Unlike my flight to Iowa, where I sat next to some questionable characters, I was lucky enough to sit next to Jessie on our flight back to Atlanta. As we sat and talked waiting for takeoff, we both realized that we most likely won’t see any of our new Iowa friends again. Although our short three-week trip consisted of mostly travelling up and back in our twelve-passenger van, we also bonded with the people we were staying with and those we met along the way. Even if I make it back to Iowa in a few years, which I plan on, the odds of me seeing our new friends, like Morris and Staci, are virtually nonexistent. However, the memories I have made with the people on this trip will last a lifetime.

When we first landed in Des Moines, I was apprehensive. I only knew two of the people on our trip, and I wasn’t staying with them. Plus, when I left home, it was 80 and sunny. When we landed, it was 50 and rainy. One of my first thoughts was feeling like I packed completely wrong and would be miserably cold for three weeks. Luckily, that wasn’t the case. As we drove towards our new homes in Radcliffe, I knew I was in for a decent three weeks. Our main rendezvous point was the Stole house, or as Scott calls it, Versailles. My favorite part of our time at Morris’s was the cooking. Very rarely can you get a delicious home cooked meal and sit down with eight of your friends and enjoy a carefree meal. Diane was an amazing cook, and even though I’m at least ten pounds heavier, it was totally worth it. We ate like farmers. But, we didn’t really work like farmers.

Although there wasn’t much work to be done, the work we ended up doing was my favorite part of our journey. From the first weekend when I rode in the tractor with Brent Friest, to loading hay, I enjoyed every minute of work. My favorite memory was loading the hay on Jada’s trailers. The barn was hot, the hay was prickly, everyone was sweating, and after loading 375 increasingly heavy bales, everyone was exhausted. But, we all had fun stacking them on. By the end, I swear the bales were 30 feet high. In my opinion, there was nothing cooler, than going to the pizza place covered in hay and smelling like we’d been working all day. With every bit of work, there was a little pride knowing that I helped in a small way.

Even though working was my favorite part, we didn’t do it very often. Most of our trip revolved around learning about conventional ag, farm policy, farm issues, and environmental issues. Although we went to a lot of interesting places, like Des Moines Water Works and Drake Law School, I think my favorite educational meeting was with Ben “Dad” Knutson in the barn. Honestly, much of what we learned over the course of these three weeks went in one ear and out the other. Coming into the trip, I had very limited knowledge about anything agriculture related other than the dust bowl. But, Ben gave a simple talk that made a lot of sense. What he said helped tie everything together. He also showed that some farmers want to do everything they can to take care of their land, like plant cover crops and rotate crops, but sometimes it just isn’t financially achievable.

As Glen said multiple times, we had the chance to go anywhere in the world this May. Hopefully one day I will go to Helsinki or Italy. But, I can do many of the same things they do on those trips when I’m old and have money. Iowa is different. I know I’ll never have the chance to stay at the house of a former Iowan Legislator again. There is no way I could ever sit in a tractor and watch as the corn is planted for the year. Before this trip, I didn’t know what a morel mushroom was. Although I was unsuccessful, I still got to trek through the Iowa countryside searching for those elusive mushrooms. I even got to eat a few. Turns out, I like them a lot.

Like I mentioned earlier, this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I wish I could have taken more pictures and document my trip better, but most of my favorite parts couldn’t be photographed or expressed in words. The long dinner table arguments and discussions that sometimes got a little aggressive made meals more enjoyable. The van rides, where sometimes I thought I would die, made us all closer. The more we talked, the quicker our rides went. When I arrived in Des Moines, I was with 5 complete strangers, two acquaintances, and a professor I had to impress. However, I left with 8 friends. If I could do it over again, the only I would change is eating more desert and taking more nights to look at the stars. I’m glad I took this trip. During my short three-week stint here, I have made memories that I will never forget, with people I could never forget.

Peace out, Iowa.