A little aside (Vaction part 6)

As I was thinking about the Texas Edition trucks and other geographic oddities, a silly thought crept into my mind. Over the course of the nine days of travel, the predominant chain gas station/convenience stores we frequently ran across were called "Kum & Go". I kid you not! look them up on the Internet. In Alabama we have "Citgo". It sounds to me like a drive-thru public restroom. Strange name that. But Kum & Go is just to vulgar. Who thinks these names up?

So I did look them up on the Internet, did you? We kept running into them because they service the entire middle third of the country. Except Kansas of course! Take a look! They have stores in every state surrounding Kansas and then some but like I've previously mentioned, there is no gas in Kansas! Also appears that they stay out of Illinois as that state is just not conducive to automobile travel.

CLICK ON THIS KUM & GO STORE FINDER LINK TO SEE.

Texas (Vacation Part 5)

Wednesday we were up and out of Oklahoma quickly. We were eager to see out little guys. Rick even turned to me shortly after we hit the road and grinned big as he announced, "We're going to see out boys today!"

Thanks to Dick, we sailed south through Texas with no problems negotiating Dallas/Fort Worth. By 3:30PM we were just inside San Antonio (and over an hour ahead of Dick's schedule) when Rick remembered that Warren had been asking for his fishing rod that he left in our garage before he moved. We didn't think to pack it so we decided to stop at a Wal*Mart and buy a new one. There aren't as many as many Wal*Marts around as I expected. We passed three Targets for every Wal*Mart spotted. We did find one and they had the very same rod but in a travel set with a back pack. We picked up a Nerf football for Parker and were quickly on our way.

When we arrived, Parker greeted us at the door and extended his arms immediately to Puppa. Puppa loved that! Warren was watching something on TV and hadn't realized we arrived until I tapped him on the shoulder. He looked around for a second and then his eyes swelled as he stood on the couch to reach for me. His first words were not the sweet little , "Hi Nini!" I was used to hearing every morning when he awoke but instead, "Are we going to Sea Word now?" Warren had been dying to visit Sea World and see whales, sharks, and dolphins every since they moved there. The TV stations he normally watches were flooded with Sea World commercials. Sarah promised him that when Nini and Puppa came we would all go. He was ready!

The sun rises over Sarah's house

That evening when Ricky came home from work, we all took a ride to the river walk to look for a place to eat. We parked way far away and strolled the sidewalk a long way before coming to a neat little steak house. A very expensive little steak house. The hamburger was $17.99 and things got worse from there. The steak was melt-in-your-mouth kind of awesome. I wouldn't mind returning one day. It was raining when we left, the only rain San Antonio had had all summer apparently and it didn't last but a few minutes. Sarah, the boys, and I waited next door under the cover of the Hilton Hotel while Rick and Ricky went back for the car. Thirty minutes later, Ricky called Sarah to ask what Hotel that was and what street it was on. It took them a little while to find the car but there were totally at a loss as to where they left their family! Warren made good use of the 40 minutes and the little rain shower.

Warren in the puddles.

We decided Sea World would be Friday's event and that we would spend Thursday just bumming around. Sarah had some errands to run Thursday morning so we road along with her to watch out for the boys while she took care of business. We went to the grocery store, bought a grill and steaks and took them home. Once everything was put away and the grill set up, we left Rick to season the grill before cooking the steaks (Warren, "Puppa's just cooking the fire."). Sarah and I went out to find Burlington Coat factory where she hoped to buy a new dresser for Parker. Even using her GPS we hard a hard time finding the place. We were lead the the dirt road along side the Georgia Pacific railroad. I mean at the fuel pumps. I told Sarah I thought this might be private property and we had better get off! The GPS kept telling us to turn where there was a railroad but no way to get over it except a couple of interstate over passes. We couldn't find access to those interstates. We did get to the mall where BCF was located. The store was three stories of pure shopping pleasure. But no dresser to match Parker's bed. Oh well. It took us 50 minutes to get to the store, 10 minutes to get home! Oh the the girl's gas bill must be outrageous!

