Adventures in Kansas and Nova Scotia

As Thanksgiving is a big family event and I had no family within several thousand miles I decided to go away for the weekend so that I didn’t got bored. I hired a car and on the Wednesday evening drove up into Iowa and spent the night in the Des Moines, Iowa. There was nothing particular there that I wanted to see but it was a four hour drive from Lawrence and I didn’t fancy driving any further. As I was there it would’ve been rude not at least go and look at the state capital so the next morning I went and had a quick look at it before tarting my drive further west to the Mississippi which was my real aim. Reasonably grand capitol building but nothing too exciting.

I then drove over to the town of Dubuque on the Mississippi river in the west of the state getting lunch on the way. Although deserted because of the holiday it still seemed like a nice town. The two most interesting bits were a weird clock tower in the middle of the main street and a tall tower where they used to make shot by dropping molten metal from the top and letting gravity formed it into a sphere by the time it reached the bottom. I also took a walk along the side of the Mississippi which was a nice way to stretch the legs if a little chilly.

My plan was then to drive down to the Quad Cities area, where I would spend the night, trying to stick as close to the river as I could and stopping of anywhere of interest. Turns out to be quite hard to stick close to the river along that stretch and the one park I stopped at, just outside Dubuque, had a closed road which meant I couldn’t get close to the river. Eventually as it was just starting to get dark I got close to the river again and found a state park. This was on the opposite side of the road to the river so I wondered what I would find but the road led up to some cliffs that gave pretty good views of the river and the nearby town and all in all it was really quite scenic. I could also see a large collection of barges being pushed along the river and about to go into a lock and even from a distance the sight of all the barges together was impressive. I could also see where the railway went straight down the middle of one of the streets in the town without any fencing or anything. I doubt health and safety would allow that in the UK and it must be a nightmare for parents!

Leaving the park as it was getting dark I got to my hotel and then went to get dinner at one of the chains I knew were open on Thanksgiving. I got back to the hotel where, with it still being quite early, I tried to do some laps in their extremely small pool.

My plan for Friday was much the same as the last part of the day before – drive along by the river and stop off anywhere that looked interesting before eventually getting to St Louis. Once again it turned out there wasn’t off too much interest to see. I stopped off at port Louisa wildlife refuge and went for a short walk and although it was again nice to stretch my legs it wasn’t that exciting – you couldn’t even see the river. By the afternoon I was in Missouri and I stopped off at Wakonda State Park and went for a walk there. The park mainly consisted of Lakes and although quite nice, was again nothing exciting, so I headed on to St Louis. All in all I was a little disappointed with my trip down the Mississippi as I didn’t see much of the river and it turned out to be mainly driving. Dubuque was nice and I’m glad I went and that random state park in Iowa was also worth seeing.

I wasn’t sure what I’d make of St. Louis as I’m definitely more of an outdoors person but it was a big famous city I hadn’t been to before and had been on my list of places to see since my long holiday I took with my US placement when I worked for the MoD in 2002. On that occasion I had planned on seeing the city but as it wasn’t on the right train line I couldn’t work out a sensible way of getting there despite getting quite close. I started the Saturday by going to the Cahokia Mounds, a groups of mounds built by native Americans around a thousand years ago. The suburbs of St Louis have now grown out this far so it was a little weird walking around the mounds in the middle of a suburb. They were impressive sized mounds but otherwise quite similar to other such mounds I’d seen before.

I then moved into St. Louis itself by getting on the Metro from near my hotel. I went and saw Forest Park which had hosted the 1904 World’s fair and which now had a number of museums in it. I had a quick look round the park seeing the Art Museum building which is a nice building with a nice lake and fountain in front of it – shame about the crane at one end of the building. Not being into art I didn’t visit the museum but instead went to the Missouri History Museum and spent a couple of hours there. The exhibits that were there were good and rather interesting but I had expected the museum to be a bit bigger. I then went back towards the core of St. Louis, saw an old courthouse nicely lit up up before getting some dinner in the Laclede’s Landing area which is a small area of bars and restaurants. Looks like it would be a good place to visit with friends of an evening but it was quite quiet while I was there and as I was by myself I got food and headed back to my hotel.

