The end of the trail

This blog will be mostly observations, or as I call them “absurdvations.”

Billboard: “Happy Wife = Happy Life”

Armadillo Grill – Cowboy Cookin’

RV Paradise (next to a public storage place)

How much is your leg worth? (billboard for an attorney)

Bugs the size of small birds splatting on the windshield

Starting to see a few, but not many, oilwells

Town signs give elevation, but not population

Texas is the big winner for being the flattest state – we can see telephone poles just peaking over the horizon, getting bigger near you and shrinking again to the opposite horizon.

The flat earth society must be headquartered in Texas

Saw prisoners outside a town jail, smoke break I guess, actually wearing the black and white horizontal striped outfits you see in old movies

An adult video arcade next to a billboard condemning pornography

Lewis Cattle Oilers Company (huh?)

El Chico Restaurant has Fajita Rita Fridays

Kobe Bison Steak – since bison is naturally leaner than beef, do they massage the bison for tenderness the way they do Kobe beef cows?

Beautiful crepe myrtle trees throughout Texas

Rest Stop Signs: “Livestock in Designated Areas Only” (no pet dog walk areas, guess they travel with pet cows)

Tornado Shelter (in restroom)

Watch for Rattlesnakes

Passed through Goodnight, Texas

Bypassed Possum Kingdom State Park

Saw camels in a field by the highway

Texas is huge! We’re 200 plus miles from Amarillo, but an hour west of Wichita Falls and this is the skinny narrow part of the panhandle

El Paso is closer to California than to Dallas

The Red River has red dirt banks

Sign: “Don’t Mess with Texas – $1,000 Fine for Littering”

Saw a drive-through liquor store

72 ounce free steak place featuring limo service and horse parking. Tommy said you have to eat the entire steak to get it for free.(At the RV park we saw the limo pull up and off load some very full looking people. The hood of the limo had long horn horns)

We’re seeing more horse and cattle trailers on the roads than RVs. In fact, in the RV park in Gallup we saw an RV that was a remodeled horse trailer dubbed “runnin’ on faith”

Turtle Hole Auto Bath

A big circus tent put up in an auto parts store parking lot for the Holy Ghost Revival

Passed Prairie Dog Town for of the Red River

Farm stand selling “tomatoes, peaches, okra, plums and hay”

Passed the Tax Barn of Texas and

Bypassed (what else would we do) the Palo Duro canyon – the USA’s 2nd largest canyon

Brandi’s Mane Place – horse grooming and braiding

“It’ll Do” Motel

WOW – World of Wonderland

Top of Texas – the Catholic Superstore

Dairy Queen with a 2-5pm happy hour

Saw a cloud shaped like a steer head skull with horns, dark and angry looking, like a bull who sees a red cape

Pelted with water balloon size rain drops that don’t last long enough to wet the ground, but strong enough to clean the bugs off the windshield. Great lightening too.

Tom waits until the last minute to get fuel and then shops around for the cheapest price! ARGH! He’ll use $10 in fuel to save $10 in fuel.

Passed the Horse Hotel and Gift Shop and the Happy Tracks Horse Motel

Wendy’s new Baconator Burger – meatarians unite

American Quarter Horse Museum & Hall of Fame

Finally saw a couple prairie dogs. They looked like scruffy little chihuahuas playing in a puddle by the road. Reminded me of the bubonic plague carrying ground squirrels in the SoCal mountains

Passed Bushland. Named at the vegetation or the president?

Skippers Seafood – just like Seattle’s fast food places

Wildorado – windfarms

Saw a cowboy herding cattle at a feed lot

“You’re in Cowboy Country, Pahdner” – visit the oldest hardware store on Route 66

There are parking areas and picnic areas along the highways, but no rest areas

Stuff It Taxidermy

Stuckey’s billboards advertised Squawkers Chicken and Blankets $7.99

15 miles from the New Mexico border the land is changing. More mesas, gullys and hills

Saw an antelope standing and patiently waiting for someone to play with. The few cattle were lying down

Passed Deaf Smith County Line

New Mexico: Immediately the roads were rougher. Landscape is a little greener, one river wannabe is really red

Buffalo Thunder Casino

Gas station storage tanks were above ground

Lots of ghost towns, or places on life support with the plug almost pulled out

Flying C Ranch billboards are the Krazy Kaplans of NM. Lotsa rocks, mocassins, ice cream, fleece blankets, snakes, rattler items galore!

Eat here and get gas!

& Fireworks!

Mountains! The Sangre Cristos. YAY! The world isn’t flat after all.

Crossed the Pecos River. Didn’t see Bill.

Left behind the Baptists and started seeing the Seventh Day Adventists

Passed a Wildlife Park where the animals were playwood cutouts

Did not detour to see the grave of Billy the Kid, Roswell wasn’t on I40, so it was definitely out. Sorry, Julie. No Petroglyphs or the Museum of Anthropology. No International Rattlesnake Museum.

Passed Unser Boulevard and the Daytona Transit Facility.

Trailer parks trailers have old tires on the roofs

Looking trashier – no apparent garbage collection and fences are made of the tires that didn’t make it to the roofs.

Graffiti is back. What little evidence there was of it in Dallas was painted over. Here in NM you see it on worn out buildings and train cars

Passed the Continental Divide Indian Village elevation 7,295 feet

Passed  a place called Iyanbito

Didn’t go to Shiprock, near Four Corners. Would have necessitated traveling on highway 666

20 miles outside of Albuquerque saw real trees again

sign: “Eric Estrada & DWI Checkpoint Sightings All Over New Mexico”

Gallup, New Mexico – the El Rancho Motel of Route 66 glory days.

TV program: The Local Most Wanted of the Week

Haven’t noticed any bugs lately, is it too hot?

Pancake House at Fort Courage was closed down. We’re not in the south anymore, I guess

Stewart’s Ostrich Farm offered free egg recipes

Petrified Forest National Park – Tom was disappointed. He though he would be seeing a real standing forest of trees turned to stone

Green Petrified Wood – is it fresh cut? Ha ha

Petrified Wood Corral

Land for Sale – $2.95 an acre

Crazy Creek meanders all over the place

Dead River is just sand

Crash at our Pad – Meteor Crater RV Park

Passed by a cop with a drug sniffing dog that was barking like crazy at the car of a guy who was cuffed and already wearing a black and white striped shirt

Roadkill 66 Cafe

Seeing lots of trains. Tom is happy

Saw a ghost “kamp”

Flagstaff – we’re back to pine trees and cell towers that look like pine trees

Saw a couple wineries in NM, but none in AZ

Vet’s office: “It’s time for rattlesnake vaccines for dogs and cats”

Outside Kingman the land is taking on a more blowtorched appearance

Passed the Holy Moses Wash, Shinarump and the Oatman Highway

Went to Oatman seven years ago. Old mining town, pretty deserted but the descendants of the miners’ donkeys wander loose in the streets

Crazy Fred’s Truck Stop & Gentlemen’s Club

Starting to see an occasional baby joshua tree

In a little unnamed town in AZ at the local “Professional Plaza” the only tenant was Fisher’s Trash

Bypassed London Bridge and good friends Jerry & Paulette Johnson in Lake Havasu. Promised Lisa we would get to Oceanside by the 3rd to babysit her dogs (they are going camping for the weekend)
The Colorado River is blue and green, not brown or red

Starting to gain elevation. Barren vastness of Mojave Desert. Montana skies don’t seen so big now.

Lots of trains and lava rock – like the Kona coast without the ocean

Emergency Parking Only along the desert freeway. Like, who is going to stop there for any other reason?

No funny billboards, just hot dry towns.

Rats – another unused runaway truck ramp. Someday, maybe I’ll get to see one used…

San Bernardino – back to SoCal. The air is filthy. Can’t see very far. Anarchy on the roads. Lots of debris along the 215. Dead  trees. Depressing – shacks and junk. Cool old rail road station. Lots of road construction.

Miracle Mile – six RV dealers

Largest USA AM/PM at the Ramona/Cajalco Expressway. We used to go along there on our way to our cabin in Idyllwild. All that was there back then was an old guy with one leg who sold jerky out of his car truck. I think it was leg jerky. We never stopped. Especially after he “lost” his other leg.

215 has really built up. Unrecognizable from 15 years ago.

Tacos El Gordo. Guess they know our Gordon makes tacos every Tuesday

Little Shop of Horns – cattle? Car? Trumpete?

Temperature is cooler in Rancho California – only 95 degrees

The avocado highway

Passed by a Smart Car advertising Smart Realty

Back to Oceanside. Familiarity. It’s like a homecoming. We’ll see the kids and the grandkids. Old friends. Blue skies, warmth, cool breezes and palm trees.

For us the East is least and the West is best. We belong here. It’s fun to travel and we’ll do this again and better, but the I-5 corridor between San Diego and Seattle is home. And that is where our hearts are.

This will probably be the last blog of the trip. We head north tomorrow and it is the same-old same-old. Plus, I am tired and a little down to look at it with a new perspective. By the way, Tom got his job offer. And Julie’s baby is due in less than a month, so we’ll have lots of reasons to travel up and down the coast and maybe do a new and improved blog on those exploits.

Bernie, our old brown dog made it to SoCal and to his 17th birthday plus two days. It wasn’t the heat, the humidity, the trip (he adored traveling), but it was simply his time. With a little help from a caring vet, he went where all dogs go – to heaven. He was the best dog ever. We are so grateful to have had him so long and to have him enjoy so many of our travels.

