Yikes, I knew it had been a long time since I posted a blog but I didn't know it had been a half of a year. So here is the thing; I am a retired, person I get around to it and there are a lot more stories in my head.... The following story is but a week in mid-June. The blog is changing scope again but it is still in the end: CeLinda's Chatter.
Dreams
and Wishes
Somewhere
in the back of my head I had planned a vacation. I think this goes back to being with my first
husband. My plan was for us to own an
airplane and fly around the country seeing all the amazing sights from the
air. We would fly over the Grand Canyon,
fly around Mount Rushmore and fly the length of the Mississippi and watch the
world change beneath us.
I
could ‘see’ us flying around Mount Rushmore like we have flown around Mount
Rainer and Mount ST Helens in Washington State. Bill and I have been married for 36 years
now and he has heard me talk about Mount Rushmore and both of us have the
desire to see more of our National Parks and Monuments. The last few adventures
of Bill and I have been road trips where we fly to a city, rent a car and then
drive to a couple of other places. When
you are putting pins in a map that represent these trips they usually look like
some kind of triangle.
Reasons
why we picked Mount Rushmore:
1.
It
is a national memorial. It draws tourist
like us to the region, to help their economy and to let others see the interesting
and beautiful region of the world.
2.
I
had started asking friends, patients and total strangers about the area: what
to see and do.
3.
It
looked like the average daily temperature was in the range of temperatures that
I can handle with Addison’s disease so it was a good choice for an adventure.
4.
It
was close enough to two other places we had on our list that a good triangle
began to form.
5.
It
was looking like a good “fly-to and road-trip” destination point.
The
Other Points in this Triangle:
Omaha
Nebraska:
After
Donald Trump won the Presidency and I saw how divided the coasts are from the
‘heartland’ of the country I just keep looking at that map and asking myself
how it can be so different from place to place.
(Bill and I have some theories about that but ‘that’ is scope creep and
that means it is now two more stories.)
We also have a large map on the wall with pins in it for all the places
we have travelled together. We had
already noticed a big gap in the middle of the country where we have never
been, together. We had previously looked
into getting a train pass and getting on and off exploring Middle America that
way. It was quickly ruled out as an
option for my Addison’s disease. The
times that you would have to get on and off the train would disrupt my sleep
and that is a good way to bring on and Addison event, so no train trip for me.
I
had gone to AAA (I have been a member as long as I can remember and they have
saved me so many times. I used to have
them make me something they called a ‘trip-tik’ they planned it all out for you
and even marked the constructions sights that you might run across. I haven’t even thought about them since
Google Maps but I am still cautious enough to have a back up on paper if I am
going into unknown territory. Hence the
trip to AAA for maps and travel books for those states. After a bit of study on
the internet and the old fashioned ways we were finding lots of points of
interest to check out. A friend we
planned to visit at the third point in this triangle was very familiar with
Omaha and she gave us lots of suggestions of places to visit and things to
see. We spent the first afternoon of our
trip walking through Old Town Market filled with lots and lots of little shops
that really made me think of San Antonio, Texas. There were lots of restaurants to choose from
and on that particular afternoon and evening the weather was perfect and there
were lots of people crowded on balconies and decks enjoying themselves. We ate dinner at a steakhouse named Anthony’s,
my meal was delicious and Bill had eggplant parmesan and loved it. I also remember I had sticker shock; I hadn’t
even looked at steak on a menu in a very long time. We really enjoyed our meal. While we were eating we kept
hearing classic 60's rock and roll. I was thanking our waitress for
the nice dinner and I mentioned we were going to follow our ears. Vickie, our server for the evening looked up,
studied my face, made a nice big smile and says "you will love it".
We walk 30 feet across the room and enter…. It was
also like falling through Alice’s looking glass. The band on the stage sounded like a British
60’s group and they were dressed like a British 60’s group all decked out in red
with white eplets and gold ropes. But
they all looked like they were in there 20’s in 1960 which puts in their 60’s
and 70’s now. And sure enough, the music took a break about 7:45 so we could
all go home for the evening. Everyone in
the room was well over 50. All were
enjoying the music and the dance floor was packed. I had the feeling I was visiting the
retirement home where my mom lives, it was just like happy hour at Brookdale
only this was my life and we were in a restaurant in Omaha Nebraska. The next morning we hit the road heading for
Spencer Iowa.
 |
| Julie's House |
Spencer
Iowa
Bill
had renewed his friendship with a co-worker a couple of years ago while she was
back in the Seattle area for a visit.