The next day I had tickets to go up the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial arch – a big arch which is really noticeable which is really noticeable on the city skyline. To get up to the top you go up in really tiny lift cars in which there is, just about, enough space for five people to sit down – you wouldn’t want to be claustrophobic especially if they broke down. The views from the top, through the small windows, were pretty cool.

I then went and had a look at the old court house which had been nicely lit up the night before. They were having an exhibition of some cool paintings of all the national parks and then were some OK exhibits on St Louis’s history but it did seem to be rather living on it’s historical connections – it had been the sight of the beginning of the important Dred Scott case about slavery which went all the way to the Supreme Court.

I next had a ticket for a boat tour on the river. Turns out that due to the rather damp weather I was the only person who brought a ticket and so they cancelled it. Given the weather they also weren’t too hopeful for their other cruise that day so I shelved the idea and decided to hit the road back home. On the way I stopped of at another state park which followed an old railway line for miles and miles. I walked along the line for a bit and noted the climbing potential of the cliffs but climbing was either banned or rubbish as it was all overgrown.

Photos from the trip are here.

On Wednesday I moved into the “International House”. It seemed a reasonably nice house and that it would tide me over to after Christmas by which team I’d hopefully be more confident about staying. The house has a small kitchen, two lounges, each with a TV, two bathrooms and although two were unoccupied. My bedroom was large enough with a desk, a wash basin and a closet. Although staying at Mark’s was OK and his family are cool, it was obviously not a long term solution and it was nice to get out from under their feet.

Apart from moving in the week was mainly filled with more adminy stuff and generally just settling in. Mark also set up an account for me on one of the PCs in the office which made for much easier internet browsing and allowed me to make a couple of calls using Skype. Getting a university ID card started to become a bit of a saga, in part thanks to the much delayed offer letter and by the end of the week I still didn’t have one. I also started the process of getting the usual 30-day health insurance waiting period waived so that I could be covered by the university’s insurance from the beginning of December and not pay another month’s myself.

As I’m writing this several months later I’m not sure what I did on the weekend and e-mails I sent at the time are no help. I think that on the Saturday I got on the bus down to where a lot of the larger chain stores are located south of town to pick up some food and check out what was there and that on Sunday I didn’t do much apart from have a walk around the nearer bits of town.

My second week was only a three day week due to the long Thanksgiving holiday. On the Monday I went to the Social Security people and thankfully was indeed in their system. They said I should come back in a couple of days which I thought would allow me to get on payroll before Thanksgiving as I could get the number Wednesday morning and then go to payroll. I got the number fine only to find out that the only guy in the office who could put me on payroll had taken the day off and so I couldn’t get on payroll to the next week thus missing the pay run which was mildly annoying.

Monday was my first official day and like most other first days was filled with form-filling and administrative tasks. One of these tasks was registering with “international programs” – a requirement of my visa. While there I learnt more about the International House, a shared house that the university runs for visiting international “scholars”. I’d read the little that was on the internet about it before I’d arrived but had assumed it wouldn’t be available as it looked like it got booked up months in advance but it turns out they had a spare room and that I could have it for a couple months if I wanted. I’d got fed up living in a shared house in Glossop but by the end of the day I’d asked if I could have the room as it meant I didn’t have to commit to a years lease for longer and it would also mean one less stressful thing I need to sort.

One of the other things I did that day was go and talk to the international payroll who told me that they couldn’t even get me on the system properly until I had a social security number. International programs had informed me that I’d need to wait two weeks before applying for a social security number so as to make sure that the fact that I was in the country legally had been passed to the social security people. Apparently if you applied before they had that information it could lead to all sorts of investigations and lead to not getting a number, and so not getting paid, for months. The payroll people suggested that I didn’t need to wait quite that long and so I decided to try to get it sorted before Thanksgiving as that would mean I wouldn’t miss a pay run. The payroll people did say that they could put me on the system as a guest which would allow me to get a KU ID card which would allow me to ride the buses for free and get in my buildings out of hours.

