Initial Adventures

One of my husband’s many great character qualities is that he is an eternal optimist! It means that when Google Maps says it will take 6 hours, 11 minutes to drive from Walnut Shade, Missouri to Terre Haute, Indiana, he thinks, “We only have a six-hour drive today; no big deal.” I lean more toward the… shall we say… realistic?… end of the spectrum.

We had decided to shoot for a 10:00 AM departure on Saturday which was fine with me, as it would let me get in a gym workout before loading up and hitting the road. But there’s also the fact that no matter how well we plan and how many times we’ve done this “leave the house for a camping trip” thing, it always seems to take three hours from the time we start loading up till the time we actually hit the highway.  = )

Now, my strong preference is to arrive at a campsite mid-afternoon and leisurely get things set up well before dark. My Hero has also graciously agreed for us to eat out the first night of a trip, so I’m not pressured to cook supper while getting our home away from home is still in process.

I calculated that leaving home at 10:00 AM would get us there around 6:00 PM and put us setting up close to sunset, but we actually exited the home scene at 11:11 AM. Then, with our typical picnic lunch and several bathroom and/or gas stops ($4.69/gallon in Illinois, WOW!) plus a great dinner at China King restaurant in Vandalia, Illinois, we arrived at Terre Haute campground at 9:30 PM local time.

I don’t know what’s going on in the area, but when my ace travel agent was planning our trip, he’d had a hard time reserving any campsite for that night, and the one he was able to secure was quite expensive. We also had some problems with an incorrectly wired electric pedestal and a leaky faucet, but even in the dark, Scott dealt with all those issues calmly, creatively, and quietly. Since we’d only be there for 11 hours, we opted not to disconnect the camper and so had to sleep with it slightly unlevel, but at least feet downhill was better than the opposite!

That day during one of my driving shifts, Scott had done quite a bit of work to arrange a way for him to watch the Chiefs/Dophins football game on Sunday afternoon. What it took to accomplish that is a story for another post, but it reminds me that I should also mention the games. We do like to play games, and Scott always—in any realm of life, not just games—likes to have options. At home around 11:00 that morning we had both suddenly realized that we hadn’t loaded any games (horrors!), and then, well, we may have overdone it.

As you can see, we grabbed Dominion, Dominoes, Skyjo, Quiddler, Ringer, Rack-O, Cascadia, 5ive Straight, and Wingspan, but we also brought Quixx, Perquackey, and Bananagrams.

A subset of our games

Yes, that makes 12 games plus the ever-available several decks of cards! Okay, we’re crazy, but we do have options.

And here’s a word to the wise Midwest traveler: In addition to not buying gas in Illinois, you’ll definitely want to avoid driving on Interstate 70 in Indiana. We did that a year ago during our GAP Trail trip, and then it seemed like the whole state was under construction. Well, I can tell you that nothing has changed. For at least 75% of our time on I-70 in Indiana today, we were literally in construction zones, some of them quite creative.

I’ve read that the federal government funds 90% of interstate highway maintenance and repairs, and we all know how slowly the wheels of government grind. I think it’ll take ’em ten years to put Indiana’s 156 miles of Interstate 70 pavement back together. I’ve decided they must be working across the United States one state at a time. I-70 runs from Maryland to Utah, and the 2020s are obviously Indiana’s decade to have it ripped up. In the 2030s, Illinois will be the likely victim, and when Scott and I go camping and e-biking in our eighties in the 2040s, Missouri’s stretch of I-70 will have no drivable surfaces. = {

But Indiana can also boast good news on the ground transportation front: Their gas was only $3.89/gallon.

Scott did some exploring by bike today while I rested, and he came back with some amazing finds, including this covered bridge out in the middle of nowhere!

Bridge to nowhere? But what a find!

Then this evening, we took the bikes a few miles away to get make our first short run on the Little Miami Scenic Trail, and my e-bike would not turn on! Thus began a saga that will await my next blog post, but suffice it to say that The Brilliant One has been identified!

So, despite some early campground challenges the first night, e-bike challenges tonight, the Chiefs’ loss to Miami, and my losses at both Quixx and Perquackey, John Bryan State Park in southwestern Ohio and the surrounding area is just beautiful, the weather is gorgeous, we are together, and we’re enjoying many exceedingly abundant and totally undeserved blessings from God.

More adventures to come, I’m sure!

Glorious Monday!

