Category: The Road

Leaving the Big Muddy

Still determined to get the most of our river experience, I was at the café by 6:30. It was grey and warm on the front porch, but as I stepped forward to the rail overlooking the main deck I found it was also raining. Across the water a developing breeze began to blow a heavy…

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Pushing Off

I don’t talk much. Those who know me can testify to this. Even in social situations I am prone to sit back, listen, and observe. Why then am I on a boat with 400 people who seem to want to talk to me constantly? I can only say, it’s because of the river. We piddled…

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Meet Me In St. Louis

  It is unusual to sleep soundly in new surroundings, but sleep we did. Yesterday started at 2:30 in the morning. Checking in at the airport was complicated by a women’s soccer team also boarding after playing at the University the previous day. Needless to say, the plane was crowded. Early morning adrenaline kept us…

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Great Expectations

  My wife says that I worry too much and that I sometimes have unreal expectations of coming events. She may be right. I am the kind of person who plans and expects to have a perfect Christmas, who plans trips that should be everyone’s dream vacation, who anticipates the special meals that I cook…

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Fair Week

Fair week was always an important part of our summer. It came in early July, just after the Fourth of July celebration. Though sporadic fireworks could still be heard late in the evening and the occasional pop-bottle rocket arched over a roof top and popped in a mini shower of sparks, the night was mostly…

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Gift

Sometimes, I write when I don’t really have a point that I am trying to make. Rather, I write only to record an occasion to look back on at some point in the future. My memory is dodgy at best; paper documentation (or truly digital documentation) is more reliable. We met Heather and her children,…

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Passing the Past

  It’s a down day for us again. We’ve (Lydia) put up mylar window coverings against the desert sun and done a bit of organizing. A lazy day for us, but our daughter is on her second day of the drive from Spokane to meet us here. She is a very busy woman with a…

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Old Friends: Bar Nunn

Old Friends: Bar Nunn   A 50-year high school reunion is a meeting of survivors, a time to compare notes and see how well you’ve handled life. I went to it with some reluctance mixed with an excited interest. Up to the minute I got in the registration line at the hotel, I was saying…

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Looking for America

    On their album “Bookends”, in the song “America”, Simon and Garfunkel described how everyone on the road had “gone to look for America.” It was a sweet sentiment, but not exactly true. It seems to me that at that point in time, 1968, we were really looking for who we were, and, we…

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