We finally had a sort-of break this morning. We slept in a hotel last night in super comfy beds and didn’t have to wake up until 9:30. We went to breakfast at a small vegan restaurant called Trumpet Blossom Cafe. I’m really glad Adam and Cecily found a place where they had lots of choices, but I certainly picked the wrong thing! I got cardamon pancakes with unidentified berries in them with maple syrup. I had never had cardamon before and I will never be eating it again! They really did taste like cleaning supplies. Cecily really enjoyed them, though, and finished mine up. I caught up on lunch later at a noodle place in Iowa City.

After breakfast, we had three hours to kill in Iowa City. It was such a huge and cool place! I figured it would be like Downtown Greenville or smaller based on the rest of Iowa, but it was more like Atlanta. We went to a used book bookstore first called the Haunted Bookshop. It was probably the best bookstore that I’ve ever been in. It had two cats and two floors overflowing with books, new and old. I could have spent all day in there, and I’m pretty sure Cecily felt the same way, but we wanted to see the rest of the city, so we bought our books and left. We went to get ice cream at Whitey’s, which satisfied my sweet tooth. We met up with Hedley and explored a few of the clothes shops. Iowa City actually had lots of alternative and vintage stores. I liked a lot of things, but everything was pretty expensive, so I didn’t buy anything but my books. There was a t-shirt in a place called Raygun, though, that had a picture of a cat and said “You’ve cat to be kitten me right meow.” Jon (my boyfriend) says that all the time, so I wanted to get it for him as a souvenir, but it was expensive. I wouldn’t mind coming back sometime.

At 3, we left to go to Mary Mascher’s, a state legislator, house. We were meeting her to get a democratic perspective for once. HN described her as the complete opposite of Annette, the anti-Annette. I could absolutely see that now that I’ve met her. There were lots of people that joined us at her house, including another state legislator, a naturalist farmer, and organic farmer, and a beekeeper. I liked hearing all of their diverse opinions, but having such varied beliefs led to tense moments in the room. I found myself disagreeing with Mary and Sally a lot and siding more with the organic farmer and beekeeper. I definitely sided with Annette. I think they handled the discussion well, though, even when people seemed to disagree. We talked about a lot of topics, but stayed pretty broad instead of going deep. We unfortunately didn’t get to meet with Connie the naturalist this evening, but that was ok because I’m pretty sure everyone is pretty worn out, including me.