An aside: Texans are sure proud to be Texans. Every where we went we saw big stars on the sides of buildings, on roads, on their homes, and on their trucks. Trucks. The first thing I noticed about the truck we parked next to at the mall was that on it's side it had a big star and boasted it was a Texas Edition. Well that wasn't the first ting I noticed about the truck. The first thing I noticed was that it had a sun shade across the dashboard covering the windshield and dark tinted windows that didn't keep me from seeing the young couple inside making out. Anyway, I started noticing that the GMC and Chevrolet trucks also had their very own "Texas Edition" too. Does any other state have a special edition vehicle?

After dinner Sarah bathed the boys and then she and Rick went out side to smoke. Warren climbed up on the cabinet and grabbed the box of my peanut butter cookies and brought them to the child sized table in the den. Warren doesn't eat much sweets so he chose one cookie and spent a long time nibbling on it. Parker ate the cookies by the handfuls!

Nini's yummy cookies

This bus runs on cookie power.

No love greater.

Sarah picked out a movie, "Awake" I think was the title, a really weird one. Warren fell asleep in my lap. I held him there until the movie was over. We used to do that a lot. I miss it.


Finally it's Sea World day! Warren was so excited! Parker was along for the ride.

We saw whales.

Wow!

Warren's first roller coaster. He was really excited to get to ride it and was not scared a bit. Of course the roller coaster was probably quite tame compared with riding around with his mother in San Antonio for six weeks. She scared me.

He really wanted to pet the dolphin but it didn't come close enough.

An exhausting day. It was 101º at Sea World and they had a fresh coat of blacktop on all their walks. I thought we'd die.

This one is still kicking!

Krazy in Kansas (Vacation Part 4)

We stopped just out of Waseca for gas, potty, smoke, whatever while I read my book. When hubby returned, I put us back on the interstate and we headed south. I glanced at Tom Tom to see our ETA in San Antonio. It was 4:54AM Wednesday morning if we drove the speed limit and made no stops. Of course we weren't going to drive the speed limit and there would have to be a stop or two. It was sort of a game I played with Dick. I tried to make time (exceed the speed limit) and then when hubby wanted to stop for something I would tell him how far ahead of time we were and that he couldn't waste any more time than that. I got a bad look in return.

We were out of MN in minutes. In IA, I admired the windmill farms again. Most were not turning. Do they turn them off? Why? After a while we stopped again and I let Rick drive for a while. I napped until Kansas City.

I awoke to Dick and Rick having an argument. Rick wanted to stay on I-35 where ever it took us. Dick wanted to send us to I-70 where ever that went because neither of us reached back for the atlas. I thought I-70 would just take us back to I-35 but get us out of some traffic so I sided with Dick, naturally, and Rick gave in. I haven't admitted it to Rick but later looking at the map it would have been a little shorter to have continued on I-35 and avoided Topeka but then we would have never experienced Eskridge.

Just out of Kansas City, I guess on the Kansas line, we began the toll road I-70 (which turned into I-335 shortly) with less than a half a tank of gas. I saw a sign that said Gas and food 21 miles and suggested to hubby that we plan on that. Hubby decided we would wait and buy gas once we got off the toll road. I assumed hubby knew what he was doing but I was wrong. Turns out hubby had decided in his head that a toll road shouldn't be more than 20 or 30 miles and that was that.

I closed my eyes. When I opened them again we were passing the McDonald's and gas station and a sign that read "Next services 33 miles". I looked over at the gas gauge and saw less than a quarter of a tank. Hubby didn't stop at the next McDonald's and gas station either. It was crazy, this toll road and Mickey D's had something going. It was the only place to eat along the way.

When the gas gauge hit the red line I consulted my trusted friend Dick. Dick says take the next exit and there's gas in 3.2 miles. As we are exiting the free way, make that toll road, I read "No amenities this exit". Another sign warned, "Next services 17 miles". Once again I side with Dick. There's a sick pattern forming here I'm afraid.

We paid our toll of $3.50 for the miles we spent on the I-335. We paid our toll to a live person who presumably lived in the area and could probably have saved us a biggie headache had we asked her right then, "Where can we get gas?" But we didn't so she didn't have the opportunity to tell us, "No frickin' where. There's only three gas stations in Kansas and you have to take a ticket and get back on the pay road to find them. Can't you people from Alabama read signs?"

