To Des Moines and Back

As Nancy mentioned, I got back yesterday from a business meeting in Des Moines. This was the almost annual Risk Improvement Representative educational meeting at the home office in downtown Des Moines. The meetings are held about every 1 1/2 years, alternating between spring and fall, so I call it "almost" annual.

The photo above is looking out from my 4th floor room at the Hotel Fort Des Moines toward the parking garage/office building across the street. Most of downtown Des Moines is connected by skywalk so the walk to the home office from the hotel was all inside.

There are 900 employees in our home office and about 200 employees in the Des Moines branch of the company. They are in the same building, so I usually just say we have about 1,100 employees at the home office. The Bismarck branch has just under 90 employees.

I left mid-morning on Saturday and arrived in Eagan, MN at about 5:00 pm. After an overnight stay at my brother's house, I left for Des Moines on time because we had a meeting at 4:00 pm on Sunday.

The meetings ended at noon on Wednesday, and I headed out as soon as possible for South Dakota.

Heading west from Des Moines I eventually ended up traveling north on I-29. I took that all the way up to Brookings, stopped for supper, and drove the rest of the way westward to Huron for an overnight stay. The picture of the road sign was taken near Iroquois, SD. Almost the entire way from Brookings to Huron was foggy.

In the morning on Thursday I did some work in Huron and then drove over to Miller for some more work. The big cowboy is on the south end of Miller's main street. Leaving Miller at 2:00 pm I drove the rest of the way to Bismarck, stopping once in Selby, SD for a short break.

I put 1,450 miles on my company car this trip. The "big" 2009 Chevrolet Impala averaged almost 30 mpg on the trip to Des Moines and 31 mpg on the drive back home. Not too bad in my opinion.

Now I am busy working on washing clothes and packing again for a trip to Williston. Good times.