Dallas: The center of Global Warming!

On to Dallas and a visit with Tom’s son, Kelly Kennedy, and his family. Kelly and his wife Michelle have two children, Niki (16) and Alex (14). The kids call us Uncle Tom and Aunt Sandy. At least they don’t call Tom “Pappy.” That is another fellow.

Kelly and Tom  are both in computer storage sales, but that is where the similarity ends. Kelly is 12 years younger, fair with reddish blond hair, six-pack abs, Cheshire cat white teeth, a Texas drawl and a much disciplined attitude towards “the creature,” as the Irish call alcohol. Tom is gray, both in hair and teeth, has  half-rack abs, and loves his happy hour. Kelly is fastidiously neat and clean, and buys a new car every three or four months (last year it was 12 and he has owned over 100). Tom needs to be hosed off most of the time and drives cars until they rust away to nothing and quit running. Although he only converted to Catholicism this past year, Kelly has always had a helpful heart and welcomes people into his home and life. He has played head-hunter and host for many of his friends and previous co-workers.

To make a long story short and leave out most of the details, Tom worked for Kelly’s sales team. On his frequent business trips to Dallas Tom would stay at Kelly’s. Over the last 10 years or so he has watched Alex and Niki grow and the cars come and go. We have gone to Disneyland with them, as well as Hawaii.  They even braved the cold and the dark to come to our Maple Valley house for Thanksgiving a couple years ago. There was no way we could go gallavanting around the country without visiting them.

Besides, Kelly had put a bone through his nose, wrapped his grass skirt around his waist grabbed his spear and arranged a job interview for Tom: Kelly the headhunter. And Niki had written a screenplay about rock stars, was in the process of filming it and needed to use Jabba as the tour bus. Indulgent grandfather that he is, Tom couldn’t say no to Niki and as much as he would like to be retired I reminded him (“nicely”) that we needed him to bring in some income.

You might wonder why/how Tom is Kelly’s father. Granted, Lisa was born on Woodstock Weekend, but Tom was no free-lovin’ hippy. Tom and Kelly have known each other for about 16 years, when they both worked for a company hq’d in Texas called Dallas Digital. Years later Kelly and Tom both worked for different companies and Kelly made a business trip to Seattle to visit customers and meet with one of the sales distributors, where Tom happened to be working. An old acquaintance be not forgot and a new friendship and business relationship was formed. Kelly convinced his company to hire Tom for his sales team and the result was Tom taking many trips to Dallas. He always stayed at the Kennedy’s.

The Kennedys always went to Hawaii for their annual vacation. One year, Tom was staying at their home when they were planning their trip and he managed to get us invited along.  Kelly probably brought home a lot of stray dogs and cats when he was a kid…

Anyway, the day before we left to fly over and meet them in Maui, Tom was working in his garage. He was wailing away at some metal drive-train, or whatever, part of a car and part of it broke off and went flying. He felt something nick his cheek by his eye, but neither of us could see anything and assumed it was just a near miss that just grazed him.

We flew to Hawaii and proceeded to enjoy the Kennedys, the weather, the warmth and the wonder of it all. Within a day though, Tom’s eye began to get puffier than normal. It reminded me of an old tv show we’d seen, where this Chinese guy has this miniature growth on his head which turns out to be the head of his twin who never developed or separated. Kelly was creeped out so he took Tom to the doctor. Luckily, the emergency doctor was a retired plastic surgeon and immediately put the guys at ease. No, it wasn’t a vestigial growth, but a metal fragment that had lodged close to his eye. It could easily be removed and since it was in one of Tom’s many crow’s feet there would be no additional scar.

Tom was nervous, so Kelly stayed with him while the doctor dug and chopped. During the procedure Kelly’s cell phone rang. The house sitter needed to back wash the pool filter and needed to know how to do it. Kelly’s descriptive narrative (“You need to grab it hard and really twist, pull…”) was a concern to Tom, who thought the doctor would use Kelly’s pool instructions on his face.

After it was all over and Tom was presenting insurance and billing info to the receptionist, the nurse walked up to Kelly and said to him, “It’s so nice to see a young man caring for his father so thoughtfully.”  Thus, friendship turned to family.

Meanwhile, back to Dallas. It was as horribly hot in Dallas as we had experienced elsewhere throughout the south.  We would be staying in the RV in front of the Kennedy’s, but plugged into their electricity. At least that was the plan.  Unfortunately, the RV kept popping the circuit breaker. It was the same circuit that the wine fridge, the snack refrigerator and the kegerator were on. Priorities. We would try sleeping in the RV, but move to the house if need be. There was no way the important things in life would be compromised. Save the beer!

We moved to the house. Inside the RV the thermostat read 114 degrees. Outside it was 105.  Even the swimming pool was 90. Kelly played Christmas music, hoping to convince everyone it was cooler. The dogs even tolerated being hosed off.

The Kennedy’s two cats went into hiding as our dogs descended upon the house and their dog, Coco, was a good sport, but wouldn’t touch her toy bone after Lucy played with it.

Saturday night, Kelly and Michele took us to a wine tasting party that friends of theirs were hosting. We met some great people and learned some interesting stuff about wine too. Sampled a light fruity white Merlot that would be perfect for a Sunday afternoon sitting by the pool or a garden party. But not today in Dallas!  We also learned that wine tastes better when drunk/inbibed from a glass that has no lip. It lands on a different part of the tongue and brings out different flavors – sweet, salty, bitter, acid, etc.

Sunday Michele’s parents and other friends of theirs came over. Tom made his shrimp and scallop over angel hair pasta dish. He had to compete with Michele’s halibut and Havarti dill cheese in puff pastry dinner the night before. (She got the recipe from another of Kelly’s former workmates/friends/houseguest. Take a filet of your favorite fish, halibut or salmon for instance. Season with your choice of seasonings – seafood, dill, garlic, onion. Top it with cheese: Havarti with dill, jalapeno jack, brie, whatever. Wrap it completely with store-bought puff pastry and seal the seams. Scramble a raw egg and brush it on the pastry packets. Pop into a preheated 375 or so oven and back until golden brown, about a half hour. )

Niki showed us the video she had created from their recent trip to Maui. She makes a movie every summer, and plans to do it professionally. She writes the scripts, films, casts, acts and edits. Her friends and her brother perform for her too. She even has a red-carpet premiere.

Monday was a little cooler. The air-conditioning inside the house still struggles to cool to 79 degrees and the pool remains at 89 degrees. There were occasional breezes and the sky was overcast and gave off little sprinkles. Tom has fixed the RV steps and one AC fuse.

Tom’s interview went well, but there is no firm offer yet. Tomorrow we hit the road. Hopefully, the rest of the Southwest will be cooler. The Kennedys have been terrific hosts, but three dogs and two not really fit for civilization people is a lot to put up with. We want to keep their friendship for years to come!

N. Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas…. when do we get home, please?

Having Julie and Alex fly in for Georgie’s party gave us time to spend with them, as well as the rest of Georgie’s family. Alex works long and hard and we don’t always have much if any time to visit with him as much as we’d like. Hmmm… Or maybe it’s more than he’d like. Nah. He’s a good guy. 

 

Both Alex and Julie told us we really had to plan our trip so we could see the Great Smoky Mountains. Alex went on and on about their beauty and on our map it looked they were tall enough to be called mountains. We could never say no to Alex and we had to head in that direction anyway.

 

The weather got hot and humid and the skeeters were biting, so we were happy to stay in Jabba with the air conditioning on and the windows closed. Tom commented on how smooth the roads were. The words were barely out of his mouth when we hit a rough section and the under cabinet mounted coffee maker came unbolted and crashed down onto the counter. 

 

Virginia and North Carolina has tons of Daylilies and Black-eyed Susans along side the roads. Their were no tobacco fields, unless they masquerade as kudzu or corn. We did pass the Philip Morris USA HQ the day before. It has a huge tall tower in front that looks like a cigarette. 

 

I love the kudzu. It envelopes the trees and makes them look as though they are dress up for Halloween – wearing leafy green sheets and trying to reach out and scare you. Boo!

 

I think Tom likes Rving because he now has a real reason for not stopping so I can shop. Few places, including many RV parks, are big enough for an RV and car extending over 60 feet long. Sigh… No more opportunities to buy kitchy crap. Tom needs that saved money to pay for the diesel fuel. At least there are no more tolls. 

 

We passed over  the Yadken Pee-Dee River Basin and by the Pudding Ridge Golf Club. There are no freeway adoptions or sponsorships.  We see why. There, alongside the highway is an prison inmate road worker crew. We know they are convicts – there are two guards accompanying them who are carrying rifles! 

 

Cars follow and tailgate each other like NASCAR drivers. Ville is the most common suffix to town names. 

 

Between the Sloans’ house, Rene and Den’s place and the countryside in general I am getting a lot of good landscaping ideas. Watch, Tom will complain but eventually do them and then take original credit for the ideas.

 

I love seeing all the great signs for places so different than what I am used to seeing. Not that I want to partake of a lot of them, but they are worthy of mention, a snicker or an outright laugh. Road-side stands sell Frog Jam and Moonshine Jelly. There was a Papoose Motel and Cherokee Choppers and the Native Clans Casket Company.

