Daily Columnist

Ames slows down during the lazy months of summer.

Most ISU students take off at the end of spring semester, leaving the sub-leasers of their apartments to an empty campus and a dwindled social scene.

If you’re bored by the bar scene and tired of the psuedo-intellectual conversations overheard at most of the trendy coffee houses, there are still some opportunities for summer fun to be found in Ames.

If you’re creative and open to new ideas, Ames has many things to cure the summertime blues.

In the Ames area there are several great getaways. Places like Ledges State Park near Boone, Saylorville Lake outside Des Moines or the Kate Shelley Memorial High Bridge near Boone, the world’s longest and highest double-track railroad bridge.

If you don’t want to travel too far, there are also great places in Ames that are often overlooked.

Downtown Ames offers alternatives to mall shopping with independent or community-owned stores.

There are several new and used bookstores, specialty shops, music shops and great restaurants.

My personal favorites are Big Table Books because books are reasonably priced (students get a 10 percent discount).

I also recommend Lucullan’s Italian Grill because they serve authentic Italian food (and because, according to their ad, Ralph Nader once ate there and liked their food.)

One campustown coffee shop, Stomping Grounds, hosts an open mic Friday nights at 7:00 for music, poetry and any other performing arts.

Ames also has parks, trails and bike paths for outdoor recreation fun. There are wooded areas with trails perfect for nature hiking.

There are also more developed parks, like the 86-acre Brookside Park which has picnic tables, play ground equipment, sand volleyball courts and tennis courts.

A great place to go on campus is the Maintenance Shop, found in the lower-west side of the Memorial Union.

The M-Shop used to be just that — a maintenance shop — until someone had the bright idea to turn it into a place for meeting and music.

The M-Shop is unique, offering a very personal and intimate ambiance. The M-Shop is also the only all-ages bar in Iowa.

Another thing to do in Ames is take in a Student Union Board (SUB) film.

SUB films gives ISU students the opportunity to see films that may have missed the Ames theatre circuit or may have played for only a short time.

They have also been known to show some interesting foreign, independent and documentary films. (Where else on campus could you watch Michael Moore’s “Roger and Me”?)

The Horticulture Hall greenhouse offers a tropical sanctuary away from the hustle and bustle of the ISU campus.

The greenhouse is located on the eastern side of campus and south of Horticulture Hall. It features many different varieties of plants, a waterfall and benches for studying, conversation, relaxation and contemplation.

If you’re into plants, there’s also the Reiman Gardens next to the stadium or the Iowa Arboretum near Madrid.

Reiman Gardens has walkways of colorful flowers, herb, rose and wetland gardens, and other landscaped areas.

The campanile, of course, is ISU’s trademark, ringing in the hour with the melodies of the carillon.

The campanile is a great place for reading and studying or meeting a lover for some campaniling at the stroke of midnight.

Lake LaVerne also offers its own lore for ISU lovers.

So don’t let the “Didn’t get an internship so I’m stuck in Ames for the summer” syndrome get you down.

Be thankful you’re in Ames. It could be worse.

You could be stuck in Hometown, Iowa.

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Jonquil Wegman is a senior in community and regional planning from Bellevue.