Thanksgiving Travel Recap

There are two ways to tell a story on a blog:

• Post a picture and explain the picture

• Tell the story and find a representative photograph

This blog post will be a little of both as I give an overview of my Thanksgiving week travels and experiences.

Before I begin, I'd like to thank everyone for reading my blog posts and being readers. Knowing that you are reading helps me stay connected to a larger community, while also keeping family and friends updated on my progress as a traveler and as a human. There's still so much I have yet to learn about geography and about life. I haven't even scratched the surface.

I arrived in Kansas City just before sundown. Laurel had just finished work. We waited for Max to get home from work.

We decided on Domino's Pizza. "Have you used the app?" I asked excitedly.

Yeah. Yeah.

"No, really, don't you just love this app? It does everything! Let's you order, watch the prep and baking time, and tells you when it's done!"

"We'll just call it in. The Domino's app doesn't always work here," Laurel said.

"How can that be? It always works for me."

"Mom, we're in the city. There's lots of people ordering. Wifi signals get lost. All kinds of stuff."

"Well, dang! Everyone should move to the country, then. The Domino's app is the best for ordering wherever I go."

"Are we in a Domino's commercial?" Max asks, looking around the room for the hidden camera.

In the end, we order two pizzas and some tots. Then, we go out to the Green Lady Lounge to listen to jazz for a bit before calling it an early night as I have to get on the road again tomorrow, and Laurel has to work.

My first priority in getting back to Missouri was to see my daughters. I saw Laurel in KC, and went out to dinner with Ria, Michael, and Larry on Saturday night.

It was a pleasant evening filled with good food, laughter, and gifting. (Upon getting to St. Louis and while waiting for Ria to get off work, I stumbled into a Bath & Body Works store and discovered hand soaps on sale. I might have gone a little crazy, but I figured everyone would get scented hand soaps for Christmas.)

The food at the restaurant was excellent! Afterward, we returned to Ria's house to talk and see Thanksgiving decorations. Ria and I also snuck off to the computer room to discuss the Neopets game. We've both been playing it online since the early 2000s. She is well-versed in the game and helped me select a new outfit for my Korbat.

The next morning, I met Larry at the Lewis and Clark Trail. The trail means a lot to me and helped me solidify my thinking about life back in 2012 and 2013. I used to hike the 5.3 mile portion of it three or four times a week.

Buena strained against the leash, wanting to break free and run.

"The sign said dogs have to be kept on the leash," Larry informed me.

I didn't see the sign, but I understood why. This is a populated trail. Where there's people, there's rules. It's a fact of life.

"Let's take this path," I suggested, knowing this place like the back of my hand. I've been down every little side-trail detour in this forest.

We took the path that led to the river. "If we follow the river, it will lead us out to the bridge."

Only, the path got icky along the river at a narrow place filled with mud and puddles. The brush along the banks was thick. Bright green spindly branches with thorns poked my skin. There was no getting through.

So we back tracked just a bit before climbing up and over a few leaf-covered hills and recovering the path a little way from the bridge.

Crossing the bridge, I remembered that warm spring weekday back in 2013. The sun had been shining, heating the forest and drying it out from a recent rain. Most of the time, there were ways of getting around mud patches as little paths sprung up on either side of the muddy places. But not at the bridge. The mud at that spot was thick and goopy, extending across the entire path. I did not want to deal with the mud along the portion of the path any longer, so I went down to the semi-dry river and brought up flat-ish limestone rocks as large as I was able to carry, placing them down in the mud to form a trail. The Sunday before Thanksgiving, ten years later, I was pleased to see the rocks still at the bridge.

The night before Thanksgiving, I watched a movie. If you know me, you know I rarely have access to movies (no TV, no subscriptions). When I do have access to movies, I usually don't have the time. It's hard to sit down and give 90 minutes or 2 hours to a story. The movie trailer has to catch my attention in such a way that the movie's narrative arc doesn't feel predictable or formulaic.

Somehow, I got wind of A Christmas Story Christmas. Apparently, this was a sequel, which meant I didn't want to watch it. Most sequels ruin the original. And, this one was made in 2022, so I worried that woke ideology might have infiltrated Ralphie's world. I couldn't bear to watch it.

But, then I saw the trailer...

Made in the same style as the original A Christmas Story, this movie picks up with Ralph as an adult with two kids of his own. His father has recently passed away, and he returns to the house on Cleveland Street to help his mother at Christmas time. Many of the actors are the same as the original...just all grown up now. It's all there, the narration, the heroic flashbacks, and the feel-good Christmas feeling.

I cried when the movie ended. The director, producer, actors...Hollywood...did not disappoint! This sequel is exactly what I wanted for A Christmas Story. I highly recommend this movie this Christmas season.

Hiking on holiday mornings is a semi-official not-official thing I like to do. Whoever is up and ready to go can tag along. So, on Thanksgiving morning, Laurel, Max, and I took a walk around the lake at Klondike Park.

The white sands make the place extremely scenic...if you can forget the factory looming in the distance. (See the upper right hand of the above pic.) A little history of Klondike Park from Wikipedia:

The park is located on the site of the old Klondike Sandstone Quarry, which was founded in 1898 when the Tavern Rock Sand Company acquired the land. This location is on the eastern end of a 45-mile belt of St. Peter Sandstone. The sandstone was found well below ground level so the surface rock, Joachim dolomite, needed to be removed to access the sandstone. The sandstone was crushed on site, and then shipped by railroad to be used in the manufacture of glass. The quarry closed in 1983. St. Charles County purchased the land in 1999.