 

We must be in the Bible Belt. There are no casinos, but a big sign proclaims “Night Club” – Stompin’ First Baptist Church Ground Swamp Party with Pig Pickin’.

 

Hot Boiled Peanuts, the Tidal Wave Car Wash, Biscuitville, and this one I later saw in San Bernardino, CA – Landshark Lager – Let the fin begin! Not far away, as we start our ascent into the Smokys a billboard warns “Life in the Ocean Depends on Us – Keep it Clean.”  The Atlantic is hundreds of miles away.

 

English seems to be a second language here. The accents are so strong it often sounds like the locals have mouths full of those boiled peanuts.

 

We pass a place advertising Hillbilly Golf and drive past Gum Stand Road and Knotty Branch Road. A yellow diamond sign warns us to “Watch for Fallen Rocks” – no falling rocks as in the West . It is an older geographic area I guess.

 

The Smoky Mountains are indeed great. The road is bordered by beautiful rocky creeks and hiking trails. The turnouts to see the views are spectacular. Like the road to Hana on Maui, there are many switchbacks and hairpin turns. You attain an altitude of 5,000 feet. There are no rainbow eucalyptuses, orchids, hibiscus or tarzan-vines, but there are real forests filled with maple, rhododendrons, kudzu and babbling brooks.,Jaded person that I am, I thought they would just look like the LA basin on a smoggy day. Nope. They are definitely worth the trip. 

 

The other sidc of the mountains brought us to Gatlinburg and then the Mecca for jaw-dropping tourist-trap kitsch Pigeon Forge.  Gatlinburg is at least in a pretty mountainy setting, but both places are as fake as Dolly Parton’s “twins.”  

 

Gatlinburg has Santa’s Land and Zoo. Its little rollercoaster has Rudolph “pulling” the first car. Ray’s Diner was a single wide trailer. You are in Cherokee land.There was a guy hanging around a street corner dressed in tribal attire and sporting a Mohawk haircut. It has a Tomahawk Mini Mall and places selling Rat Cheese. You’ll find Jigglin’ George’s, Bubba Gump’s, a Hard Rock Cafe, an aquarium and the Motor Nature Trail.

 

 In Pigeon Forge, Dolly Parton’s home town, there are mile after mile of video arcades, carnival and amusement park rides, go-carts, Elvis shows and museums. One place offered you a “Free Hermit Crab” and we passed the National Knife Museum and the World’s Largest “As Seen on TV” store. We passed a huge “adult” superstore. We didn’t see Dollywood, but saw billboards advertising the combination Gospel & Harvest Festival (Oct. 3-31). Like ABC stores in Hawaii and Starbuck’s in Seattle, every block had at least one and many times two or more pancake houses. It was with regret that we kept driving. Yeah, right.

 

Tom made breakfast the next morning before we hit the highways again. Guess what he made? Yup, pancakes! We have decided it must be the official state food.

 

No more towns of untold delight awaited us, but we did pass a place extolling its Wheat Community and African Burial Ground. Lots of the trucks passing us boasted wheels with spikes sticking out of their lug nuts, like the ones in the chariot race in Ben Hur. We kept our distance from them. We went through gently rolling hills, it wasn’t so flat. The kudzu looks almost like topiary creations. We passed Frozen Head and Mousetail State Parks a Crab Orchard and a Y-12 National Security Laboratory Complex (whatever that is). We drove by a place with the best name ever – Bucksnort, Tennessee.

 

Getting fuel is a disaster waiting to happen. Ah, for the good old days – any station, any pump, any price. When buying only 10 gallons, 10 cents a gallon difference in price doesn’t amount to much.  With Jabba’s 150 gallon tank, the price difference becomes significant!  The station the King of the Road selected didn’t have a diesel pump convenient (read that possible) to get in and out. And at the station across the street that we could get into we had to disconnect the HHR and make a 7 point turn to get to the pump. And then we were boxed in by other cars for a half an hour. Yes, I remember those good old days well. Arrive at the motel and bring in your overnight back, my pillows, and the dog food. Cheaper and a lot less hassle than refueling. At least we can go 1,000 miles between fill-ups. But when we get below a half a tank Tom starting acting like a smoker down to his last half pack of cigarettes. 

 

It is very hot. Wicked witch that I am, I’d usually melt, but it is too humid. We kept the air conditioning going all night. 

 

The RV parks all have signs that tell you, “In case of natural emergency, seek shelter in the restrooms.” Luckily, tornadles are not forecast.

 

We passed some motorcycle riders sporting leather jackets emblazoned with “Sons of Silence.” Silence? On Harleys? We saw a place selling Lazer Z riding lawn mowers. They had roll bars! The rear bumper of a big truck “passing side” on the left side of his rear bumper and “suicide” on the right side. 

 

It is getting flatter. Just little downgrades. Very gradual.  60 miles east of Memphis a billboard for Graceland cried out, “You had me at Hound Dog.” There were tons of bouquets of flowers in front of it. 

 

Another decreed “In the beginning God created” then there was a circle with a monkey in it and a line drawn through it and Darwinism written below that and another circle with “earth” written it.

 

The National Hatchery was passed. I think they hatch gnats there.

 

Oh, did I forget to mention in Indiana we saw a billboard that asked the question “Hoosier Daddy?” for DNA paternity testing?

 

It was incredibly oppressively hot in Memphis. We parked by the Mississippi River and Tom disconnected the HHR and went for barbecue to bring back for lunch. Julie insisted Memphis had the best in the world. After tasting the food Tom brought back from Neely’s I have to agree. It turned out Alex and Julie had never seen the Great Smoky Mountains, but they did have Memphis barbecue. We ate in the air conditioned comfort of the RV, as it was in the high 90’s outside. We saw the pyramid, but there was too much road work and no time to explore anyway. We need to get to Dallas. 

 

We need to add more coolant to the AC. Until now, everyone has said it is rainier and 10 degrees cooler than normal for this time of year. It is flat here too. The only variations in the horizon are groves of trees. Tom thought he saw a tornadle, but it was just a dust devil, thankfully. 

 

The waffle houses continue where the pancake houses left off. There is one at every freeway exit. They are more plentiful than Walmarts!  We passed Mack’s – the World’s Foremost Waterfowl Outfitter. Your ducks need wearing apparel in the south, I guess.

 

We saw a swamp along I-40 and it looked just like the one in Disneyland’s Blue Bayou. I-40 needs work: it is bumpy and junk is piling up along its shoulders. No road adoptions here either. Medians sport black-eyed Susans, whose sunny petal color matches the yellow-orange stripes on the roads. Many of the trees and shrubs throughout the south are unfamiliar to me. 

 

Silos are bigger in diameter than in the mid-west, but shorter and have Chinese coulee-hat pointy tops.

 

The Rest Area restroom door bore the sign: “Women – No Pets.”  T-Ricks RV Park had a big t-rex statue and advertised barbecue and ribs. I wonder if they were t-rex ribs? Nick’s barbecue featured catfish. And there was the Catfish barn. And finally a Starbucks. 

 

Billboards warned: “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery,” “Warning: Prepare to Meet God,” and “If you die today, where will you spend eternity?” “I hope it’s not here in Arkansas,” said Tom. The scariest one was “I-30 Liquors – exit now…the next 5 counties are dry.”

 

A Pentecostal church declared itself to be “a real church for a real world.”

 

There were few animals in fields, but one place offered registered Brangus cattle. 

 

The road continues bumping along and the coffee maker shook loose again.  The air conditional blower tube either popped off or melted loose. The “Smokin’ Style BBQ” seemed appropriate. We passed the town boasting to be the boyhood home of Bill Clinton. I know now why he didn’t go back to Arkansas after the presidency.

 

The fellow Tom is interviewing with suggested we stay at Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He said he and his fraternity brothers stayed their during their college days. Yeah, for hell week. Hot Springs was hellishly hot. There was an amusement park with nasty looking rides and the town looks kinda rundown.  Then the RV problems began for real. The AC quit. The stairs wouldn’t descend (I guess it thought we were already at the lowest level of hell, and the generator doesn’t want to cool. Tom commented, “If you’re not a Mr. Fix-It and enjoy fixing stuff, don’t buy an RV.”

 

A roadside business claimed “Humane Animal Removal and Repair.” Of the animal?

 

There was even a Romainian Apostolic Pentecostal Church. 

 

We saw the first palm tree of the trip and a cardinal. Lots of fireworks stands were open and ready for business. Moonlight Tattoo told you to”Blame it on the Moon.” We passed some roadkill – an armadillo.

 

Soon to be roadkill, we were passed by a couple sharing one motorcycle. No helmets, just bandanas. Both wearing shorts. She in back in a tube-top which kept slipping down and her legs wrapped around his waist.

 

The Red River was neither red, nor a river. Texas continued on hot and humid. Mt. Pleasant –  where? Passed a big Ocean Spray Cranberries plant. We are nowhere anywhere near where a cranberry would grow. We passed the Rainbow Ranch, a dairy museum, and the Audie Murphy-American Cotton Museum. 

 

Tom is psycho. Oops, psychic! Yesterday we were talking about celebrities and he mentioned how he wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Michael Jackson had died. This morning it came to pass. We were together the entire day, so I know he didn’t hear it some other place.

