After a nice visit with family at the farm in Adair, we headed about 225 miles northwest to Cedar Falls, Iowa, where we would meet up with an old friend of Kent’s from the 1970’s in New York.

Cedar Falls, home to the University of Northern Iowa, is a city of approximately 40,000 inhabitants. Cedar Falls, along with the neighboring city of Waterloo are known as the Cedar Valley due to the Cedar River that traverses the vicinity. First settled in 1845 by William R. Sturgis and Erasmus D. Adams the city was originally called Sturgis Falls. Because of the availability of water power, Cedar Falls developed as a milling and industrial center prior to the Civil War.

We met up with Jenifer, a friend of Kent’s, who lived in the same apartment building in New York City in 1970. They have remained friends for all of these years. Jenifer grew up in Cedar Falls where her father worked at the university. She recently moved back to Cedar Falls from Syracuse where she had lived for some time.

We had lunch with Jenifer and her sister Mary at a local sports bar restaurant called Pepper’s. Like many sports bars, the food is mostly fried and contains lots of calories. After lunch we went to Mary’s home which is actually the home that Jenifer and Mary grew up in. Their parents lived there until their dad passed away and their mother moved to a senior living facility in 1989, where Jenifer now resides. Mary baked a delicious peach cobbler for dessert with vanilla ice cream. Yum!!

The home they grew up in is a lovely large two-story traditional home with an enclosed porch, a basement and a large attic. It has three bedrooms upstairs, one with an attached sun porch, a formal living and dining room, a family room, eat-in kitchen and two bathrooms. It retains much of its original charm with dark wood window sashes, hardwood floors, paneling and generous sized rooms.

At about 5:00pm we headed over to a pub that is in the same senior facility where Jenifer lives for a drink and some appetizers. The pub is part of an enclosed main street where the local community is invited to participate in activities at the community, including this pub. On Friday evenings they have live entertainment, which on this evening was a local singer and pianist. We enjoyed getting to meet the executive director and some of the residents and community members at the pub.

After the pub, Jenifer took us on a driving tour around Cedar Falls. We saw lovely tree lined neighborhoods with traditional homes as well as all sorts of retail shops and restaurants. It appears to be a charming university town with lots of things to do and places to go. Unfortunately, they also have this thing called winter even though it was about 88 degrees today.

Jenifer had arranged a room/apartment for us at her senior facility for two nights. It was a great, comfortable place for us to stay at a very reasonable price ($75 per night).