Leaving the toll plaza, Dick commanded, "Turn left in 400 yards." So we turned left on US Highway 56 and went 3.2 miles to the gas station we were promised. After 3.2 miles we did not find ourselves at a gas station. We were sitting at a stop sign at the junction of Highways 56 and 99 and Dick ordered a right turn. We obeyed.

After a mile I poked Tom Tom to find out where this gas station was. Now it says 17 miles. Rick put on the brakes and we evaluated out situation. The gas light was on but we were not below the red line. Yet. I looked around and saw a water tower. Where there's a water tower there's a town and where there's a town there has to be a gas station. Right?

Rick turned the car around and we went back through the 56/99 intersection and there was a sign, Admire 1 mile. As we drew closer I could read the letters on the water tower, Admire. We were in luck!

No. Just because there is a water tower with a town name on it does not promise there is gas anywhere near. It doesn't even have to mean there's water. I checked just now. Admire's population is 177. I would have guessed 26. Rick stopped at a house to ask about gas. Certainly there was something close. We saw cars parked in yards.

I let Rick walk up to the door. I stayed in the locked car armed with my cell phone ready to call 911 if the need arose. Rick stood on the porch for a couple of minutes and then opened the door and went inside.

NONONONONO! Didn't his mother have that talk with him every Halloween afternoon. "Never go inside even if you are invited! Just take your candy [from strangers] and and make a quick get away!" And then it occurred to me that a lot of horror movies start out with innocent travelers seeking assistance and the would be good samaritan turns out to be some psycho! Of course there was Frank N. Furter . . .

Then Rick walked back out and down the steps. He wasn't exactly smiling as I had hoped but he was in one piece. Rick got in the car and started backing it up. "Nearest gas, that way," pointing north, "17 miles," he growled. We turned off the air conditioning to conserve fuel, held our breath, because that's what one is supposed to do in a situation like this, and drove north on 99.

Twelve miles later, Dick ordered, "In 400 yards, turn right." I turned Dick off. I'd had enough Dick for the day. We continued straight ahead just as the guy at the house instructed Rick to do. I looked at the clock. It was 7:20PM and I wasn't sure what time the sun was going to set here but I knew I wanted to be back on the interstate with a full tank of gas before dark. We had at least five miles to go and there was still nothing but corn fields as far as my eyes could see.

Then we saw it, the sign. WELCOME TO ESKRIDGE. Eskridge, Kansas we are so glad to find you. Sort of. Most of the town, including the gas station seemed to be positioned on one corner. It looked dead. There were no lit signs, no lights on inside, no signs of life. It was 7:30 PM, I wondered if the only gas station in a town with a population of 589 was still open. Rick pulled up to the pumps. The door was standing open and there was somebody inside. YES! We made it! Then Rick yelled to the guy inside, "These pumps workin'?"

Oh that's good Rick. Insult the guy BEFORE we get the tank full of gas. Dude at the register was not bright enough to be offended. Dude was a little freaky lookin'. Not Riff Raff freaky, more Norman Bates kind of freaky. I locked the car doors. Dick and I are fraidy cats.

After having the do you take credit discussion (like what did it matter? We had cash, just pump, drop some bills, and getthehellouttahere), Rick pumped gas. I watched the numbers flip on the old circa 1960's gas pump. The numbers actually flipped, not rolled, flipped. I can't remember the last time I saw a pump like this. It was hypnotic. I couldn't stop watching them. I counted the dollars and cents along with the machine until I saw movement out the windshield and turned to see what it was.

Three prostitutes were walking down the sidewalk. I watched them until they got to the corner. Then a car (the only one we'd seen with it's motor running in the last 20 miles), whose driver seemed very proud of his stereo system, came squealing around that corner. The trio looked at each other, covered their mouths, looked around, and started walking a little faster with a little extra swing in their hips. Not prostitutes. Teenage girls. They sort of look the same from across the street with the setting sun glaring on the buggy windshield.

