Three out of the four student staffers had never flown before today. Today, we all boarded the flight from Des Moines to Denver at 9:27 a.m. and landed, saving an hour from Mountain Standard Time, at 10:15 a.m. Time travel at its finest.

Madison Houska, sophomore and staff reporter for The Oracle, experienced her first flight that she will remember. She speaks now about her experience of take off, the flight’s duration and landing.

I was excited before we boarded the plane, anxious when we we were being seated, and thought “oh crap, I’m about to experience flying” as we were asked to fasten our seat belts. As we turned onto the runway, things started looking up…literally. So flying was great, I’ll probably do it again sometime, but what I really want to talk to you about is the acceptance of marijuana in Colorado. As you know, the using of marijuana for any reason whether that be for health or recreational purposes, is illegal regardless in Iowa. But that isn’t the case here. I’ve never seen anyone so comfortably smoking this as they casually walk around downtown. I find this, in fact, outrageous. Like nobody even cares. I guess something that I’ve always known to be wrong, isn’t at all wrong everywhere.

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Hannah McNichols, junior and opinion editor of The Oracle, has never stepped on a plane and today was one for the record books. Her thoughts on the first day here is below.

It feels like just yesterday I got the text saying I was chosen to go to Denver for my favorite thing to do, writing. Today it all started at 4:30a.m., when I couldn’t sleep out of excitement. Sitting in the DSM airport it didn’t feel real, but when we started to ascend into the sky, I felt it in my ears. Nothing helped the agonizing pain. Once we were going 700+ mph, according to Snapchat, I was fine. It was actually amazing. The view that looks like mix-match brown and green carpet squares was crazy. I could say I was in the clouds, literally.

The hardest thing to get used to is texting people back home and realizing it’s an hour later than here. We landed and got to our hotel safely and the 4:30 morning started to kick in. We ended up going to the Denver Zoo where Dryden was on fleek with her Disney imitations. I have to say the hyenas were the best with my favorite animal, the elephants, a close second with their peeing and well “number twos” all over.

After waiting 40 minutes for a taxi we got back to our hotel to leave once again for dinner. A short walk around the corner to Maggiano’s where it felt like Little Italy, and dinner was served. With Tanna poking Madison in the eye and everybody laughing till their ribs hurt, (except Sammi who looked at us like we were all psychos) we stuffed our faces with carbs and came back with leftovers where Dryden claimed we all had mini fridges (which we don’t) and a microwave in the lobby (also don’t have…) were all ready for bed at 8:30.

Update: Dryden called to the front desk and they are bringing us a refrigerator… to our room. Then Tanna, Hannah and Madison came back from a walk around the hotel with a microwave. Never underestimate the power of journalists who it is their job to talk to strangers and get answers.

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Tanna and Sammi will be checking in another night. Make sure you follow us on our Twitter hashtag: #OracleInDenver.