TuzigootJournal: SpringTrip07 - Report 14, Across Iowa

May 20 - Sunday. It's on from Dubuque to Ames, Iowa, with a stop along the way in Dike. This is the home of Bill Hinkle, cousin to Susie's late husband, Manny. It worked out fortuitously that we met with Bill and his wife, Corrine, at their Church just as a potluck lunch was finishing, but not so late that we couldn't have lunch there, which we did. We said next time we'll try to be in time for church before we eat. Had a nice visit and a tour of Dike. Sorry, for you family members, that we failed to get a picture of the Hinkles.

Got to Ames in late afternoon, parked TuziTwo in the conference hotel's parking lot and checked into the hotel - treating ourselves to three nights in hotel because there didn't seem to be any campgrounds close enough to campus and this way Susie would have the car during the day, which she used to good advantage.

Conference went well, too. I had organized two sessions and modestly included myself as a speaker in one of them. Some last minute schedule changes had me concerned about attendance, because of timing (8:00 am on final half-day of the conference) and competition with other sessions, but these proved unfounded as both sessions attracted a substantial part of the 90 or so conference attendees. Good discussions and reactions, too.

On Wednesday morning, the plan was that I would get back to the hotel in time to load our stuff and check out. However, friend Max Morris, fellow Oklahoma State U grad and now on the faculty of Iowa State University, invited me to come visit hallowed Snedecor Hall, home of the university's Department of Statistics and Statistical Laboratory. (Earlier in the week I had said I wanted to go and this was the first opportunity - having been riveted to conference presentations on statistics all week.)

The Statistical Laboratory is an independent unit that provides campus-wide consulting. It was the first such organization in the country - established in 1927 - and the Department was one of the first (along with North Carolina State U.) in the country, established in 1935 as a section of the Agricultural Experiment Station, then as a department in 1947. George Snedecor was the leader in all this, with a boost from Henry Wallace, who went on to be Sec. of Agriculture and Vice President of the USA. All the big names in statistics in the early years visited here or were on the faculty. Graduates of the program started the statistics department at Oklahoma State University, and, as far as I'm concerned, the rest is history.

Anyhow, Max gave me a tour of the building and I got to see, among other things, a collection of historical calculating machines that Department member Bill Meeker had assembled for 60th anniversary observance. In the very early years the "computer room" was where a bunch of "computers" (generally ladies) punched in numbers and turned cranks to produce more numbers. When I went to Sandia Labs in 1967 I remember wanting to be sure that they had the Monroe calculators I was used to - ISU had one of those. I guess I should say something profound here about the advance of computing over my career, but I'll take a pass.

Max and I also took a scenic stroll around campus. Here's a picture off of the ISU website.

Snedecor Hall is going to be gutted starting this winter and the interior modernized. Max said that when plans were made to modernize another historic hall on campus, the choice was to tear it down, then build a new building that would look just like the old one, for X million dollars, or to keep the building shell, gut it and rebuild internally for 2X million dollars,. The latter plan was the decision. Don't touch those hallowed brick walls!

One other piece of trivia: Ames was named for a Massachusetts congressman who was influential in getting a RR routed through the unnamed hamlet. They invited him out for the dedication; he stayed about three hours and was reported to be very bewildered by it all.

I had called Susie and said I would be late, maybe she could have our check-out time extended. Well, there wasn't that much to load, so Susie went ahead. All went well until on the last trip into the hotel she slipped on some wet steps leading to the hotel. Fell hard, really twisting her foot and banging her head on a bannister. When I got back, she was in TuziTwo fighting back tears. It hurt and it made her mad. She had turned to look at someone who came up behind her as she started down the stairs and that distraction led to the slip and the fall.

We decided to go to emergency room to see if anything was broken. Very pleasant and efficient staff at the ER. Foot was not broken and CAT scan of Susie's head showed nothing - wrong. Very painful, though (her foot), and difficult to walk. She didn't think crutches would help, particularly in motor home, so we opted not to get crutches.

We went back to TuziTwo, hooked up, and left Ames about 4:00 pm. Things could have been worse; things could have been better. We, especially Susie, will just cope. The foot, however, is providing us with many stages of swelling and coloration changes. Susie thinks it may be the Lord's way of saying that she has bought enough shoes on this trip. We didn't think we would try to get to Sioux Falls, SD, but Sioux City, SD, looked to be in range as well as having a KOA. Drove through some heavy rain - flooding reported in Iowa a day later - and got to the KOA about 8:00 pm. Still lots of daylight at this northern latitude this time of year.

No hurry to get to Sioux Falls the next day - Thursday. Jeff is at his new store in Aberdeen and Valerie is at work. Real estate agents may be showing the house, so we wouldn't want to be in the way. It had rained all night and rain continued most of the morning. Haven't detected any leaks - last fall we did have some.)

Stopped at the National Music Museum in Vermillion, SD, along the way. Susie stayed in TuziTwo, resting her injured foot, while I toured. Lots of historic instruments, many of which you could hear played on the portable audio system you could carry.

Here's the Stradivari case. Strad made not only violins but also violas, guitars, and a mini-mandolin.

Of course there was a banjo display, but they didn't have a recording to listen to. At least they didn't have a display of shameful anti-banjo jokes like they did at the Owensboro Bluegrass Museum.

Here's a novelty double horn.

A Civil War display was interesting. Several instruments, like trumpets and basses, were made with over-the-shoulder facing bells so that the troops marching along behind could hear the music better. I bought a CD called Custer's Last Band -- music he favored. It's got several nice brass band numbers.