 

Alliteration at its finest: Big Bruce’s BarBQ and Burger Barn. Hardee’s is now Carl’s Jr. There are Steak ‘n Shakes. The Black Eyed Pea restaurant tells you to “arrive empty and leave full.”

 

It is flat and there is a big lake. Where did it come from? A lotta rain? Musta been a real gully washer.

 

Oh, boy! A waffle house again! How about a place called “Condoms to Go.” Or maybe you prefer “All Shoes $4.99 – Off Price Shoes.”

 

The road-side warned “We ticket drivers and passengers. Click it or Ticket.”

 

Miraculously, we managed to bypass the North Dallas Toll-way. Whew!

 

Note to self: Don’t apply lipstick while traveling bumpy roads, or in stop and go traffic. 

 

It is hot, humid, hazy and 105 degrees, but a sign warns to watch for ice on the bridges. 

 

Great sign on top of a taxi: Grandma always says, “pull ’em up.” It shows low droopy baggy pants.

 

How about a bumper sticker, “Horn broke, watch for finger.”

 

We made it to Dallas. Yee ha! 

What did Della wear? She wore big, fat moneybags!

 

 

Like I said before, we had scrod in Boston, but we got scrod in Delaware. To get there for that thrill we had to get out of New York and traverse the Jersey turnpike.

 

A couple of unrelated observations I made along the way. There were very few college alumni license plate holders on passing cars, but we did see two UCLA ones. Not as many personalized plates as you see in the west either.  WAWA is a brand of gas and the name tickled my funny bone. New Jersey, though nicknamed the Garden State, has a lot of areas that smell like the proverbial Old Fogey’s Stogie.

 

 Now remember, I have paid for the right to dislike a couple of Mid-Atlantic and southern border states, as well a couple kinda-sorta Mid-West states – especially Delaware! 

 

We paid $27.95 for the right to drive the New Jersey Turnpike. After NJ we drove a few short miles in Delaware and crossed a bridge over the Delaware River. It cost us $16 to cross the flipping bridge, while a  car would have been only $3! The toll taker admitted that if we unhitched the HHR it would have been $3 a piece. But somehow the two didn’t add up to $6 but $16. 

 

Then! Less than 10 miles further down the road at the Maryland border we were charged another $9! What a bargain… The toll taker there told us if we driving north instead of south our toll there would have been $23!  Get me out of here! Now you know where the term “highway robbery” comes from.

 

We knew we must be in the south as we passed a shrine to Stonewall Jackson.  A shrine? Was he a god? Haven’t seen any confederate flags yet. Just pirate ones…

 

It’s PDF (pretty darn flat) here too. I still could smile a little at the names of the “Ni” river and the “Po” river and the Chickahominy. Chortles, chuckles and laughs not yet. I’m still getting over the tolls. 

 

There are few RV’s on the roads. Fuel is affordable, but I guess the tolls eat you alive. The dealers we see have very small inventories. There are lots of waffle houses though.  We saw the Toddler University and Childcare Center.

 

Traffic around DC went on for hours and extended way south, past Fredericksburg.  Between the traffic and Maggie’s directions (our GPS gizmo) we were late getting to Tom’s cousin’s in Mechanicsville, VA.

 

 Tom’s father had three brothers and one sister. He, his sister and youngest brother stayed on Long Island, and the other two brothers moved to Pennsylvania. They all worked for the same company at one time, and I guess they helped expand the business.  Anyway, Tom saw them often and visited with the PA cousins during his childhood, but as an adult he had only seen some of them – at funerals or his parents’ 50th anniversary party 23 years ago. All of his father’s generation is gone, except for his youngest brother’s wife who was at the party for Georgie. 

 

Somehow, in the last couple years Tom made contact with one PA cousin Barney, who also came to Georgie’s party, and Rene (pronounced Reenee & short for Maureen – a good Irish name). She was a daughter of the other PA brother. 

 

We were going to Mechanicsville, VA to visit Rene, her husband Den and Rene’s brother John and his wife Amy (who live in Fredericksburg).  Rene and Den live out in the country and John and Amy were driving down for our visit. 

 

My only memory of meeting any of them was at Tom’s paternal grandfather’s funeral. It was Amy I remembered. Both of us were pregnant and she was the lucky one. She could eat anything she wanted. After I ate my two heads of lettuce every day I could have too, but somehow I never made it that far. 

 

Anyway, keeping true to my small comfort zone persona, I wasn’t too upset that we were running late. Less time to have to be with strangers.

 

That didn’t last long. We were greeted with hugs and kisses and John’s famous and delicious Cosmopolitans. All right! We sat outside on their deck that overlooked a woodland and caught up on the last 2/3’s of our lives and then retired to the dining room for a delicious lasagna dinner Rene had prepared.

 

Rene is an excellent cook, a master gardener and ran an interior furnishing, gift and decorating business with one of her sisters. Den is a mostly retired chemical engineer. He works two days a month, but is more than happy to travel world-wide for the company and make presentations. Rene has accompanied him and they have had some fabulous trips and even lived in Shanghai for awhile. 

 

Their three children are grown and they delight in their grandchildren. They share their huge and beautifully appointed home with a cute but elusive cat.

 

John and Amy probably have a cat or two, but they also have 10 dogs, two horses and two pigs. They would like to have chickens too, but there are foxes in their vicinity. Obviously, they live in the country  too.

 

John owns an importing company that imports one of my favorite things – towel warmers. Unless you hang you towel over the window of your RVas you travel through the hot flat places this country of ours seems to abound with, I don’t know how you could possibly think of not having a towel warmer. I cringe at the thought of using a damp towel. If you don’t have a towel warmer you must have maid service twice a day to replace towels.

 

 Amy designs and makes street signs for their town. As I mentioned, the last time I saw her she was pregnant. That baby is now all grown up, married and pregnant with her 12th child. He oldest is 19 and attending UVA. They also have three sons.

 

Rene and John also have three other living sisters and one who died.

 

Every year their entire branch of the family tree gets together for a reunion. Everyone attends – the siblings, all of their children and the grandchildren. I was so jealous to hear that. I have cousins whose names I don’t know, much less where they live.

 

We all laughed and reminisced about old times…. well, they did. I remembered their parents and shared my fond memories of them. The biggest laugh of the evening came when Tom told us what he’d say when Georgie asked him about what we’d talked about. Tom said we spent the evening talking about colonoscopies and pot-bellied pigs. 

 

They were all so gracious, fun and welcoming. I felt at ease immediately and the evening went too fast. Bedtime came too soon and we were shocked to discover it was pouring down rain, when we opened the door to return to Jabba.

 

The next morning Den gave us directions on how to get back to the Interstate. There were no more tolls to curse, but Maggie, in directing us to their home, had taken us on every little country dirt road in the county and over a bridge designed to handle loads far less than Jabba weighed. 

 

The next leg of our odyssey would land us in Dallas. We had hoped to take our time, actually see some of the sites along the way, and visit Dave and Cindy Marshall, dear friends from California who now lived in Nashville, pronounced “nashvul.” But we need to pick up the pace, as Tom had a job interview in Dallas on Friday. 

 

He has been pursuing this lead/opportunity for a couple months and since he hasn’t worked in a year, we thought it wise to get there. So, like long haul truckers, we hit the road again.

 

 

I love family reunions, cousin……what was your name again?

The morning tv sportscaster, as well as the weathermen, are all pointing to Seattle as the the nation’s best place to be, weather-wise. Thirty-one days in a row without rain! Can’t say that about Long Island. 

 

Saturday morning on Long Island was 3,000 miles and a deluge of a downpour different than Seattle. Thunderstorms were being called for, as well as lots more rain. How could the clouds possibly hold any more than they had already dumped on L.I.? Tiger’s comeback and the future of the U.S. Open Golf Tournament were of no concern to us, though. Well… to a small degree they were.  We were moving to an RV park adjacent to the golf course where the tournament was being played. Our confirmed site had no hookups, but if anyone wimped out on account of the rain we could upgrade and have power and could empty the sh***er.  

 

For the present our immediate concerns were: 1.) Picking up Julie and her husband Alex from their hotel (they had flown in late the night before); and 2.) Georgie’s party – how in the world would his kids possibly get their home-body father to a park for a picnic?! In the rain no less. At home he had everything a park did and more. 

 

Though 7 ½ months pregnant Julie had gotten the blessing from her OBGYN to fly back for Georgie’s party. She hadn’t been to New York since she was 13 – for Steve and Ina’s son’s Bar Mitzvah. She had told Lisa she was disgusted to admit she could pass by any of her cousins in the street and not recognize them. 

 

Alex managed to take time off from work and flew back with her. Julie was only going back if he could come. She didn’t want to hear about it for the rest of her life if she went into labor and had their baby girl without him being there. 

 

At their hotel we recognized them and headed to the park. To Julie’s amazement, we found the right group without too much searching. Sad to say it was almost as hard for Tom and me to recognize the cousins as it was for Julie, but all the other groups picnicking were Filipino so we lucked out. 

 

Georgie’s kids got a tremendous turn-out in spite of the weather. Old friends from his bartending days, neighbors and the entire family – except for his youngest son who lives in Roanoke, VA and whose wife was expecting their first child at any minute. Tom’s last living aunt, Francine was their (she did have to wander through all the other picknickers first though), and his cousin Barney drove up from the New Jersey shore for the festivities. 

