between the grain belt and the rust belt

I actually went home for Thanksgiving. It's a weird ritual: get in a car and travel about eight hours when I should be spending all my time doing homework, see people, turn around and come back. The ride home was the worst. I was cramped up and then we got home and tried to go to my favorite pizza restaurant, but it was packed and we would've had to wait an hour for a table. My legs had atrophied in a mere seven hours; my stomach and brain were no better.
The trip back was nice, but long. I read a whole book, which then helped me very little in writing a long history paper. I was the only one on the bus with the light on after it got dark, and little kids kept asking me to turn it off. "I'm reading," I would say, and they'd just look confused. There were other Grinnellians on the trip, one of whom almost had to stand for 45 minutes leaving Chicago.