ah...iowa.

a land defined by the rolling hills of corn and scattered pastures of cows. and although i can do just fine on my own without the sheep shearing, pig castrating, and lackadaisical drivers for 51 weeks out of the year, it was none other than IOWA that captured my heart and spirit for about the past six days or so. but now that i've finally made my way back to civilization, i can only look back with a bittersweet sense of nostalgia, anxiously anticipating my return to a hub of america's obesity epidemic and the ghetto fab youth of the eastern plains. my voyage began on a wednesday, as i stepped on board a small 28 passenger plane, where my brother and i were placed in seats in the back row and right next to the lavatory. fortunately, we entertained ourselves by sharing his headphones and dancing to the musical styles of queen and the rolling stones. we promptly corrected ourselves when we landed, however, as neither gays nor brits were acceptable any longer. (cedar rapids is for farmers, czechs, and germans.) upon arriving, we made our way to one of the state's seven burger kings - just to ease the transition. yes, sacrilege, you may think, as iowans are heavy supporters of local businesses, but we flocked with the best of them to the nearest red lobster round about suppertime. the chronology of things is a bit of a blur, but i do remember a lot of rigorous games of dominoes and cards, the subsequent taunting of my grandma - she's ruthless when it comes to mexican train - and then...the old folk. come on though. being that iowa is the florida of the midwest, it must be a pretty happening place. there's even a store of scantily clad grannies at the water park in waterloo (oh, those iowans - a witty bunch). and although i threw up in my mouth a little at the time, the sight of an 80 year old woman in a bikini is admirable in its own right. probably my favorite day, though, was when we took the boat out onto the lake and went tubing. not only did my cousin and i get our tans on, but we also got to zip by the hot cliff divers, baring almost all of it, whipping around off the back of the boat on the "exterminator" tube. it was swell. so was my sunburn. i'll spare the rest of the gory details of the trip, but all in all, i really did have an amazing time. i need to be yanked back into that alternate reality once in awhile in order to stay sane. i mean, come on. iowa has fireflies, and that's just magical in and of itself. on a side note, as callie and i lay awake talking one night in the living room, we noticed that a certain firefly was buzzing around the room, lighting up occasionally, and producing some pretty cool effects. we killed it. sadly, i left the hawkeye state this past tuesday, and although we missed our first flight by a hair (our little side trip to get some good ol' iowan pork tenderloins got a little off track) we all got to ride back first class to home sweet home.