 

Amazingly, they even got Georgie to his party! Surprised and quite overwhelmed emotionally, it was so moving for all of us. 

 

A year and a half ago Georgie was diagnosed with esophogeal cancer, and even though he is doing extremely well, we all wanted to let him know how much he is loved.

 

The rain let up now and then, but even at its wettest it didn’t stop the kids from playing ball and flying kites.  Tom counted himself as one of the young and tried his best to fly his kite (from our NW campouts). In fact, until someone compared him to Ben Franklin, his kite and electricity experiments, he was happy to run around like a little kid. 

 

The afternoon got later and the rain picked up, so everyone who didn’t have a long way to drive, picked up and moved the party back to Georgie’s.  Barbecued chicken, burgers and hot dogs with all the favorite side dishes had amply fed us during the afternoon and the leftovers returned with us to Georgie’s.  As the evening progressed we shared memories of Georgie and videos and made new memories as well. 

 

Julie and Alex spent the nights at George and Adeline’s Bates Motel – their basement apartment that was inspired by their stay in our Bates Motel. Julie was very content. A favorite uncle and a doting aunt and renewed friendships with her cousins. In fact, Georgie’s oldest daughter, Laura, went out and brought back New York bagels  for breakfast. Georgie had added to her culinary enjoyment by fixing everyone cheese omelets, too. 

 

Julie’s second motivation for the trip was to sample the local food. She had to have a Philly Cheese Steak when they changed planes in Philadelphia (she was disappointed) and while in New York she had to have bagels, White Castle hamburgers and pizza.   She and Alex had a mid-afternoon flight back to L.A., so we drove them out to L.I. MacArthur airport. Alex had to get back to work bright and early Monday morning. With the economy the way it is, he is super busy – he’s a corporate bankruptcy attorney. On the way we stopped and got White Castle Hamburgers. I didn’t eat any, as I remember them from the only other time I had eaten them – when we first moved to L.I.. I was pregnant with Lisa and suffering from morning (all day) sickness. I’m not going to be pregnant (thank God!) ever again, but the mere smell of those burgers puts me back in those gaggy flu-like days of yore. Julie love them and scarfed up a bag of them, leaving no room for pizza. 

 

They ran into problems at the Philadelphia airport, where they once again had to change planes. The airline had to make an equipment change, which meant some passengers had to be bumped. For some unfathomable reason, the airline separated them. Alex had to fly back alone and Julie had to spend the night in the city of brotherly love. And she’s pregnant! You’d think they wouldn’t want the liability. On the good side, Alex got back to work in time and Julie didn’t go into labor and she did get a free ticket. And she got another and much better Philly Cheese Steak!

 

Oh! Can’t forget it – the day after the party was Father’s Day! It was so terrific to have so much time to spend with our extended family. 

 

And with that the rain tapered off and we began to think about the morrow’s departure to Virginia.   

 

 

How long is Lawng Giland anyways??

“Banned in Boston

Condemned in Cleveland

and Banished from Baltimore.

Tom is now tabu in Philly and St. Lou

and Chicago doesn’t dig  anymore.”

Just a note: Tom is the one responsible for titles on these blogs – and the misspelled words.

I’m having a hard time, but I’m working hard to keep Tom from reverting to his old New York Demolition Derby driving days. He owns the road – at least his lane.

The trees are thicker and it’s hard to tell how flat the land is.  It is cottonwood season and the furry little blossoms swirl around the parkways and tollways like drifting snow.  Massachusetts, Connecticut and now New York. I knew we’d arrived on Long Island when we saw a pooper pumper truck with its side emblazoned “You Make It, We Take It!”

We parked Jabba at Tom’s brother Jim and his wife Maria’s. Tom had called Maria when we crossed the Throgs Neck Bridge. If you could put a voice to the “deer in the headlight” look, it would have been Maria’s. She had just had the last of two back to back groups of houseguests leave. She’d lost track of the days, what with all of her company and now we were about to arrive. Argh! At least we would be staying in Jabba.

(You might be wondering about the Throgs Neck Bridge, or what a throg is. Throgs Neck is a section of the Bronx named after John Throckmorton, who settled the area in 1643. (I just learned that on Wikipedia. I also learned that the bridge was designed by the same guy who designed the George Washington, Bronx-Whitestone and Verrazano Narrows bridges in New York, as well as Galloping Gertie, the ill-fated bridge that briefly spanned the Tacoma Narrows. If I had known that I might not have let Tom drive across it.)

Jim and Maria took us out to dinner at their favorite nearby seafood restaurant, which turned out to be the same place other local friends of ours had taken us the last time we were in NY. Great food.

Maria is outspoken  and can be a real crack up. If it’s important to her, she’ll let you know. She started in on Tom wearing socks with his Topsiders. This was just not acceptable. So, there goes Tom taking off his socks at the table. He turns to the couple sitting at a nearby table smiles and apologizes to them in a good hearted way. They replied that they were more offended at overhearing our earlier conversation about ear and nose hair and the proper way to remove it. We probably should have gone out to eat later and missed these leftovers from the Early Bird Special. It is good to know that hearing aids work well…

It started raining that night. By morning it was a soggy mess. Unfortunately, the weathermen are much more likely to be correct with their forecasts than Seattle’s are.  The U.S. Open Golf Tournament was being played nearby. Unfortunately, after  after just a few players tried playing the rain was coming down like Niagara Falls they called the rest of the day’s play. People who had forked over hefty sums to watch Tiger and his friends play didn’t get refunds or rainchecks.

Maria works three days a week for a beauty salon and starts work at 7:30a.m. (argh!) and Jim had stuff to take care of at his audio-engineering recording studio/school, so we headed off to see Tom’s longest time friend, Steve Sloan and his wife, Ina.

Tom and Steve went to RCA electronics trade school together after high school. Then they went their own ways for awhile. Steve joined the Air Force, married Ina and got stationed in Turkey and Tom went to work for Grumman, traveled to the West Coast, met and married me and then dragged me back to New York.  When Steve got out of the Air Force the guys renewed their friendship, Ina and I became close friends, our kids played together and the guys ended up working for the same company. Even though we moved to California, we have stayed close and our respective kids call us aunt and uncle. In fact, the last time Julie was in New York was when she was 13 for their son’s Bar Mitzvah.

They had taken two days off from work and were going to show us the good life on Long Island. Probably in hopes of getting us to move back, but it’s not going to happen. Sorry guys. We brunched at their house on fresh crusty bagels with all the goodies and then headed out east to partake in a little wine tasting. No longer farm stands and potato fields, LI boasts many great wineries. Prices are reasonable and tasting samples are generous and good! We weren’t going to miss that fun because of a little rain. I mean, we’re from Seattle, after all!

After a little imbibing we continued east to quaint village of Greenport. There was a store their that Tom remembered. It had great hand made ship models. It was still there, but Ina and I preferred to peruse the upscale the upscale shops filled with girly things.

We returned to Jabba, fed the dogs and changed for dinner. Steve and Ina took us to a darling Victorian house that has been converted to an upscale continental restaurant. It just so happens that their son, Douglas, is a chef there. The wait staff greeted and treated us as if we were royalty.  Douglas came out and served us a special appetizer he’d made –  a sweet and succulent sea scallop over a risotto that tasted like it had truffles in it and a lovely couli sauce on it and presented like a work of art. And that was just the beginning! The guys had rib eye steaks that pretty near used up a whole cow.  Ina and I feasted on Chilean sea bass. Perfection. Salad with paper thin sliced beets, frisée and honeyed walnuts with a lovely vinaigrette, probably balsamic. We usually don’t indulge in desserts, but they were Douglas’s specialties. We each had a sampler – decadent brownies, crispy on top and chewy on the inside, vanilla ice cream, a peach tartlet and a tall shot glass filled with the lightest and silkiest chocolate mousse I’ve ever tasted. It was crowned with whipped cream and a fresh raspberry.

We slept really well that night. The next day we awoke to sun, met with them again and drove out to the Hamptons to see how the other half (of one per cent) lives. Gorgeous homes. Each different and the villages so picturesque and quaint. The sun was out and smiling warmly upon us.  And there was no humidity either. We stopped at waterside bar and grill and had a drink and some appetizers by the Shinnecock Canal.

The afternoon was capped off by a visit to their daughter Michelle’s home. Her husband was still on his way home, fighting Friday night traffic from Manhattan, but her son, daughter, nanny and Ina’s mother (who lives with them) were there to greet us. The darling precious children were thrilled to see us. Sydney is 6 and Matthew is 3 ½. Nanny is 20-something and Grandma is 90-something. The last time we had seen Grandma was at Michelle’s wedding seven years ago. She might have slowed down a little in the last several years, but compared to the super speedy antics of the kids, it was impossible to judge.   I remember when Michelle was born. She is six months younger than Tommy. She looks wonderful: marriage and kids agree with her. She is a high school teacher. Tempus fuget. Time flies.

Four and a half years ago, the last time we were in New York, was for Tom’s mother’s funeral. Though this is a much better kind of trip, it is always so rewarding and great to see friends and family. We always make fun memories. Like seven years ago, when we went back for Michelle’s wedding. Of course, that trip was just months after 9-11. Someone on the rental car shuttle bus stood up and offered me their seat. Hey, I’m not that old, even now!

Anybody eaten Boston Baked beans?

