Iowa City

This is my first post since moving back to the US.  But not my first post at home.  I'm still not at home -- or again not at home. 

I spent a few days at home -- enough to turn on the water heater, have Tim find that it leaked, call the plumber to replace it, and then later, to flood the basement by running the washing machine.  The machine wasn't broken, the plumber had just forgotten to re-attach the washing machine drain after he used it for the water heater.  In any case, the water mainly spread around the tiles in the laundry room, so no real problems. 

I also spent an evening with Tim at his high school reunion.  And then I missed my own, to give 5.5 hours of talks in Iowa.

I've been to Iowa before, but this is my first time speaking in the state.  The university town is smaller than I expected, deeper into the cornfields as you drive from the airport. 

On Wednesday after the talks there was a farmer's market, and I purchased dandelion jelly and an ear of sweet corn -- because I'm deep into the corn states anyway -- and two apples and several small tomatoes.  That was dinner.

The city is small enough that no one had change for my $100 bill, nearly the only money in my wallet.  I couldn't change the bill until Friday night, when enough colleagues paid cash at a restaurant for me to exchange it for twenties. 

How is the jet lag? You ask.  I have been sleeping well since reaching Iowa, aside from one 2am to 4am period.  I'm sleepy by 9pm, central time.  But the 6am alarm still startles me awake.  The sleeping is apparently good, here in Iowa. 

My hotel is on the river, near the mathematics building.  On the other side of the river, across the university hospital campus and the golf course and student housing in several forms, lies a park named Mormon Handcart Park, two point five miles away by foot.  I can run two point five miles.  I think I will jog over there to see the park early tomorrow morning, before the sun rises too high.

My only problem is that I can't jog back.  I only do 5Ks.  It may be a long morning. 

If you don't hear from me again, Reader, look for my body on the Mormon trail.