I also had a chat with my boss about the work I was to do and he also said that he was quite happy for me to go back to the UK for two weeks at Christmas and we’d work the leave situation out somehow. This was good as by Christmas I’d only have about 3 days leave so even with the extra holidays I wouldn’t have been able to get back to the UK for long. He also, finally, ordered my laptop.

Due to jet lag I was, perhaps unsurprisingly, up reasonably early the next morning and I joined my new boss in heading towards the university. In the morning, while he was in a meeting, I explored part of the university and then met back up with him and went into his lab. It has windows to the outside world and everything, so for the first time in many years I am working in an office where I can easily see the outside, even if the view isn’t that exciting. Mark also gave my my offer letter which was, apparently, meant to have been sent to me weeks before and due to some administrative error never had been. I’m glad I was in ignorance that I was meant to receive such a thing as I’m sure knowing I hadn’t received it would have just added to my stress at moving. Mark took me for lunch and he also spent a little time in the afternoon showing me some of Lawrence.

The Saturday and Sunday I mainly spent walking around Lawrence as a form of exercise, to get a feel for the place and also to look for some where to live. It also get me out of the way for one of Mark’s girl’s birthday parties on the Sunday. Lawrence actually has an active down town, which is nice, and quite different to many other small American “cities” I’ve been to. It also has a British shop where they sell PG tips, although at a stupid price, so at least I know I can get more tea if the supplies I bring with me run out. Mark had loaned my his iPad, as he hadn’t yet got around to ordering my laptop, and between that and my walking it quickly become apparent that housing was going to be a bit of an issue. Pretty much everywhere had a 12-month minimum rent but at that stage I didn’t want to commit myself to that. Although you could sublet, and so cover your costs, this seemed a risky strategy.

Well the decision had been made, eventually, and I was off to Kansas to start a position as a postdoc in Mark Holder’s lab in Lawrence, Kansas. Now if you don’t know where Kansas is, it’s pretty much smack bang in the middle of the United States and pretty much in the middle of no where. I suspect most of you wouldn’t have even heard of Kansas if it wasn’t for the Wizard of Oz. Certainly from the comments I had from friends before I left that was pretty much all they knew. Needless to say there were no such thing as a direct flight from London to anywhere remotely near Kansas so instead I’d be flying to Kansas City via Washington, DC. Just to confuse matters Kansas City isn’t actually in Kansas. Well at least the Kansas City where the airport is, isn’t. That’s in Missouri, just the opposite side of the river to the, smaller, Kansas City that is actually in Kansas.

My flight was leaving Heathrow at midday and my parents were kind enough to give me a lift to the airport.  However my Dad’s a bit of a worrier when it comes to catching flights so despite my suggestion that we should aim for 9 and that would give us plenty of leeway in case of traffic we end up leaving Clacton at a little after 6.  As I’m sure most people reading this know that does not make for a with-it Daniel! Needless to say we got to Heathrow with lots of time to spare, about 8:30, and after a healthy McDonalds breakfast it was time to say good-bye to my parents and start travelling.

Can’t remember much about the flights if I’m honest.  I’ve done enough trans-altantic flights in my time that they’re all much the same.  I obviously got through immigration OK as well as I was soon in Kansas City airport waiting for my luggage.  My new boss was picking me up from the airport and I was hoping he’d spot me based on the fact that I’d have a lot of luggage as the best photo I’d seen of him was this rather flattering photo – he’s the one in the Hawaiian shirt in the front row, second from right. However there was no one meeting anyone at all. Turns out that thanks to the Continental / United merge he’d gone to the wrong terminal. By the time he’d corrected his mistake it was easy for us to spot each other – we were pretty much the only people on the terminal concourse.

Having met up he took me back to his house where I would be staying until I got somewhere to stay. Amazingly I managed to talk to him for the entire 45 minute journey rather than fall asleep. Once I got to his house I met his wife, two kids and his mother-in-law. Turns out she was visiting for a few days and that Mark’s wife had picked her up a couple of hours before from the same airport he’d picked me up from. Apparently she pretty much got back and Mark left. By this time I was rather tired so I chatted a bit and packed myself off to bed.