I turned again to the pumps hoping Rick was about through. He'd already gone in to pay. Beyond the pumps, in the parking lot across the street, was a marked sheriff's patrol car. It's occupant was sitting with a drink in his hand watching us. He had to be watching us, there was no other life, not even a bird around. I wasn't sure if this was comforting or threatening but it was okay. I was a good Girl Scout once and a good Girl Scout Leader too. I was always prepared. I had a box full of home made peanut butter cookies in the back seat along with a cooler full of beer and Diet Coke with Lime. I was all set to make friendly with Boss Hogg or Cletus or whomever.

Rick opened the driver's door, reached back and pulled a beer out of the cooler, "I've gotta have one."

"ARE YOU NUTS?" I growled taking the beer from him and dropping it back in the ice. "Put your butt on the seat and start driving!" And he did.

We headed south again on 99, the way we had come. Over the next 25 minutes or so, doing the speed limit lest we should draw more attention to ourselves than we had already, we relaxed and were able to enjoy the country side. Okay, the corn fields. Incidentally, they all look the same. Rick got a little chatty as his nerves began to repair themselves. He said that when he knocked on the door at the house in Admire, a little boy answered and the child's Dad/guardian/whatever yelled for him to come inside. Rather trusting aren't they? I told Rick it worried me when he went inside. He said the guy was in a wheel chair. Like men in wheel chairs are harmless. No, remember Dr. Everett V. Scott. Rick said they talked for a minute and the little boy kept interrupting with, "I know where you can get all the gas you want for FREE!" I bet he did. We laughed.

I reset the Tom Tom to our original course. Richard, the chosen voice of our Tom Tom, formerly and fondly nick named Dick (now short for Dickhead), has been forgiven for his little miscalculation but no longer trusted with big decisions like where to buy gas. New rule, if we can't see it from the interstate, we don't go looking.

Finally back at the Interstate ramp, we had to take a ticket from the same lady in the same toll booth. I know she knew we had been searching for gas and I know she was surprised to see us back so soon (over an hour later which really messed up my making time game with the GPS) because she was probably betting we would run out of gas and be eaten by raccoons while walking towards a water tower. But here we were so I mussed my hair a little with my fingers and gave her my best just-had-sex-between-rows-of-corn look to make her think we had just pulled off the interstate to have mad passionate sex in a cornfield (hey, it could happen) rather than the truth.

It was just getting dark now that we were back on the interstate. We switched drivers. Rick clearly needed a break, and his beer. we sailed through the rest of the state without leaving the interstate even once. This toll road that hubby declared should only be 20-30 miles turned out to be well over 300 miles. It continued almost to the state line.

Rick didn't want to have more than 500 miles to drive on Wednesday, he was really eager to see the boys, so I drove on into Oklahoma, all the way to Guthrie, just north of Oklahoma City. From the interstate we spotted a Best Western. I looked at the clock, it was after midnight, so I exited.

Rick registered, got us a first floor room with a king sized bed. Good enough. I grabbed my bathroom stuff and a clean outfit out of my suitcase (no energy to carry the whole thing in) and walked into the room. It was awesome. The room smelled of fresh cut flowers, not an overpowering smell, it was pleasant. The temperature was nice and cool, not freezing, comfortable. The bed was soft with a half a dozen plump and soft pillows lined up against the headboard. I was asleep before Rick plugged in his C-Pap.

We are so not going back to Kansas, Toto.

Memory Lane, New Ulm, MN (Vacation Part 3)

Tuesday morning we were up early. By 6:45 we had the Escape packed and I was knocking on Mom and Pat's door to get them to get up and come out and have waffles and bagels with us before we left.

The night before, Uncle Bernie gave us his MN map and pointed out a route that would take us across southern MN to I-35 which would take us all the way to San Antonio. This was no short cut but the county and state roads -- some represented on the map by a faint dotted line -- were actually pretty straight and smooth, easy traveling with little to no traffic.

I opened the map and pointed out the window, "Go that way boy." But the road was barricaded off. This end of the highway was closed. I consulted Dick on an alternative path.

The limp Dick recommendation

Even so, the road was smoother than IL interstate. Later all we needed was a quickie car wash, not balancing and realignment.

