Jenn and I were roommates my sophmore year at Southeast Missouri State...in subsequent years we shared a suite with two other friends. Jenn first met my mom in the elevator as I was moving back into the dorms following my summer finals at BYU. I'd returned to the school where I made some of my greatest friends & met my greatest love. (I must have annoyed Jenn to hear me telling Gracie "this is the hallway where I first saw your daddy" and such; but she's a patient soul & didn't comment.)
Anyway, Jenn still lives in the area with her beautiful daughter Nadia. We spent a few hours on campus, catching up on life. While checking out at the bookstore ("where your daddy used to work, Gracie"), an older lady asked if our girls were sisters...after telling us that they were were the two prettiest little girls she'd seen in a long time.
Nadia loves water. She happily explored this fountain that didn't even exist the last time I was there. (It's in front of Kent Library.)
The view of the Mississippi River from the River Campus -- which also didn't exist 15 years ago. One of my favorite memories of this area was a year when the river froze solid & a bunch of us played on the faux-iceberg.
Jenn is still one of the easiest people in the world to talk to. That red door behind her is the entrance to our old dining hall. Now it's an entrance to a campus-run Starbucks.
Our old dorm. I once sat on that bench with my friend Andy (now he's grown up and I call him Andrew), after the adrenaline rush caused by setting my dorm room on fire. Actually, that week had been adrenaline-filled because the previous day a boy (not
my boy) had cornered me on the stairs and asked if I was attracted to him. PANIC!! Accidentally catching the curtains in my room on fire was actually a relief because it meant I had something else to freak out about.
Anyway, we cornered some poor undergrad and asked her to take a photo of us with our girls. Never would I have imagined that as an 18 year old. We also got another undergrad to let us onto our old floor. I didn't take a photo of our old door -- that would have been creepy for the girls who live there now.
Neal was leaning through the slats of a bridge to look at the water & I suspended the camera to get this shot. It was taken upside down & that's the way it'll stay.
There were turtles to observe.
Not that the turtles impressed the little lady much.
Meeting up with friends I haven't seen in a long time makes traveling better. The last time I'd seen my friend Ben nine years ago. A few things have changed in that time. My kid count had gone from one to four; I'd moved from Florida to New Jersey to England; he'd progressed from an undergrad to completing a PhD; he'd gone from single guy to husband-and-father; he'd moved from Missouri to Minnesota to Iowa. 
