My wife and I embarked on a day trip north to the University of Northern Iowa today to check the place out. UNI is around 5 hours from from Columbia via US Route 63. The plan was to leave our house early in the morning, spend the afternoon exploring UNI and Cedar Falls, and get back to Columbia before midnight. We're road trip pros at this point. So a 5-hour trip shouldn't be a problem.

US Route 63 passes within 1 mile of our house in Columbia. We hit the road and headed directly north into the rural areas of northern Missouri. Population density seemed to disappear altogether once we crossed into Iowa. Just after we passed Interstate 80 outside of Malcom, Iowa, traffic came to a standstill. Turns out we had to wait for a train stopped at a series of silos. But once the train cars were filled with whatever was being dispensed, we were on our way once again.

Eventually, we made it to the University of Northern Iowa and parked next to the Admissions building.

Our plan was to walk around the campus to see what my wife would potentially be getting into should this job materialize.

We started walking and passed by a flagpole and small gathering area.

A monument containing the initials I.S.N.S. can be seen in the photo above. This stands for Iowa State Normal School, which was the name of the school when it was established in 1876. This monument appears to be from 1895.

Fountain at Maucker Union.

Fountain at Maucker Union.

I liked Pac Man drawn on the sidewalk.

We soon found ourselves at the Campanile.

The Campanile is the school's clock tower that was built in 1926.

Now this looks interesting. The tree in the photos above and below has been pruned in an unusual way. Most of the tree is gone except for this one giant horizontal branch.

A small seat has been carved in what remains of the trunk.

We made it to Latham Hall, the academic building where my wife's field of study is based.

We did what we usually do and take a few pics in front of the place for "good luck."

We finished taking pics and continued wandering around campus. After that, we drove around the city of Cedar Falls before heading back to Columbia.

We spent the rest of the afternoon checking out UNI and Cedar Falls before heading back to Columbia. But instead of following US Route 63, we decided to follow Interstate 380 to Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. US Route 218 arrived south of Iowa City which eventually lead us to the very familiar US Route 61 near the Missouri border. We passed by Hannibal and found US Route 54 near Bowling Green, Missouri and headed west toward Mexico.

Mother Nature treated us to a beautiful sunset while traveling on US Route 54.

This was a great day trip to somewhere we had never been before.

Sunset from US Route 54 near Mexico, Missouri.