Iowa Trip In Pictures

We flew to Iowa City this past weekend. It looked like this:

We stayed with our wonderful friends Will and Kerry.

This is a 'can we please get some coffee' photo

They have a very noble and handsome dog named Winston, who is about the cuddliest Vizsla known to man. He and Loki happen to be best friends. Someday they will be reunited and it will be like this.

We spent Friday afternoon with our dear friends John and Beth and their absurdly adorable one-year-old Margaret.

And their cats Max and Irma.

They served us gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches and potato chips and opened a giant bottle of champagne. We all hung out on the screened porch overlooking their lovely garden talking and eating until the sun got low.

Margaret sat happily in her little chair at the table, feeding herself peas and bananas and little macaronis, and we couldn't help but marvel at her comportment. It's like she read that French parenting book herself and knew just how to impress us.

That night we met up with a gaggle of old MFA buddies at the neighborhood writer bar, and I'll spare you those pictures except for this one, which is a tarot card reading by my friend Rachel. It happily informed me that I am supposed to chill out and stop driving myself crazy over my book.

Also that my spirit animal is a majestic flaming eagle, and that's pretty cool.

After the bar we tucked into a late night rom-com with Will and Kerry, which hit the spot after a long day of reunions.

The next day was sort of gray and rainy, so we hung out indoors, had lunch, maybe watched another rom-com, and then headed back to John and Beth's to celebrate Beth's birthday with pizza and a delicious selection of rosés.


Did I mention John is a wine distributer? :)

We met up with a few more friends after that, and pushed through the night in order to catch our 4 am taxi to the airport. We were pretty delirious by the time we got to Chicago around 6:30. The morning light in the airport looked pretty to me as we spread out on some benches to try and get some layover sleep. 

It was too short a visit, really. We miss our friends already!

Please come visit us next, Iowa!