Road trip
Speaking of long, pointless drives undertaken for no good reason, the most recent issue of my college alumni magazine has a feature about road trips. I never took a road trip per se while I was in college, but I certainly made my share of long drives. Partly that's because I went to a college in a very small town in rural Iowa, so going much of anywhere required a reasonably long drive. I drove hundreds of miles just on trips to and from Perkins. We also made a late-night drive to Oskaloosa once, though I can't remember why. There probably was no reason why, other than that one of my friends was from Oskaloosa and we felt like going there. That was probably the most pointless car trip I ever made while at Cornell.
A somewhat longer but less pointless trip was the time I took a friend to the airport. My friend Elizabeth, who lived one floor down from me, decided on the spur of the moment at the end of Third Block that she wanted to spend Thanksgiving at home in Arizona. There were no last minute flights available out of the airport in Cedar Rapids, but she was able to find one leaving that night from Des Moines. The problem was, it was the 17th day of the block, meaning that finals were the next day, so finding a ride was going to be very, very difficult.
Luckily for her, she had a friend with a car who didn't have a final the next day: me. The class I was taking that block, Federal Indian Policy, had a take-home final that I had already finished, and it wasn't due in the professor's office until noon, so I neither needed to stay in my room cramming or get up early to take a test. And Elizabeth offered to pay for my gas, so why not make a 4.5 hour round trip?
I recruited another friend, Katherine, who happened to be taking the same class as I, to come along to keep me company (and awake) on the way back, and that evening the three of us piled into my car and off we went. A couple of hours later, Katherine and I dropped Elizabeth at the airport and then drove back to Mount Vernon, and the next day we went to our own homes for Thanksgiving.
Kind of a boring story, I know. But in my defense, I didn't say it was an interesting trip, just longer and less pointless than some others I've made.
A somewhat longer but less pointless trip was the time I took a friend to the airport. My friend Elizabeth, who lived one floor down from me, decided on the spur of the moment at the end of Third Block that she wanted to spend Thanksgiving at home in Arizona. There were no last minute flights available out of the airport in Cedar Rapids, but she was able to find one leaving that night from Des Moines. The problem was, it was the 17th day of the block, meaning that finals were the next day, so finding a ride was going to be very, very difficult.
Luckily for her, she had a friend with a car who didn't have a final the next day: me. The class I was taking that block, Federal Indian Policy, had a take-home final that I had already finished, and it wasn't due in the professor's office until noon, so I neither needed to stay in my room cramming or get up early to take a test. And Elizabeth offered to pay for my gas, so why not make a 4.5 hour round trip?
I recruited another friend, Katherine, who happened to be taking the same class as I, to come along to keep me company (and awake) on the way back, and that evening the three of us piled into my car and off we went. A couple of hours later, Katherine and I dropped Elizabeth at the airport and then drove back to Mount Vernon, and the next day we went to our own homes for Thanksgiving.
Kind of a boring story, I know. But in my defense, I didn't say it was an interesting trip, just longer and less pointless than some others I've made.