we were desperately hoping for something different and *gasp* healthy. We decided to try find a place to eat in South Bend, Indiana, which for those of you who don't know (we didn't) is the home of at least 4 colleges, including Notre Dame. You'd think this town would have a college-town type of feel, with restaurants, bars, etc. Annnnd you'd be wrong. It's so strange, it's a pretty town, with a grand downtown with museums along a pretty river- but we couldn't help noticing a strong economic divide from one side of the river to the other. Signs begging for support for the police were posted throughout the town, and four lane roads downtown were completely empty. I get that it's winter break, but even State College isn't this dead in winter. The only restaurants anywhere were Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and McDonalds, and we finally managed to find an Applebees, but still- where's the college town? So strange. And creepy!

We were exhausted by that point and spent the night close to South Bend in a one-star Motel 6- we've stayed in worse... but not creepier. The guy at the front desk was overly happy to have SOMEONE stay the night, and made a point of telling us we had the room directly above his desk... I wanted to have the place checked for hidden cameras. Weird. The doors to many of the empty rooms in the motel were open with the lights on- it reminded me of The Shining. I was so glad to leave South Bend.

And then we went to Cleveland, to visit our friend R from college! It was great to see him, except Shasta decided she'd had enough of travelling and decided to end it by eating the rat poison that our friend had in his apartment (this in addition to the wooden turtle in my car :-(, a water bottle, a box of tissues, an EZ-pass, a straight pin (we think), a boutiniere, a plastic hanger, a seat belt and other assorted items). No, really. Maybe she has tapeworms.

That led to an impromptu tour of Cleveland as we searched for the emergency pet clinic. Fortunately we'd managed to have her empty her stomach (all over R's building's parking lot...), and we could see the little green pellets so we knew she'd gotten them out, and she felt great- trying to eat everything in sight, being cute and happy and completely obnoxious. We found the clinic, and the wonderful nice people who work there took the time to treat her- we owe them a HUGE thank you (in addition to the bill... we love Shasta. Really. Really. Love her.)!! Apparently it took three technicians to hold her down long enough to get the activated charcoal down her throat, plus she got loose and they had to chase her through the clinic. Yup, that's our little girl. Ain't she sweet?

Now she's on Vitamin K. Four pills a day. Yay! Thank God for stinky cheese.

So, we FINALLY made it back to State College at around 2 in the morning last night and collapsed into sleep. Fortunately, our puppy recovered her survival instincts and let us sleep until almost 8 in the morning- a first for her.

Now she's being adorable, curled up in a little ball, digesting antidote and dinner. It's never boring...

Now for the pics! First up- Jim wanted to put this one up. It's a Christmas tree made out of manure spreaders!The Mighty Mississippi!



Iowa is flat.
I miss my girls... so good to see them!
My car hit 100000!
Shasta's so good in the car.
A and K's wedding cake- I love the pine cone topper!

Shasta discovered king beds. That's her, surrounded by her toys. She doesn't seem to think it's quite big enough for her though.