We got scrod in Boston. No, it’s not the past pluperfect subjunctive of screw, or an orgy with friends. It is the catch of the day – cod or haddock.

We had a wonderful reunion and delicious dinner with Bob and Mary DeMattio. Though Tom has visited them a couple of times in past years, I haven’t seen them in 23 years. And I have only seen Mary four times. They are such warm and friendly people that it was like we had always been near and dear.

Tom and Bob once worked for the same company. Bob was the East Coast Sales Manager and Tom was the West Coast Sales Manager. I met them on a flight to Hawaii for a company sales rewards trip. Mary and I hit it off right away and the four of us hung out a lot and had fun fun fun!

She is so funny! In the bus to and from one group dinner, Mary led everyone in Irish drinking songs. Tom had introduced her to Mai Tais. The new big boss was on the trip and he ordered a bottle of extremely expensive wine for a special treat for his table – Chateau d’Yquem. Even almost 30 years ago this wine was well over $125 a bottle.  Mary went over to his table, asked about the wine and decided she would like to try it. She picked up the bottle and pretended like she was going  to chug a big swig of it. The look of horror on the boss’s face was priceless. Mary was feeling no pain on the ride home, but the next morning was another story.

It was Sunday and we four intended to go to Mass together. Mary hesitantly opened the door to our knock. “Oh, Sandy,” she said. “I feel awful. I woke up this morning and my head hurt and my stomach was really upset. I said to Bob that I must have come down with the  flu and he said, ‘No, Mary. You have a hangover.’ Sandy, have you every had a hangover?”

Mary recovered, but she didn’t go on the catamaran ride, which was just as well. The bouncing over the waves would not have been good for her stomach. There were divers on board, but for those of us who preferred to keep our hair dry some of the crew would dive in and bring back creatures from the sea floor.  One such denizen of the deep was a little octopus. The diver posed for pictures with it – in his mouth with the legs dangling out from between his lips. Mary definitely would have chummed at that sight!

Martin Denny, the pianist of “Quiet Village” fame was performing at the adjacent resort, so Mary and I reserved a table for the four of us for the dinner show. Big Boss found out and before you could say Mai Tai our party was now 10 people. My dinner salad sported a cut little worm wiggling in time to Martin Denny’s music. Mary saw it and started laughing uncontrollably. Tear were spilling down her cheeks and when we excused ourselves to the ladies room she continued laughing and left a little wet trail of a different variety.

A couple of years and companies later we went to Cancun with them. No big bosses that time, just the four of us enjoying the sights and sunshine. And a lot of laughs. The last time the four of us were together was 23 years ago. We took the kids to visit them in Boston after we went back East for Tom’s parents’ 50th anniversary party.  Our  kids still remember Mary’s joyous laugh at realizing she’d burned the French bread. It was funny – not a culinary catastrophe.

This time the bread turned out perfectly, as did the rest of dinner. A fantastic fish chowder and scrod from Legal Seafood. Legal? Glad she didn’t break any laws.

The last time we were together their two daughters had just gotten married and their son was just heading off to college. Lisa was 17, Tommy almost 16 and Julie still in the single digits at 9. Their oldest granddaughter has just graduated from college. The years have passed so quickly and this dinner was just the four of us, no kids, no bosses, no wacky activities. The good times and memories we shared felt like we have never been apart, but we vowed not to wait another 23 to get together again.

Mary still works, but Bob is retired, so we enjoyed a leisurely visit with him the next morning, before we headed for Long Island and the primary reason for our trip – Tom’s oldest brother, Georgie’s, 70th birthday surprise party and family reunion.

New Yawk! Maw Cawfee, please!

Today we are off to Niagara Falls. Try as I might, I can’t convince Tom to take his movie camera and turn it upside down while filming the falls and call them “Viagra Falls.” I couldn’t get him to pose by the Leaning Tower of Pisa  like he was pushing against it to keep it from falling over. He’s just no fun.

Back to PA. It’s even  flatter than Ohio. Did I say this before? Lake Erie is lumpier than the land. If you scraped and bulldozed the Adirondacks, Allegheneys, Poconos and Catskills together you might have enough dirt to fashion one mound worthy enough to be called a mountain.

We passed a place with a billboard proclaiming “Fireworks 50% Off! Swords & Knives, Pepper Spray & Stun Gun.” Where are we, Tehran?  Appropriately, the PA Department of Corrections has adopted the highways. We passed a “correctional facility” and the roadside sign warned, “Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers.”

By Seneca Falls we passed the Women’s Rights National Park. I remember the constitutional amendment didn’t pass –  was this just a bone thrown to appease the die-hard feminists?

An adendum to Ohio. Ash trees and firewood are forbidden from entering the state. There is a $4,000 fine.

I haven’t noticed any call boxes along the roads. I guess you had better not break down, or else always have a cell phone. Haven’t noticed any casinos or “gentlemen’s” clubs either.

I’m getting bored.  The only thing keeping me awake is a nagging worry about how/where we will get cash for the tolls and a grumbling annoyance that WiFi, though promised at every place we have stayed is non-existant.  We’ve paid $20 in Indiana and $50 in Ohio…..very flat. No billboards, or cows. We’ve seen a lot of corn until now. No roadkill in IN, but in OH the deer are like our NW possums – they just cannot make it across roads. We saw a big Home Depot sized building next to a driving range. I guess is is for golf practice in the winter? We passed the Oldest Stone House Museum. There are so many odd museums, I wonder if they are another term for tourist trap?

Niagara Falls was awesome. Incredible! I was amazed. The volume of vehicles, the crush of humanity, the overpowering inconvenience of road construction and the impossibility  of finding easy maneuverability through narrow tree canopied streets, not to mention trying to find a place to park.

After conquering the maze of all the streets in town, we were finally directed to Goat Island (Rumford must have been watching out for us from the big farm in the sky).  For a mere $10, (a nothing when compared to the tolls we had paid), we had a parking place that you didn’t have to be a Cirque de Soleil contortionist to get in and out of. And it was right next to the falls.

Snoqualmie Falls, near us in WA, is twice as high as Niagara Falls, but its width and volume of water is like comparing the single strand of hair on Tom’s chest to those on a gorilla. The water was so big and thick. Massive, It had a blue color, like a glacier and seemed almost solid. Its mist blanketed the surrounding area and it was loud.

I had only seen the Falls when flying over on transcontinental airline flights. The last time Tom had seen the Falls when he was about 10. That time he took the Maid of the Mist boat ride and visited the Cave of the Winds, where you descent 100 feet to the base of the falls and stand on a platform behind and in front of the falls. You wear head to toe plastic rain gear, but still end up soaked to the skin and pommeled by the water – like training for being a protester and getting fire-hosed down by the cops. We passed on those and chose instead to stay dry and visit the gift shop and buy kitchy souvenirs.

We drove through Buffalo, saw where the Bills played, didn’t see any buffalo Wings advertised and headed out of town. We pressed on to Herkimer, next to a diamond mine! Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!

Tom often traveled to Herkimer. It was the headquarters for one of the many companies he has worked for, Mohawk Data Sciences. As a side note, Tom has worked for 666 companies  and all of them have gone out of business, or have been sold to other companies. So, if you want to stay in business, do not hire Tom!

He didn’t recognize anything in the town, but we did pass Crazy Otto’s Diner and saw a woman sitting in front of it rocking out to her iPod like a crazy person. The KFC there featured Volcano Tacos.

Once again Tom disappointed me and didn’t allow me to go mining for diamonds, He was anxious to get to Massachusetts and see our old friends Bob and Mary DeMattio.

The Berkshires are actually tall enough to be called (small) mountains, or probably more correctly, foothills.

We saw part of the Erie Canal. It extends from Buffalo to Albany. Now I know…

1,724 feet was the highest point on the turnpike and the lowest point was when we ran out of cash and didn’t have enough money left to pay the toll. They hauled Tom off to the local debtors prison and I sat in a toll booth collecting the tolls for a day to bail him out.  That is what happens in New York when you pay more attention to RV gauges than looking for ATMs signs. All that really happened was that they fingerprinted him, took his photo and his ID info and had him sign a document saying they could put out a warrant for his arrest if he didn’t pay the toll within a week. Okay, they did take his ID info and gave him an envelope to mail in his payment.

Just like the other states we had traveled through, New York didn’t disappoint: the Lupa Zoo, Podunk Road, and the main employer in Belchertown is Budweiser. And the big tourist attraction in Syracuse (unvisited by us, of course,) is the Salt Museum. And we drove through the Central Leatherstocking Region.

There is a good law we saw in several of the states we traveled through: Change lanes and or slow down if an official vehicle stopped at roadside.

Closer to Boston the towns and villages started looking more New Englandy. We went by signs for Walden Pond – quite at odds with the drivers. LA rush hour is a leisurely stroll by the beach in comparison. Another  @#$%^& driver pushed the limits of tailgating too far and tried to cut in between the RV and the HHR, our tow car.

Roads are sponsored, not adopted.  Areas warn “Caution: Reduced Salt Area,” and “Blasting Zone Ahead: Turn Off Cell Phones!” And there is a Middlesex Turnpike. Did I miss something in Health Class?

Next, we cross Connecticut and back to New York for the BIG PARTY!

From Win-Sconson to Illannoying!