The advantage to land this flat was that we could travel at 75mph in a 55mph zone, once on pavement again, because we could spot a sheriff's deputy before being tagged by his radar. Except in August when the corn is taller than your average police cruiser.

Our excursion across southern MN carried us through a town I used to live in as a child (1978 and 1979 I think). New Ulm, a lovely city in south central MN sitting between the Minnesota River and the statue of Herman the Hun in a park on the hill. I used to wonder if "hun" meant he was a real sweetie or a man with his penis removed. What does "hun" mean any way? That was long before I had internet and could look it up. I am no longer curious enough to open a new browser window and research it so I'll let that slide for now. New Ulm is also the place where one of my mother's distant relatives was kidnapped by the Indians (Sioux Uprising?), was scalped, escaped, and lived to brag about it.

I had Rick help me search for the house we lived in. We entered the city backwards of the way I was used to. I knew the street name but was a little lost until I started seeing streets with presidents' names on them. I remembered when we ran out of president names the next street was State. And there it was. We passed by my old junior high school, I had forgotten what a long walk from school it had been, the court house, a park --one of the charming things about this place was there was a park every couple of blocks -- and finally there it was. It was harder to find than I though because I was looking for a hospital that sat across the street. The hospital is no longer there, just ordinary siding houses that did not exactly fit in with the brick fortresses looking over them.

It looks just the same as it did 30 some years ago sans Mother's pretty flowers. It probably looks just the same as it did 80 some years ago when it was built.

The front door is on the right side but the door we usually used is behind the sun room on the left. When entering there are steps going up into the kitchen and steps going down into the basement. In the winter, I used to sit on these steps and lace up my ice skates. I'd trek across the street to the park and skate on the baseball field that was flooded every winter and used as an ice rink. There was a little warming house with a fire place, snack and drink machines, and coffee. Several times a week I would skate until I was nearly frozen then stomp back across the street again.

The street next to the park was on a hill, a steep hill. It usually didn't get cleared by the plow when it snowed. This made for good sledding with none of those pesky tree obstacles. Of course nothing is perfect, there was a stop sign at the bottom of the hill and beyond that a cross street. Since sleds are seldom equipped with brakes and horns, not getting smashed at the bottom by on-coming traffic took a little negotiating sled speed with traffic not visible until about two thirds of the way down and I was not good at math.

In the summer time, my brother and I used to ride our bikes everywhere. As an adult, I can't imagine wanting to ride a bike any where in New Ulm. East to west it's not so bad, mostly level ground but north to south there's going to be some heavy peddling. Up hill, down hill, up hill, down again and on the big hill there was a brewery. Schell's Brewery was perched up on the hill about the city surrounded by gardens of lovely flowers and a dumpster at the back door. This dumpster was the reason for all the huffing and puffing up the hill, down a winding narrow road, and a cut through the woods to shorten the trip. Quite a feat for the little fat girl.

My brother collected beer cans out of the dumpster. Our home had a huge two story detached garage and he proudly displayed a hundred or more in the attic of the garage. There were even more stored in boxes. Sometimes the workers at the brewery would give him empty but sealed cans. He bought some there too. The Schells cans were special because they were artfully decorated. Special cans came out for each new flavor, each season, and many special occasions. Dave begged Dad to go buy beer every time a new can came out.

Dad often did go buy the new can Dave covetted. But Dad couldn't just pop the top and throw one back. Oh no, he had to turn it upside down and carefully poke two holes in the bottom and let it drain into his glass. Then rinse the can and let it dry. A nice cold one after a hard day's work was never simple.

This little trip down memory lane made us think we needed a trip down Main Street to the liuor store. We couldn't locate a liquor store on Main Street. A good chunk of Main Street had been turned into an indoor mall with parking below. We stopped at a gas station but the clerk told us they didn't sell Schells beer and gave us directions to a nearby beverage store.

At the liquor store, we were greeted by a clerk who handed us a menu of more than a dozen different Schells beers he carried along with a discription of each. He even had a rack with all different kinds of Schells and cartons available for the customer to individually pick and choose his own sampler pack. My husband is not god with choices like that so finally I convinced him to take a case of the Fire Brick, a dark beer, and the Zommer Fest (did I mention this was a German town?), a light summery beer, and get back on the road.

