Day 1: Saturday, July 25, 1998. Drive from the University of Northern Iowa to Salt Lake City, UT.

We began at 6:00 AM in the Gilchrist A parking lot at UNI. Rick and Lynne were there preparing the van and trailer and Becky, Ben, Kristen, and I became the first passengers. As we pulled away from Cedar Falls we discussed our summers and saw a nice sunrise. In a few hours we were in West Des Moines to pick up Karen. Traveling west on Interstate 80, we picked up Amy at Avoca, and Joe in Nebraska. Let the euchre begin. In Laramie, Wyoming we picked up Holly. The 10 of us then endured the long, rainy ride across all of Nebraska and Wyoming. Just to keep the trip interesting, we blew a tire on the van just short of the Utah border. "How many Presidential Scholars does it take to change a tire?" Finally, we pulled into Salt Lake City and Diana's relatives at about 1:30 AM mountain time. That's about 1200 miles and over 21 hours of driving, something I wouldn't recommend doing on a regular basis.