As mentioned in the previous post, Saturday was incredibly wonderful, but Sunday, well, Sunday was about as tough as Saturday had been wonderful. We had some difficult – but important – discussions, it was miserably hot, and the sun was absolutely brutal. We rode 18 miles, but because of the alignment of the trail and the time of year, we were in direct sunlight nearly the whole time. At least there was no one around, so we were able to maintain the “never let ’em see you sweat” policy.

I think the high point of Sunday was Scott completing the sloth puzzle! (But where did those three pieces go?)

Five sloths, three butterflies, one puzzle whiz!

Today is Monday, and it has been glorious!

We rode on the Rock Island Trail from Windsor (the current eastern terminus) to Leeton and back, but after Sunday’s brutal sun situation, we went much earlier, and it was ever so much nicer; comfortable temps and lots of shade on our outbound run, and more sun on the return trip, but since we’d already seen the scenery once, we ramped up our pedal assist and zoomed back at about 15 mph.

Although I no longer have my original email from 30+ years ago (love2learn@juno.com), I do still love to learn and I am known for being curious. A triple portion of this trait was genetically passed to our son, Josiah who, like me, asks a lot of questions; his most memorable to me being, “What if photons had mass?” I digress.

While biking I notice things, comment on them, and ask questions about them. Then when we stop for a bun break I find out what Claude knows about them. Anyway, here follows some straight journal entry-type reporting from our day and some stuff we learned.

A Few Facts and Figures

1. Our timeline today:

5:00 AM – Got up

6:22 AM – Left campsite

7:00 AM – Picnic breakfast at Farrington Park in Windsor (beautiful and peaceful, bathroom with flush toilet!)

7:15 AM – Started bike ride to Leeton

10:00 AM – Arrived Leeton (we take lots of breaks because we’re not in a hurry and not trying to conquer anything), played Ringer at the city park pavilion and I won!

12:00 – Arrived back at Thomas in Windsor. In the 4 hours and 45 minutes we were on the trail, we saw a total of six other bikers. We loaded up; Scott drove while I napped.

12:37 – Arrived at our campsite, after having stopped at Whiteman Air Force Base’s “Visitor Center,” which Claude had told us is not a typical public state or national park-ish visitor center but a place to check in and tell the front desk folks why you are there and who you are coming to see. I waited in the car while with AC on full blast while Scott went in and was told in person what Claude had said. Whiteman’s main entrance is a literal six-minute drive from our campsite.

12:50 – Ate quick lunch of purchased salads; then Scott did all the work to get us loaded up to move out of our campsite by the mandatory 2:00 PM checkout. In order to stay here at Knob Noster State Park for six consecutive nights, we had to be in Site #7 for three nights then move to Site #24 for the next three. Today was moving day. = }

1:45 – We were consternated about how to move the camper and our two bikes from one site to the other. It seemed obvious to me that we could each ride our bikes to the new campsite, and then I could drive him back… and then… and… well… but then he gave me a look, THAT look, and I asked if it was a question like the fox and the hen and the corn… and then we both busted out laughing!

Scott took this picture as he pulled the camper out with plenty of margin to spare.

3:00 – Set-up at the new and much-improved site completed, we took a much-needed nap!

5:00 – Scott did a short Walmart run (corn on the cob, peaches, etc.), prepared a fine dinner for us, did the dishes(!!!), and now it’s 7:30 PM. I’m so pleased to be blogging.

2. When we go biking, I always like to find at least one interesting and memorable thing each day. We saw today’s interesting item before 7:00 AM! On Highway WW near Windsor, we passed an Amish man standing up on a black, horse-drawn buggy. It was a “pony cart” (a.k.a. “jog cart”), a light, two-wheeled cart with no real seat, just a platform to stand on. Windsor has an Amish community which established Lakeside Amish Mennonite Church Windsor in 1975. The Rock Island Trail road crossings near Windsor have signs that read “Horse Drawn Vehicles Prohibited.”

3. Dogs can smell humans one-quarter mile away, and even farther – up to several hundred yards away! – when it’s humid.

4. Wildlife seen so far on this trip (squirrels don’t count!): three red-shouldered hawk sightings (or maybe the same one three times?), three rabbits (not near the hawk!), one black rat snake, and numerous deer.

5. My bike’s gears have been slipping intermittently, which make pedaling decidedly unpleasant. It was especially bad yesterday, but thankfully better today. I’ve always thought my bike was a RAD 3 Step-Thru because its label says RAD 3, but Claude says the RAD 3 is a single gear bike. My bike has 7 gears, so it may actually be a RadCity 5 Plus Step-Thru. If so, it as a 7-speed Shimano drivetrain, and its tensioner evidently needs adjustment. Claude says you can adjust it with no tools but your fingers, but doing so requires putting the bike up on a stand and having one person (me) pedal it and change gears while the other person (My Hero) adjusts the tensioner. Scott tried to do this on the trail with the bike upside down and me sitting in a bag chair cheering him on while he “pedaled” with one hand, switched gears with the other, and adjusted the tensioner with a third. This was clearly not te optimal set-up, and while we thin it may have yielded some improvement, it wasn’t a total fix. I think we’ll need to take it to a bike shop or rig some way for Scott to work on it at home after this trip.