Off we went traveling east again across MN to Waseca where we boarded I-35 and headed south to Texas.

More vacation blah blah blah (Vacation Part 2)

We woke, showered, loaded the Escape, and were on the road by 8:00AM. I poked Tom Tom, rousing Dick and soon we were right back on course for Redwood Falls, Minnesota. We had about four hours ahead of us and from the way it looked, most would be under heavy rain. The talk in the motel lobby that morning had been about the heavy rains and some rather large hail that had hit over night. Rick and I looked at each other, we hadn't heard any rain.

Iowa was beautiful and green as ever and had nice smooth highways. And windmills. hundreds of windmills like wind farms or something. I didn't remember windmills from the last trip up there. These must be rather new. And were they ever spinning. I guess stormy weather is good for the wind power industry?It rained off and on all day through Iowa and into Minnesota.

We arrived at Redwood Valley Lodge at around 2:00PM. It's a nice place to stay. Again we were sentenced to the second floor but this place is a bit more civilized than a Super 8. It has an elevator. We unloaded the Escape and started calling around to see where my mother and my sister were. The lady at the desk informed me that my mother and sister had left with "people". You see, when you have an accent you are instantly recognized. The entire staff knew who I was and who I was related to before I even arrived. Kind of made things easy on us.

There's a lot of dead air space out in this area. Even AT&T has missed spots of coverage here. I couldn't get Pat or Mother on the phone so we just asked Dick to find Aunt Judy's (and that's pronounced /Awnt/ Judy's, not /Ant/ Judy's in these parts, when in Rome. . . ) place and headed towards Renville.

We passed through Olivia Minnesota (population 2,362). I must mention this because every time, and there have been many, I've passed through this town, one thought always comes to mind. How clean it is. The houses all look as if they have been freshly painted, the landscapes though nothing fancy are always neat and trim. The down town area is tidy and well kept as well. There's no trash on the street or side of the road. It's just one neat little town. Kudos to you Olivia, Minnesota.

When we reached Renville we found several cousins, an /awnt/ and an uncle sitting in the yard. /Awnt/ Judy, Mother, and Pat were inside baking brownies for the reunion the next day. It's always good to see them. This is the part of my family I feel closest to. The cousins were all my age growing up and I remember so much fun (and trouble) happening here.

Sunday morning as I was getting ready for the reunion, I dropped my can of hair spray directly on my hand mirror and shattered it. Ugh. Seven years bad, seven years bad. Oh boy, and my period was already 4 days late. How much worse luck could that be? But this isn't an announcement, it did finally start later in the week. Back to my story. So we went to Wal*Mart, across the parking lot form the motel and picked up a new mirror, some ice and a container to put it in. Oh yeah, and a bottle of Diurex. Why is it that when I travel my feet swell up so bad?

The reunion was held at Odeon Hall in Belview, Minnesota. I took a lot of pics of family but I'm not sure all of them would be crazy about having their pics on my blog. My mother and sister probably wont mind.

Rick, Mother, me, and Pat

After the reunion, Rick and I drove back to Redwood. We had planned to meet my mother and sister at the Pizza Ranch for dinner but had about an hour to kill. I decided we would ride through Alexander Ramsey Falls Park. It's a lovely city park that's been around for decades. There lots of nice hiking, a zoo, a creek to play in, ball fields, camping, Golf, and I don't know what else. I found this neat VIDEO on the internet. I've been visiting this park all my life. I broke my arm falling off a slide here when I was seven or eight years old. Yes, fond memories. My family used to camp here every summer when we came to visit. Now that I am grown and get to make decisions, I don't camp. I stay in a motel with an elevator.

The falls

When we returned to our room at the motel, we noticed it was way too warm. My husband the fix it person, took the cover off to inspect. Well the filter hadn't been changed this year but there was a bigger problem so we called the desk. The nice young man came up and looked at it and decided he didn't have time to deal with it. He offered to put us in another room so I asked him to put us on the first floor near Mother's room. I didn't have to tell him who Mother was or what room she was in. He simply handed me the key to room 134. Mother was in 135. It's that accent thing. They don't get much of that around there.