She had extended the invitation to visit and we wanted to see her area. Julie grew up in Spencer Iowa and she loves
her hometown and we wanted to see it also.
We got to Julie’s
about 2pm, arriving from the west on country roads. Julie’s house was
built in 1917. It is a three-story Tudor Craftsman House, with a fully finished
basement, over 4000 square feet total. Julie and Lee have fully restored
the inside of the house room by room including replacing the boiler that
provides all the heat and hot water. It's an amazing boiler system and they had
very subtle radiators all over the house. The house is on the historic
register.
The rest of the
evening we talked about all the work they've done in the house step-by-step
processes. They had to start in the attic, the house had been four
apartments at some point and they were reclaiming all the spaces to make it one
house again. While we were talking we made and ate dinner and she
suggested plans for the next day to visit the lake area and extending the
invitation for us to stay another night which we did.
Friday morning we
woke up and the first place we went was the art center in town to pick up a
copy of the book Julie has written about the big fire in Spencer back in the
1930s. Amazon has it but we chose to buy local. Then we headed up to the Spirit Lake Region in
Iowa they call it the Iowa Great Lakes.
They were cut by glaciers millions of years ago. Julie had mapped out
the perfect day. We walked around
Arnold’s Park, had a delicious lunch overlooking the lake and then we took a
ride on the Queen II a 60 minute narrated cruise on a reproduction of an 1884
steamboat. We were exhausted by the end
of our adventure and Julie had read our minds and bought pizza for dinner. It was a wonderful visit. We are looking forward to Julie and her family
coming to visit us.
Saturday morning as
we left Spencer heading towards Rapid City, we drove past the fairgrounds where
all the floats were lining up for the Flag Day parade and celebrating FlagFest
Weekend. (http://spenceriowachamber.org/flagfest.php) I am just saying this stuff is real. We love
Spencer Iowa from Julie’s eyes.
 |
| BK in front of Sioux Falls |
 |
| Wedding happening while we were there. |
 |
| All the murals are made of different colors of corn-on-the- cob. |
We
had rented what we thought was a house outside of Rapid City through Air BnB. What we got was the basement of a house,
which a family was living in. The ‘kitchen was a craft type table with a
microwave on it and a small refrigerator below the table and a big plastic tub
to put your dirty dishes in, all this worked fine but it was not what we were
expecting and it was hard not to be disappointed. We have found this to be a problem with Air
BnB because there ‘categories’’ don’t give you enough information. If you are really flexible and amenities are
not very important to you then no problem, we will probably use VRBO more in
the future. The point is to know what
you are getting and get what you want. We
did not spend much time in Rapid City.
We did not see the ‘City of Presidents’ collection of life-size bronze
statues of each of our past presidents. We
didn’t tour the Main Street Square, actually we didn’t do anything in Rapid
City. We went to Mount Rushmore, Custer’s
State Park and Crazy Horse Memorial and those were long days; driving, hiking,
walking, and exploring. So much to see.
Wonderful Fun.
 |
| Cute little prairie dog. |
Heading back towards
Omaha we had picked a Holiday Inn Express in O’Neil Nebraska to stay the
night. Woke up, had an amazing and cute
"complimentary”, in hotel breakfast, tiny little flat pancakes, teeny tiny
cheese omelet’s, very small biscuits with very delicious gravy and a cookie.
To be fair there was also beef and turkey sausage, oatmeal, cereals,
yogurts, cottage cheese, cream cheese, bagels, lots of fruit, jams, peanut butter,
honey, muffins, pastries, and cinnamon rolls all fresh baked. This
morning I enjoyed breakfast, in the moment then we showered, loaded the car and
headed out, just making miles today and back home tomorrow I thought. How
silly of me. The drive was beautiful; from rough and rowdy landscape
, sand to spun gold in color and more and more green begin to appear and
the landscape wakes up and opens out just like a blooming flower reaching for
morning light. Then we stopped for lunch at Perkins where everything is
reliably good. Bill loved the chicken and wild rice soup and wants it again at
home.