While the hike is a short one around the lake, it was just the right amount of time in the sunshine and fresh air.

I spent most of Friday grading and with family. My friend wanted me to come out and see The Deal, a new-ish band made up of several friends from back in the day. However, I had to get my work done. In addition, my priority was family on this trip.

So when I found myself with suddenly nothing left to do on Friday night, I checked the clock. I had a full hour to get ready and drive into the city to go see The Deal play and visit with friends.

I couldn't stay until the end, though. Saturday morning was the big Family-History Mystery One-Hour Tour. I was hosting it, starting at 9 a.m. Larry hosted breakfast one hour before at 8 a.m. We had to be somewhat-stringent with time and watch the clock as we all had things going on that day, among the things was my westward departure right after the History-Mystery Tour.

At nine, I loaded everyone into the minivan and silently congratulated myself for getting this versatile vehicle. Not only could I car camp in it, but I could fit the whole family inside! We started the tour with a visit to what used to be Gateway College of Evangelism, the Bible college that brought me to St. Louis in 1989. From there, we visited all the historic places in the family history, everything from the apartment where my daughters first lived when they came home as infants to where Coconut the hamster was buried at the park.

Sadly, though, all good things must be put on pause as life pulls at us from every direction. I started out of St. Charles a little after eleven o'clock. On the way out of town, I even grabbed a Chick-fil-A for lunch.

However, halfway to Kansas City, I started feeling sick. I don't know if my sickness was from the load of papers I still had to grade before Sunday night or if it was from the chicken sandwich, but I knew that I'd need to stop soon.

So, that's how I ended up at Laurel's apartment when the ice storm hit Kansas City and the surrounding region. At any other time, I would have loved to be stuck in Kansas City on a Saturday night--BBQ and jazz--I could definitely have some fun. But not on this night. On this night, I made some hot tea and tried to grade papers before going to sleep.

The next morning, my shoes crunched through snow and ice as I loaded the minivan. The streets around her apartment weren't cleared until late in the morning, and I headed out as soon as I felt it would be safe to drive.

I had to be back at work in Craig the next day, but really wondered if I could make it. I'd been getting texts from people who knew I was on the road. Lots of snow in the mountains! was the common message. Because of this, I didn't want to take Interstate 70 through the mountains. Taking I-70 in a 2wd means chains are required for the drive west out of Denver. I didn't have enough money to buy chains, and--more importantly!--I did not want to be crouched down beside the interstate trying to figure out how to chain up my tires.

Instead, I took the northern route, heading out of Kansas City up to the birthplace of the Pony Express: St. Joseph, Missouri. (In addition, this town is home to the Glore Psychiatric Museum. I'd definitely recommend visiting that museum if you are ever in the area.)

Filling up on gas in St. Joe, I headed west down whatever two-lane highway that was that put me west, west, west. The plan was to connect with Interstate-80 via a short north-south two-laner through Kansas and Nebraska.

In Marysville, Kansas, I was enticed to see one of the Pony Express barns, a sturdy-looking building made of yellow stone. With temperatures so chilly, I hurried back inside the car after taking a few pictures.

West and North, West and North, I followed two-lane highways toward the interstate.

The full moon rose over frozen fields dusted with snow in southern Nebraska. Barns, windmills, and big rolls of hay bales dotted the landscape. Yep, this is the Nebraska I'd always imagined.

At Interstate-80, I headed west, but grew tired around Kearney and decided to stop for the night. In search of dinner, I drove down Main Street Kearney, Nebraska. The old historic buildings were illuminated by the soft glow of streetlights and Christmas decorations. In addition, country music blared out of speakers into the cold night air all up and down Main Street. I don't know what that was about as the streets were empty, but it seemed to fit the town's vibe.

Monday morning. I had to call into work. I couldn't get there in time.

Heading west into Cheyenne (and then Laramie) early in the day, my ETA for Craig, Colorado, was around 6 o'clock that night. Not bad.

Except....

As I scratched Buena's ears in the front seat, I felt a lump on her head near her ear. I made her turn her head so I could see it.

A tick!

Yikes!

Now, we'd all been petting her and scratching her ears over the last week. Yesterday when I scratched her ears as we drove, I hadn't felt anything. This morning I hadn't felt anything. Did she pick it up when I tied her out under the tree while I loaded the car? Did she pick it up at that "dog walk area" at the rest stop? Where did she get it? Was she riding with it all the way from Missouri? How was that possible?

With 26 miles to go until reaching Rawlins, Wyoming, I looked up vets. I had no idea how to remove a tick, and this was the second tick I'd ever seen. I remember that the way the tick is removed is important. In Missouri, many of my friends carried a tick-removal tool when they went hiking.

The vet in Rawlins just popped the tick out, but she was more interested in Buena's eyes. "She's got pannus pretty bad," the vet said, checking out her eyes. "You're going to want that to get under control, or she could go blind."

I explained that the Utah vet had given me some eye drops and told me to put them in whenever it flares up.

"Oh no! She needs an antibiotic and steroids in the eyes. You want her to get the color back into her eyes." Her eyes had been losing color over the last several weeks.

The vet fixed me up with everything I would need. And, typing this a week later, I've noticed a marked improvement in her eyes. As such, I do believe that Jesus gave Buena that tick for a reason: to get me into that vet!

As I drove south from Interstate-80 down Highway 13 into Craig, I watched the temperature drop on the dashboard reading. By the time I made it to the RV, it was nine degrees. I'd gone 2,652 miles over the last week.

But now...the adventure begins. Somehow, I've got to survive the cold for three more weeks.