The New Digs

Two months ago, I was in my tent, spending my first night in Iowa. It honestly seems a lot longer. I took these pics of the new place a while ago but have been slow to get them up. I live in the Riverview Oaks Apartments. Apparently, my location is considered in downtown. It's an interesting place. Last night, running up and down the stairs in my building in a desperate attempt to get some exercise somehow since the despicable amount of snow and ice is preventing me from running outside, there was a grand fight between two drunken older gentlemen. There was a lot of thudding and thumping from them beating each other up, and a lot of shouts of "I buy the beer, what to do you do", "There's the door", and "I want my shoes; no, my nice shoes".

Here's a shot of my building, and the dumpster. If I were more cleaver/less lazy, I'd attempt to remove the dumpster. However, I think it only adds character to the place I live. I live on the third floor. The building just behind, which you can't see very well, looks out onto the east side of the Des Moines River, which is currently frozen over. That is definitely something I've never saw in Texas.

Here's a really fuzzy (sorry) shot of my floor plan, but flipped. My closet is on the left, the bathroom and kitchen on the right.

Here's a view of my bathroom. Doesn't it look like the door is hitting the side of the tub? It almost does. Behind the door is the toilet. This building was built before Americans became overweight. A larger person would have serious trouble getting around the bathroom door to the toilet, or to just shut the door. It took me a while to get used to maneuvering around in there.

I looked at a lot of places. What sold me on this one was the same thing that sold me on my place in College Station. Built-in drawers!! This is a part of my closet, showcasing the six big, deep, drawers. The opposite side has another rack for clothing and a shelf.

Moving on down the hall, we come to the kitchen. The kitchen is so small, I joke that when I cook my toes are in the kitchen and my heels are in the living room. As you can see, I have a tiny stove, a nice single-basin sink, and a tiny bit of counter space.

There is surprisingly a decent amount of cabinet space. However, there are these useless cabinets. Useless, you may ask? How could any cabinet be useless? Well, the person who designed the kitchen, must have been much taller than I am. (The same nincompoop architect who designed the bathroom.) He (or she) put cabinets above the fridge. Now, if the fridge wasn't there, I'd have no trouble getting in and out of them. However, I'm too short to reach over the corner of the top of the fridge. Totally useless.

Below is a shot looking back down the hall, with the kitchen and bathroom on the left, closet on the right, and my front door.

Turning around, you have the living space. I love my two big windows, and wish there were more sunny days like the one I took these pictures on. I have my table/desk on one side and my unfailing air-mattress on the other.

It is the perfect size for me, the location is great, the neighborhood is a little questionable, but I'm here and I'll be here until my lease ends or I get an NPS job. I'm up over 90 applications with the NPS since August and nothing yet. I tell you what, it's a job trying to get a job!

If you find yourself in Iowa and need a place to stay, give me a holler!

Thanksgiving

Ok, so I'm a little late. However, seeing as how Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, I think I'm entitled to dwell on the day as long as I please. Talk about hidden blessings... not having a job the week of Thanksgiving allowed me to travel home and spend more time in Texas than I otherwise would have had. Adam wasn't able to come home and he was missed.

The day was wonderful and full of traditions, starting with cinnamon rolls and the Macy's parade in the morning, my job of ironing the table cloth and getting the table set, and the Brown's coming for dinner. Belinda and I met in kindergarten and her family has been attending Thanksgiving with us ever since. This year, we had a new addition; Dave, Belinda's fiancee, joined the group.

Dinner was wonderful. Everything down to the peas with pearl onions and the pumpkin pie were delicious! Later, we all played a game called telephone pictionary. It was Aimee's idea (Belinda's younger sister). Each person is giving a stack of scratch paper equaling the number of people playing. On the top sheet, the individual writes something random, then passes the whole stack to the right (or left, just consistent through the game). That individual reads the item, then places the paper on the bottom of the stack, and proceeds to draw as best he or she can what was written. This is then passed to the next person, who tries to write/describe what he or she thinks is drawn. The game proceeds in this manner (write, draw, write, draw, etc.) until the stack returns to the original owner. So hilarious!

This picture was taken by Belinda's mom right before dinner; she and my grandmother are the only ones not pictured.

From left to right, going around the table: Dave, Belinda, Me, Mom, Dad, Casey, Kurt, Aimee.

Did I mention this was my favorite holiday?!?!

Ledges State Park

A few weeks ago I was invited to go hiking at Ledges State Park, just west of Ames, IA. We left early, early Saturday morning. The park was much smaller than was first envisioned, but we hiked around anyway. It's an interesting place, and I'm sure, judging by the colorful leaves on the forest floor, a really pretty place when the foliage is still on the trees. However, we were able to see some views through the bare branches. That is the Des Moines River flowing through in the background.

We saw evidence of beaver activity in quite a few locations. At one of the trail heads (which we thought was a good 5 mile loop but was actually about 1.5) there was a sign talking about bow hunting taking place to thin the deer population. We saw a lot of deer and one bow hunter. He probably wasn't too thrilled to see us because we were tromping through the leaves and making a heck of a lot of noise.

As we were leaving, there was this large fallen log across a small ravine. As I had not taken the dare to climb a tree earlier (it was really cold and my hands were rather numb and useless, it was all for safety, not for wussiness) I was able to redeem myself by crossing the log. It was quite exhilarating.

It was good to get out one last time before it gets too cold (like now) and most activity is relegated indoors.