In the good old days, when we travelled in a mini van and not in a sixteen wheeler, we would cover 800 miles a day. We could get from Maple Valley to Stockton in a day and the next day make it to San Diego in time to hear the 5 o’clock cocktail whistle blow. Jabba is a lot slower. Half that distance is about the maximum and that cuts into cocktail time.

Though worth every minute, our visit with Jack and Georgie was longer than Tom had counted on. There were an awful lot of cemeteries in Rochester. I guess the Mayo Clinic doesn’t cure everyone… We enjoyed our drive through Wisconsin after leaving the flatlands of Minnesota. There were some lush hills and good outcropping of interesting rocks, but no cows. They must all have left the farms and headed to California just like the California cheese commercials proclaim. Not that we planned on stopping there anyway, but we skipped  the Deke Slayton & Bicycle Museum. I’m a trivia buff, I would like to have seen what the connection between Deke and bikes was. He was one of the first Mercury astronauts, but never got to go into space. I think it was a heart murmur… We also passed up the Circus World Museum near Baraboo. Clowns are more than a little freaky and besides, they weren’t nice to Dumbo.

Tom was tempted to stop at Naughty Novelties – Bondage & Bakery. Lucy wanted to stay at Aunt B’s Pet Resort and Spa. There were no Indian casinos, just Dejope Gaming. We passed the appropriately named Bobbleheads Sports Bar & Grill.

Even if there wasn’t a sign telling, we could tell when crossed in Illinois. It was flat again and there was a rebirth of graffiti. Quitting time found us outside of Chicago, by a town called Rockport. We took the proper exit and negotiated the turns for miles on scenic country roads to get to the RV park. Though it was next to a corn field, it was right alongside the freeway we had just exited. It was far enough from Chicago to get the Wisconsin tv channels. The big news the next morning was that at the annual Jazzfest the police were going to search everyone’s picnic baskets, to make sure no one snuck in booze.  The reporter did the requisite man on the street interviews. “No big deal” was what everyone said ad nauseum, except for one guy who said, “I’m tired of the press trying to make a Jerry Springer story out of a big nothing.”  I cracked up and the reporter’s mouth dropped open and he couldn’t think of what to say.

The next day we had to brave the traffic and roads around Chicago. We were already beginning to see how much fun it was to share the road with other cars and trucks. All the freeways that we used in Illinois were tollways. I guess to be correct you can’t call them “free” ways. We spent the equivalent of a nice lunch at a good restaurant  for tolls in Illinois. You would have thought for what they were charging and the volume of vehicles that the roads would be in better shape. The under cabinet coffee make actually shook loose. There was lots of road construction, lane closures and narrow lanes with no shoulders – just jersey barriers. Toll booths, of which there were many were extremely narrow and scraped and dented. Tom was sure he was going to take off one or both mirrors, but he didn’t. Unlike most states, trucks were told to keep to the left lane. Signs proclaimed “Miss toll? Pay On-line.” In between toll booths I got my cheap thrills reading billboards.

My favorite was “Club 390 – All of the liquor, none of the clothes.” Krazy Kaplan’s Fireworks was the winner for volume. There  were on both side of the road and every half mile. We even passed the Krazy Kaplan HQ. It was next door to Kaplan College. I wonder if they teach pyrotechnics…

Water towers have smiley faces painted on them. Keeping to our official modus operandi, we passed up the McDonald’s #1 Store Museum.

There were no rest areas per se. They have travel plazas. They are in the median between the opposing lanes. They have toilets, gas, restaurants, places to park and in Illinois they are built literally over the roadways. There were minimum speed signs on the tollways, too.

One bright spot on the roadways. Tom was jazzed – he got his first acknowledgment of Jabba. A kid in a car waved, so Tom let loose with the air horn. Sigh… Boys and their toys.

Do cold winters and hot summers make you less imaginative? Highways named “AB,” “MN,” “B,” and “N” to name but a few.

Corn is getting taller. It should have no trouble getting to knee high by the Fourth of July.

Throughout the MidWest cell phone towers do not look like the fake pine and palm trees that we see on the west coast. They are on tall radio/tv transmission-like towers. It’s just so flat there.  Some of their power lines are on lines that look quite different and interesting.

We passed one of the biggest buildings we had ever seen. It turned out to be the Chrysler Belvedere Assembly Plant. Huge! It was about one-half mile long. And hey, what about this: I forgot to mention that in Wisconsin we saw a real Del Taco. A staple of good and real cheap Mexican food in SoCal.

Come On IN proclaimed the billboard at the Indiana state line. Taxes, business and housing costs less here.

In Gary, Indiana they advertised foreclosure homes “Home Sales Blow Out $4,900.” And how about “Hoosier Daddy, DNA Paternity Testing.” Motorcycle daredevils did wheelies on the freeways. Oops! I mean tollways. More graffiti. More toll$. More road construction and narrower lanes. There is a little more junk along side the roads and no highway adoption signs. More important, overpasses don’t give the clearance. Yikes! We are over 12 feet tall. Some of the overpasses have chunks missing.

Be prepared. Plan ahead. Tom has his wallet and his cell phone in his pockets. Real handy. Guess it doesn’t matter since we’re about out of cash for the tolls anyway. The trip is literally taking a toll on us.

We caught a glimpse of Notre Dame’s Golden Dome, but passed it by, as we did the Newmar Headquarters where Jabba was born. Thankfully, we also bypassed the RV/Motor Home Museum. Also passed was Eby’s – Indiana’s largest Christmas tree farm and campground. Now that is a combination.

It is still really flat. How can the states possibly get any flatter? And why are there so many military schools and why are they run by religious orders? I don’t want to think about that.

We are seeing few personalized license plates. The names of the places make up for it though. We passed the Pishtowunk Indian Reservation.

On to Ohio!

Would you believe it, it’s flatter than Indiana! Looking back on our trip so far, we have seen few bison and no prairie dogs. Maybe we saw them and just thought they were ground squirrels. States have their best roads when you first enter the state and the worst ones when leaving. Obviously the gazillions collected in tolls aren’t used on roads.

We can’t see across Lake Michigan or Lake Erie. And we haven’t seen the Erie Canal yet, though I haven’t got a clue where it is.

Cleveland didn’t have a city limit sign. They called it  the “Cleveland Corp. Limit.” Passed by the Indians ballpark and took the truck bypass, we didn’t want to take a chance on low clearance overpasses, although they probably wouldn’t have stopped us. They were pretty rusty – too rusty for even graffiti to stick.

6p.m. Sunday evening the weather got sunny and all the clouds evaporated and the temperature got warmer. Just like home after a cloudy rainy weekend, when there is no time left to enjoy the days off. We did have enough daylight to find a wonderful RV park, so we didn’t have to stay at the Mosquito State Park.

It was quaint and secluded kind of like Bambi meets Dirty Dancing. They had a lodge like building and ponds for swimming and fishing. We were surrounded by a canopy of trees and birds lulled us into a quiet trance.  There was an RV Tom really liked that had a dog door built into the side and a ramp for the dogs. Or maybe it was the wine… Of course there was a good old boy in the tenement on wheels next to us who looked like he was going to be there a long time. Luckily he and the Mrs. (? I think it was a she) went to bed when the sun went down.

We slept well and were well rested for the next day: a brief sprint through Pennsylvania and then Niagara Falls. Like a second honeymoon! Not.

Friends & family in Minn? C’mon in!

When Tom worked for StorageTek, one of his co-workers on Kelly’s AT&T team was Marion. Tom nicknamed him Pappy. Though only a couple years older than Tom, Marion, or Pappy, had grayer hair and a beard and reminded Tom of a character he had seen on a southern-fried fast food chicken restaurant (not the Colonel).

 

We stopped to see him and his wife, Carmen, who was originally from Madrid – a place nothing like Minnesota. A couple of Thanksgivings ago Kelly Carmen and Marion  visited us in Maple Valley, along with Kelly and his family. We thought that since they had seen Maple Valley we should see Maple Grove. We had a great visit, a delicious lunch, saw the sights and caught up on each other’s activities. Marion told us how the Emerald Ash Borer is decimating all the Ash trees. They will soon suffer the same plight as the pine trees in California and Oregon.  

 

Tom commiserated. His big loss was his GPS. “Maggie” gave up entirely and refused to let Tom even find a satellite. So we all traipsed over to Costco so Tom could replace her. Her replacement cost half as much as the first one. Can’t say it is because Costco is a Seattle based company… the first one was from Amazon.com – another Seattle company. This one did have a slightly smaller screen, but I assured Tom that, to me, size didn’t matter. 

 

That was Friday – the traditional Get Away Day. All traffic was heading north to the lakes for the weekend and vacations. We wanted to go south to Bloomington and be there by six, so we could meet my cousin Drew and his family. In California and even Washington, you can plan on traffic and delays, but going through and around the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro areas we still made it before six. Amazing. 

 

Drew is my mother’s brother’s sixth out of seventh child. (Whew!)  Mom came from an extremely dysfunctional family.  If her early life were to become a novel, any book publisher would say it was too implausible and unbelievable.  Even as a soap opera you would shake your head at it as an over-the-top plot.  Consequently, we aren’t a close family. I never met Drew’s parents or any of their children. Until now.

 

Four years ago my brother Brian sent me an email, which his daughter Jenn had forwarded to him.  He figured I knew more about my mother’s family than he did and would better know how or if to respond  to it. (“Her last name was Lindquist, right?”)

