Road Trip in the Deep Freeze

Early last week my friend Monica was looking for a volunteer to make a quick hop to Des Moines with her on Thursday, January 23.  I thought it would be fun to catch up with her and attend her presentation to the Central Iowa chapter of ARMA in Urbandale, a suburb of Des Moines. The topic was  information governance, specifically the impact on cloud computing on records management. Information management is one of my major interests, so I was looking forward to the event.

Earlier this week, temperatures began to fall and by yesterday morning the temperature outside our kitchen window was -18F, so I was somewhat less enthusiastic about spending at least eight hours on the road when Monica arrived to pick me up at 7:15 a.m.

 She's an excellent driver and we made good time, even though I35E was very busy in both directions. Fortunately, there were no drifts on the freeway and as we drove south, there was very little snow, a sharp contrast to the very snowy environment in and around the Twin Cities.

Monica's presentation was very well received and we had a good lunch at Mama Lacona's: salad, several kinds of thin crust pizza, lasagna, a variety of rolls and bread. Our server was the restaurant's general manager: very professional, attentive and pleasant. I was happy to be back in the familiar world of information management, if only for an hour on what was really a day on the road.

We stopped at Majestic Lion Antique Center on the way home and spent a pleasant hour walking through a large warehouse, full of antiques, memorabilia, old class photos, kitsch, and junk. I'm neither a shopper nor a collector, but I had fun looking though this eclectic collection. I was just a little tempted buy some old Fiestaware in colors and sizes that I don't have, but the last thing I need is more dishes, so I resisted the inclination to purchase.

Wind farm just east of I35E in northern Iowa.

The ride home was a little warmer -- above zero some of the time -- but the landscape was very bleak and monotonous for most of the 250-mile drive. The wind blew relentless across the freeway, powering the windmills in northern Iowa and southern Minnesota and I remembered the early autumn beauty of last September. Spring seemed so very far away.

Monica dropped me at the door shortly after 7:00 p.m. I was almost surprised that our long day had been so enjoyable. The frigid winter day on the road was great fun.