We rested awhile.
Bill even went in the hot tub. We both caught up on emails that lead
to more phone conversations and texting. Listening to the news is more
challenging when traveling but when we finally listened I realized the news is
on a weird repeating loop: a city in Europe has been attacked, there has been a
horrible fire, the weather has turned something upside down or inside out ,
there has been a shooting somewhere a
car has driven into a crowd of people somewhere and the stock market has gone
up, just a bit. We started looking at possibilities for dinner: no fast
food, no chain food, no Mexican had that recently, I wanted meat one more
time while we were in meat country and Bill found 2 BBQ places nearby we picked
the Hog Stop BBQ (https://www.facebook.com/HOG-STOP-BBQ-168822079810504/)
and told ourselves that we would check this out and go to the other one if we
didn't like the first one. We opened the door and walked into a different
world, Alice and the looking Glass different world. We were
looking around for a place to sit, a couple of people looked up and said
"the food is great ". The seating was family style but the
closer we looked the place was packed, the only empty seats were
reserved for what turned out to be the local little league team then as we were
about to turn and go a man put his hand on Bill's shoulder and ask if we minded
sitting at the bar. There was a dinner menu but I never looked at
it; there was a BBQ buffet dinner for 9.99 . The food was fabulous. This
buffet included smoked riblets, smoked ribs, smoked pulled pork, spicy baked
beans and sweet baked beans, macaroni salad, coleslaw, and sweet corn pudding.
There were lots more, after I totally licked my plate clean the waitress asked
if I wanted another plate, I was dumbfounded at the thought. The guy to Bill's
left was a truck driver, the guys that carry loads of sand, or rock and gravel
to construction sites. I think he said he was from Maine but he had been in
Omaha a long time, a very friendly "born - again Christian who had just
broken up with his most recent girlfriend and he has just met someone new
online. He and Bill just chatted back and forth, before you knew it the
two waitresses and a couple other locals had us putting a pin on the map where
we were from. That really nice guy that put his hand on Bill's shoulder was the
owner and he, the guy beside Bill, and the waitresses all suggested that
we go out back and listen to the music. "It's cooling off," they
said.
I remember
walking into this restaurant that my eyes had to adjust to the light or the
lack there of and it was true again, the sun in this part of the country takes
more than ordinary sunglasses, I was squinting with mine on. The sky was
undisturbed by clouds of any kind and the sun is brighter here. There
were several big round tables in front of us, all full, there were some benches
just to our left and they had been church pews in an earlier life. People
were sitting there too but there was room for Bill and I and we settled in.
The music was just starting and again I felt something in me ‘dial in’
like visiting an alternate reality. I was with Bill, that was reassuring but
now the music was just as good as the food inside. If we had ever chosen
to live in "small town USA" this might be our life. The younger
of the two singers was Lucas Minor and the other could have been an older
uncle, his name was Carl had been around the block more than once. He
played really great violin and Lucas was as good on guitar as he was singing.
He told us later that his first album should be coming out soon. He
played several tunes a couple were Garth Brooks and then his daddy shouted from
across from me, play something you wrote, so he did and it was good to.
As the music played and the songs went by I looked around: straight ahead
behind the musician's were the softball fields where children were playing and
off to the right was the smoker for the restaurant it was busy and the
smells filling the air were fabulous. The crowd was mostly friends and family
of Lucas there to support and encourage him along with a few strays like us.
The waitress for the outside area was friendly also, filling up beer cups
and water glasses between drags on a cigarette she left at the bar. This
is just where I wanted to be. Then the music took a break and it was time
to go back to the hotel.
We played in our
suitcases a bit, sorting and organizing and throwing away then we lay back,
turned on the TV and chilled out. There was a really interesting program about
sharks and an effort to develop shark deterrents. I love those programs, there
is so much research going on and it is so interesting. This planet is an
amazing place.
More Stories to come.
More Stories to come.