 

Andrew Lindquist was named after my maternal great-grandfather. He had tried for several years to make contact with our branch of the family; unfortunately he found my mother too late – her on-line funeral home guest book. Jenn had signed it and Drew knew my mother’s married name was Donahue – the same as Jenn’s.  I emailed him back and we’ve kept in touch electronically for the past four years. We have filled in a lot of family history blanks for each other, but created more questions too.

 

Drew, his wife April and their kids were wildly excited to be meeting us. This was scary and warning bells were going off in my head. I know us well, and no one has been, nor ever should be excited to meet us.  Maybe it is just a Lindquist family thing. My mother was always perky, but my siblings and I take after my father’s side of the family – his German mother’s side. Picture a Wagnerian opera. The dour sopranos with the animal horn helmets and spears. If you are acting excited you had better be acting and on a stage.

 

I have never disappointed Tom in any way, he has always delighted in my every word and action, but my kids have endured my shortcomings for decades – like the proverbial albatross around one’s neck, or the RV with a tow car.  Sigh… I was bound to be a relative disappointment to Drew.

 

We had a great time! April bounded out of the house to greet us even before Tom had maneuvered Jabba within three feet of the curb. Drew, AKA Andy to his family, matched her enthusiasm when he got home. And their son and daughter were polite, friendly and personable. Wow! Andy even got his sister Kathleen to come over and meet us. 

 

Andy/Drew is a musician. He sings, composes and arranges music and even builds guitars. At 46 he has a youthful enthusiasm for life, music and his family. He has Behcet’s disease, which has caused three strokes, but you’d never know he had any health concerns. He doesn’t have the family love for the “creature” (as the Irish say), so that helps undoubtedly. 

 

Episcopalians, their house is next to a monastery. He has taught guitar to several of the 17 nuns who live there.

 

Kathleen resembles her mother in looks and her voice is the quintessential MidWest drawl, don’tcha know. She’s quite a cutie who has lived her entire life in North Dakota and now Minnesota, with a couple of trips to California.

 

Even Bernie, charlie and especially Lucy enjoyed our visit. They had cousins to meet there too –  Abby, a Border Collie, and Max, a Sheltie.

 

Bernie, old guy that he is (17 on the Fourth of July, God willing) retired to his bed in the RV after an initial sniff and a potty break, but Charlie and Lucy ran, chased and galloped around the yard, through the house and up and down the stairs for hours. Poor Charlie, with his hefty girth and ACL problem, he was hurting the next day.  Abby was quite the hostess. Max was a scaredy-cat. Lucy is hard to take. 

 

Max has beautiful eyes – almost human. You’d look in them and swear they reminded you of someone, an actor. Yes, Richard Gere! All right!

 

Tom and Drew hit it off big time. Drew has a recording studio in his basement and has made several CD’s of his work. Tom constructed, worked and taught in his brother Jimmy’s recording studios at various time, and appreciated all that Drew has done and is into.

 

April and Kathleen showed me pictures of the family and gave me a lot of info until Tom left Drew alone so we could explore our joint roots. 

 

I had colored my hair the day before we left Seattle, so mine were fine. :0)

 

Drew reminds me a lot of my brother Brian, in a good way, but cooler looking. Brian has blond hair turning to white and a short Santa beard. Drew has blond streaked hair (and a lot more of it) and a little trendy scruffy beard. At 46 he is 11 years younger than Brian.

 

That is where the resemblance ends., He is in good physical shape and doesn’t drink, do drugs,  even has a more rock star appearance. (Brian is probably thinking now “How could he ever be fun?”)

 

April and her mid-20’s aged daughter looked like they could be sisters. Gabriel, 12, looked you in the eye, smiled and was a delight to be around. There must  be something to this talk of Mid-Western wholesomeness.  

 

The evening went quickly and they had to suggest in was bedtime. I’m usually the one who starts yawning before the sun even sets – in the summer. (In the winter I never fully wake up.)

 

It was with regret that we left the next morning. We passed through Zombrota, Minnesota – a very alliterative town, on our way to Rochester and a visit to the other side of my family. If we were going to a family reunion for Tom’s side of the family and making a couple other stops to visit his cousins and friends, I wasn’t going to miss meeting Drew and his family and see my only living relative of my parents’ generation – my Uncle Jack.

 

If he were alive, my father would be turning 100 in October. He, his two sisters and youngest brother have been gone for years, decades for some. Only Jack remains. He will turn 92 in October, God willing. His wife, Georgie, just turned 92. 

 

Jack and Georgie actually visited us several times, and when Lisa was an infant, I stopped in Rochester to visit them  and my paternal grandmother, on my way back from a trip to Seattle. (Tom and I lived on Long Island, New York for the first several years of our marriage. My mother flew out to help when Lisa, and later Tommy, were born, but for Lisa’s first Christmas my parents gave me an airplane ticket home to Seattle, so my father and siblings could see Lisa.) 

 

The last time I had seen them though was 39 years ago. They had changed a little. And so had my cousin, Pam, who was there to visit us us.

 

Pam was about seven the last time I saw her.  On both sides of my family there are big expanses of years between first and last children,  Jack and Georgie have a son four years older than me, another son a couple of years older than Pam, and then Pam.  She old me she was four months old when her oldest brother married.  She is now 46 – the same age her mother was when she had her. 

Pam and her cousin of 19 years are in the process of trying to adopt a child from the foster care system. I wish them all the best in the world. They are from the most normal branch of the family.

 

Pam works at a supermarket and Paul, her husband is a mail carrier. They can provide a good home and a loving, as well as a green environment.  Jack and Georgie live in downtown Rochester in a modest cape cod bungalow. The lawn is lush and green and the yard boasts big maple trees and peonies as fragrant as Hawaiian frangipani. Pam and Paul live 30 minutes away in an earthhome.

 

It’s wild – they mow their roof! There are hills around Rochester, otherwise earthhomes would appear as the only up-cropping of land. They have 3,500 square feet – 4+ bedrooms and 2+ baths, a sauna and all the bells and whistles  of a “regular” house.  They say it insulates from the cold in the winter and from the heat in the summer better than fiberglass.  Its “frame” is made of concrete and it has windows in all rooms except the one that acts as a tornado shelter.  Pam says they sit on the “roof” and watch tornadoes approach before heading for their shelter. They are green in other ways too. Pam drives a Prius.   

 

Looks-wise, Paul reminds me of my cousin Bob Elford, the younger son of of my dad’s younger sister.

 

It’s strange, or is it, if you are fortunate enough to have family pictures that go back several generations, or extended out to the tips of your tree’s branches, you see people who have married into the family, but look like other members of the family. Now, if you were a Corgi, like our dog Charlie, that would be expected, but my paternal great-grandfather looks a lot like my ex-sister’s ex-huband Gordon.  And that great-grandfather’s wife looks a lot like my mother.

 

Jack looks a lot like my father did. He’s now almost 10 years older than my father was when he died and gets around about as well as my father did then – slowly and with a walker. But any day you look down and see grass and not up and see roots is a good one. His brain is spry and his memory is incredible. 

 

I cannot bring myself to be a smart mouth about him.  He’s too frail and defenseless. My Aunt Eileen his next older sibling, five years his senior, always said my father and Jack were the smart ones. They both married women a lot younger than them. Georgie is six months older than Jack. Bless their hearts, she served us lunch, though we specifically said we would arrive after lunch. We didn’t want them to go to any trouble. 

 

It was a bittersweet visit. Jack’s health is failing and considering it has been 39 years since we last saw each other, I know this will be our last meeting. At least we met Pam and thus still have contact with that part of the Donahue family.

 

I hope and pray our children and their children always stay close. The children of one of Tom’s father’s brothers have a reunion every year.  100% of three generations of the Walter and Rita Bernard family never miss getting together.

 

Dad’s youngest brother lived in Illinois and I never met him, or his wife and children. They were only names attached to photos. He died when he was 49 and his wife’s Christmas cards stopped a couple years ago.

 

My father’s two sisters both lived in Washington. We visited each one twice and only saw them after that when and if they came to visit us. 

 

Eileen’s kids and I keep in touch through Christmas cards and funerals. It is sad that we don’t make time in our lives to get together. His older sister, Dorothy, and my father had a non-speaking feud for years. Daddy didn’t like the medical decisions she made when their father was living with her family and dying of spinal cancer. 

 

Blessedly, they got over it and hosted a family reunion 39 years ago. – the last time I saw Jack and Georgie and Pam and Dorothy’s family too. 

 

Sad commentary – a month ago Tom sold our other RV (the dog kennel on wheels).  He advertised it on craigslist.com and a young family drove over from Yakima to buy it.  Dorothy and her family lived in Yakima too, a smallish town. 

 

Tom showed me the check that the father had given him. It looked at it and almost fainted. They hadn’t driven off yet, so I dashed outside and ask him how he pronounced his last name. “All bright,” but spelled “Allbrecht” –  the same as Dorothy’s married name. 

 

They weren’t related, which would have been too weird (Tom thought I would have made him give them they RV for free if they were relatives), but during our visit Georgie told me Dorothy’s husband’s entire family had migrated from North Dakota to the Yakima valley, so if we were to trace my family’s shirttail relatives way back, we probably would find a family connection.

 

Meanwhile……. On to Illinois!!!