We ate pizza at the Pizza Ranch across the street from the motel. Afterward I sent hubby to the Wal*Mart to buy a couple of decks of Pinochle playing cards. My dad is one of my favorite partners. He bids crazy and somehow seems to come out ahead anyway. Since Dad didn't make it this trip, I paired up with Uncle Bernie against my husband and sister. Bernie and I won most of the games. We got lucky.

Monday there was really nothing planned so we ate breakfast with Uncle Bernie and /Awnt/ Carol and bid them a safe trip back to their home in a small town in north east Iowa.

Mother, Pat, and Rick and I spent the morning shopping around downtown Redwood Falls. We went into a gift store where we saw the bridal registry for one of mother cousins who was married the Saturday before. When we commented on it the store clerk asked if we were family. Turned out that she was also related. As we were driving around town my mother pointed to a little bitty historic building and we all looked. Then she announced, "That's the jail where my Daddy stayed." Well, well. Turns out Gramps (who passed away before I was born) was a bootlegger. He was arrested for selling alcohol to a minor during prohibition. There's a tidbit of history we were not expecting. I didn't think to take a pic of the building and can't find one on the internet either.

Next we cruised out to Morton, Minnesota. I've been there many times but I'm not even sure if there's a town hall, a gas station, or what. The only thing I know actually exists in Morton is the Casino, hotel, and campgrounds at Jackpot Junction. And that's where we stopped. I took ten steps into the casino and had to walk right back out again. Oh the smoke! I'm very sensitive to cigarette smoke and apparently Morton hadn't caught up to the times yet and still allowed smoking in public buildings. I left. I went to the car and pulled a book out and found a bench in the shade to read. An hour and a half later my family came out. Rick lost, Pat broke even, Mother won a little so she got to buy us lunch at Chumly's Burger and Brew. The burgers were greasy but the onion rings were awesome.

We quickly ran out of things to do as happens in such small towns and found ourselves back at the motel playing pinochle, an old family favorite. Pat and I teamed against Mom and Rick. My team got lucky again. Pat had lesson plans to do and we were tired of sitting so Mother, Rick and I decided to go walk at the Park. I took some critter pics.

Prairie dogs

Deer

Buffalo

Ducks and geese

Whatever these are

Miniature goats too

Me and hubby

Mom

The sun setting on the falls

Honey, I'm home! (Vacation Part 1)

It's good to be home but oh what fun it is to get away! Hubby and I just returned from our summer vacation. We went to Redwood Falls, Minnesota to attend a family reunion and then on the way home stopped by to visit Sarah, Ricky, and the boys at their new home in San Antonio Texas. Yes, I am aware that San Antonino is not exactly on the way home.

Before setting out on our summer adventure, hubby and I pooled our spare change and headed to Wal*Mart (that's how my grandson spells it, "Dubba you, aye, ell, star . . . ") to pick out a GPS. We chose the cheapest one Wal*Mart had to offer, a Tom Tom.

I programmed Tom Tom to take us to our motel in Redwood Falls, to the Odeon Building in Belview where the reunion was to be held, and to Sarah's address in San Antonio. I couldn't set it for our San Antonio motel because I couldn't come up with a street address for it. It didn't matter, it was only a few blocks from Sarah's home and we could search POI's from there. This was enough to get us up and running. I hoped.

I began fooling around with the gadget and playing with the different settings. I chose the daylight color scheme, the night time setting, and I got to choose the voice that would be bossing us around for the next nine or ten days. Though I was leery of having two Richards in the car both telling me how to drive (and listening to neither), I chose the one called Richard because it was the least obnoxious of my choices. Note to self: look to see if I can download additional voices.

