Continuing our tour of Iowan celebrity homes, Jayne and I headed west to confusing name triumvirate member Sioux City, Iowa. Our friend from way back, Lauren, is now an anchor at the ABC affiliate out there. Because we didn’t know when we’d actually be taking off on our journey west to escape religious persecution (too soon?), we gave Lauren a whole 24 hours max of notice. Being a veteran newswoman who works on tight deadlines and thrives on her flexibility, Lauren made it work. She was anchoring two shows Sunday but would be able to squeeze us in between the two.
After a harrowing hunt for a big cooler in a Wal-Mart*, we met Lauren and Travis for dinner at Monterey Mexican Restaurant. Our last time round in Sioux City we ate there and it didn’t disappoint. Plus, it was close to the coolers. It was good, but this isn’t no food blog so moving on.
We then followed Lauren back to her station in downtown Sioux City and watched her and her co-workers (all attractive 20 something ladies) prepare for their 10 o’clock show. This included filming bumpers and checking the facts on stories about car chases and self-defenestrations. It also included hairspray to live up to the profession.
Since Lauren’s station makes its way out to Spencer and Estherville I had seen her in action but not truly live. We did get to watch her PA (that’s production assistant for you people who know NOTHING about TV news) at NBC in Cincinnati. Earlier in Estherville we had been watching her take care of business. It’s pretty awesome. No matter where you are, you grow up watching local news and learning their schtick and developing your news crushes (I’m looking at you Beth Malicki, Catherine Nero and Heather Cabot) and basically treating those people like local celebrities. Then all of a sudden you are having a late night snack with one of those people you’ve known for years in an all night Greek diner in western Iowa.
Lauren handles that celebrity status with grace too. We got to witness some dude hit on her by announcing his plans to eat 20 pieces of french toast. I was half expecting him to dedicate his feat to her. She brushed him off a lot more kindly than I would have.
It’s definitely cool to know your friends are off doing cool stuff and not just hanging out at the bar down the street from where you grew up.
* Did you know you could take the same cooler slap some “fishing rod holders” on it, paint it white and call it “Marine” and charge $12 more?