As if we weren't driving enough...

...we decided to make a side trip up to Cedar Falls, Iowa, home of the University of Northern Iowa, and of Seth Bokelman, and old friend of Missy's. Cedar Falls is about 90 miles away from Ames, so it wasn't a bad trip, but even so, the kids were a little antsy once they realized that we weren't just taking another in-town trip. Ben also realized that he'd left things at the hotel, which perturbed him. When we were back in the car on the return trip, he asked where we were going. I told him we were headed back to the hotel, and he asked "So that we can get my flashlight back?"

Anyhow, the trip was nice. We got to take a tour of UNI's server rooms, and see a little of the campus. Actually, we saw quite a bit of campus, but mostly just through a window -- it's COLD up here in Iowa in the wintertime (who knew?) Speaking of which, there's been a few inches of snow on the ground pretty much the whole time we've been driving since about Kansas, and Ben has been loving it; he's been tromping though it every chance he gets, throwing makeshift snowballs (snow handfuls, essentially) at Missy and I, and yesterday, we made his first ever snowman. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me, and I fell on a patch of ice on the way back to our room, so I didn't feel much like going back to take a picture. I'll try to get out there tomorrow to get a picture, though.

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