Thursday night when I returned from my nightly visit with my dad, Rick asked me what time I planned on leaving in the morning (as if he was leaving it all up to me). I had my answer ready and I predicted his response because I had already had this conversation with my daughter the day before. When Laura asked me what time we were leaving I told her between 7:00 and 8:00AM. There was no reason to leave any earlier. If we decided to drive straight through (18 hours and 39 minutes according to Tom Tom, road time)we'd be arriving Saturday morning before the sun rose, or anybody else for that matter. If we decided to spend a night on the road, there was even less reason to hurry. The big reason for leaving not so early was that it was already 8:30PM and I hadn't begun to pack. I was going to be up really late. And I was right as usual. Rick argued that we needed to leave no later than 6:00AM. For what, I've no idea. As I told Laura, he could plan to leave at whatever time makes him happy. He wasn't leaving without me and I wasn't going to be ready by 6:00. We left at 7:30AM right on (my) schedule.

Tom Tom turned out to be a great companion early on in the trip. It usually takes us both to navigate through Nashville. We are not accustomed to big city driving and are easily thrown off our groove with the interstate constantly dividing and throwing us first one way then the next. Tom Tom gives us a two mile heads up and points in the direction of our next turn. Nashville went smoothly without a single four lettered word. From here on we fondly referred to Richard, the voice of Tom Tom, as Dick (since we already had a Richard called Rick), our new travel companion and concierge.

Dick swiftly swept us from one interstate to the next, interchange after interchange without much interfering with my cruise control setting. That's good. Through Tennessee we went, into Kentucky, past the KY Lake, and over the KY Dam. Trivia: Is the "KY" in the KY lubricant named after the state or is the dam named for the sexual enhancement aid? Anyway we slipped (pun intended) in and out of Kentucky quickly and easily and before noon we were whizzing past the Lion's Den just across the Illinois border. Yes, Dick can even find a Lion's Den if you ask him. The other dick, the one driving, wouldn't stop.

Illinois. Obama's state. The state that has more orange sand buckets on the side of the road than Alabama has possums and proudly displays each one. The state with the crappiest roads in the nation. The highways are always under reconstruction, but never is there a mile of newly laid asphalt. Illinois' state maximum speed limit is 65mph. I warned my sister of this before she drove Mother up on Wednesday. She gave a snarl that indicated it would not slow her go. As it happened, we never reached 65 mph. There was not two miles of contiguous blacktop or concrete before running into those dreaded luminous orange signs popping up before us with speed limits of 60, then 55, then 50, and sometimes 45 or less. Some signs even boasted $10,000 fine for hitting a construction worker. They place only a $10,000 value on their workers? No wonder we only saw three such workers throughout the whole state. Three was all they had left. For a mere $10K you could cruise through at 85, 90mph. If you hit a worker or two just mail in your check. Bump, bump bump. I had the steering wheel to hold on to, Rick had the oh-shit-handle, but poor Dick didn't have anything. He just came flying gracefully off the dashboard onto the floorboard every quarter or half a mile or so with nary a complaint. But wait, wasn't it Dick's job to tell me there was a chunk of highway missing? I must have licked Dick twenty times or more over the course of the afternoon and resuctioned him to his post on the dash.

Enough about Illinois, oh except they do Mexican food about as well as road construction. We stopped just before Moline and ate at some Mexican restaurant. It was risky, yes, it's hard to know what you are getting with a strange Mexican restaurant but we took a chance. After ordering I was reading the awards on the wall. There were best Mexican restaurant awards from 2000 all the way to 2008. Certainly this place had merits. But it wasn't the cheese dip. The cheese dip was clumpy like cottage cheese, stringy like mozzarella cheese and tasted like wax paper. You just can't beat Camino Real. I don't care what their health rating is, we have never been served a bad meal there ever in eight or ten years, ever. I've even seen three roaches at that place over the years and I am willing to allow them three roaches in ten years because the food is excellent. There, that's all I'm going to say.

Friday night we traveled on to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Between 11:30 and midnight we spied a Super 8 and stopped in. We were assigned a room on the second floor (which meant at midnight I was going to have to carry my suitcases up a flight of stairs) that was non-smoking except that the last occupant had. It was awful! I ran back down the stairs and demanded a new room and fast. We were put in the room next door, it was musty smelling and hot because the air hadn't been turned on but there was no smoke and our queen bed had turned into two full beds. Two full beds trump a queen any day. Good night.