Iowa City – Thursday, 19 May

We arrived in Iowa City and joined Vicky Brown and Eleanor Newton (who flew in yesterday) who were waiting for us at Maile Sagen’s house.

57.1% of the M7 - Jan, Maile, Eleanor and Vicky

When Jan became active in the ombudsman world some years ago she developed a group of friends who decided that seeing each other only once a year at a meeting was not enough.  The M7, as they call themselves, have since gotten together at one of their homes every year for a good part of the past decade.  They’re now mostly retired, Jan’s retirement leaves only one of the gang still an active ombuds, and they’re still getting together each year.  This year’s M7 meeting won’t take place until September in Santa Barbara, but by a happy coincidence two of the seven happened to schedule a visit to Iowa City which overlapped with our visit.  Vicky was the Ombudsman at Central Florida in Orlando until her retirement just a few months ago, Eleanor was Ombuds at Cal State Monterey Bay until she moved to Princeton a few years ago.

The next morning Maile took us all on a driving tour of the city and the University of Iowa and the nearby environs.  The University is the largest employer in the state, and Iowa City has the feel of a real university town.  We stopped at the Cedar Ridge winery, which is also a distillery who make their own bourbon and gin.  We weren’t so fond of their wines, but their bourbon was very nice and I bought a bottle to help us through the lonely evenings on Lake Vermilion.

Farmers' Market - Jan & Mail checking out the baked goods.

Saturday morning we all visited Maile’s favorite Farmers Market, after which Eleanor and Vicky packed up and Maile drove them back to the airport to head home.  But not before lunch.

One more lunch...

Meanwhile, Jan and I spent the afternoon wandering through downtown with its variety of crafts and antique stores.  We toured the museum in the Old Capitol building, which became the original building of the U of Iowa when it was first created less than two months after Iowa’s gaining statehood in 1847.

Iowa Avenue -The Old Capitol, and one of the"City of Literature plaques - "If you build it he will come".

And, or course, we always gravitate to local bookstores, and ended up in the city’s famous Prairie Lights Bookstore.  Iowa City is the world’s third named “City of Literature” (after Edinburgh and Melbourne), and an array of sidewalk plaques along Iowa Avenue attest to this status.

And we remembered to replenish our stock of bourbon and vermouth for our travelling bar.