6. In other bike news, look what my odometer turned today!

Total after 4 years: 2,000 miles!

7. I always take two water bottles on a bike ride, and we usually ride 15-30 miles in a day. When I knew how hot it would be for our days on the Rock Island Trail in mid-July, I decided to carry three. They each hold 24 oz, and for the past three days I’ve been chugging all of them. I was proud of my 72 oz, but Claude says a rule of thumb for me would be 90 oz, and more “with heat, exercise, or if you’re outside a lot,” so I should probably up my intake.

8. The reason for the bright orange color of the water in a tiny a creek we saw today is most likely the presence of iron oxide. This area had old quarries and coal mining operations, which would have leached acidic, iron-rich water into the surrounding groundwater. When that water later surfaces, “the iron drops out as orange precipitate once it hits oxygen…This is literally called “acid mine damage” (AMD) and the orange coating is nicknamed “yellow boy” (Claude AI).

Stay tuned for more Rock Island Trail news.

In the Land of Ahhhhs

We’re vacationing in Central Missouri, camped at Knob Noster State Park and biking on the on Rock Island Rail Trail, and we’ve had a wonderful day!

While driving here yesterday, we talked about our personal goals for this trip, and I realized that my primary goal was simply to not work; “work” being defined as thinking, figuring things out, and making decisions. Scott has handled virtually all of that for us, in addition to doing ALL the physical work of setting up, loading and unloading, lifting and carrying, and arranging things cor my comfort. I told him today – with tears – that he treats me like my dad treated my mom. I feel like a queen!

Scott said one of his goals was to hear me breathe a loud “Ahhhh!!!” of contentment, and so far, as a team we are two for two on goals met. And it’s only Day Two. = )

On most of our previous biking adventures, by the time we do all normal our morning routines, eat breakfast, load up, and drive to the trailhead, we end up actually starting to ride around 11:00 AM, but this time, because it’s the middle of July and temperatures are forecast to be in the low 90s, temps are in the low 90s, we decided to forego some of our usual activities and target leaving the campsite at 7:30 AM – or by 8:00 AM at the latest. We made a 7:58 AM departure and got on the trail at an unheard-of 9:00 AM! It was a brilliant decision. The temp was only 78 when we started biking, we created our own breeze, and much of the trail was still shaded, praise God!

Some memories…

~ Even though it was a lovely Saturday morning, we had the ten-mile stretch between Chilhowee and Medford all to ourselves. In fact, for the first nine miles we passed absolutely no one, and in the final mile only two bikers and one hiker. The solitude was definitely “Ahhhh!!!”

~ We knew that there would be no “services” (water, bathrooms) on today’s ride and likely no benches. We normally bring two tiny, collapsible sit stools for periodic rest stops, but today Scott had the brilliant idea to bring our bag chairs instead. It was pretty easy to bungee them to the back racks on our bikes, and it was delightful to have something to lean back against during breaks.

~ The trees were lovely, and the birds were singing. We stopped about every three miles to sit and chat and appreciate the beauty.

~ At our first stop, yes, the birds were singing, and I could identify a couple of them – cardinals, mourning doves – but a couple miles into our ride, we started hearing an odd-sounding bird call. At first I couldn’t quite place it, but then it dawned on me that it sounded like a… could it be?… but that made NO sense… was it maybe a peacock?

Well, whatever it was made that same noise several times while we relaxing in our chairs on the edge of the trail, and I grew curiouser and curiouser. I told Scott that at the next road crossing, I was going to turn left and see if i could find out if somebody was raising peacocks for sale near Chilhowee, Missouri! I think he thought I was kidding. I was not.

The next crossing was a state highway, and I turned from trail gravel onto actual pavement, and a tenth of a mile up the road was a truly lovely, recently mowed spread – large home, curving gravel driveway, pole barn, numerous well-tended outbuildings, recreational stuff for grandkids(?) – and a sign at the road advertising Raw Milk, Eggs, Beef.

I turned in and Scott followed, but it appeared that no one was home, so I couldn’t ask if they had a peacock. My guess is that they had taken care of all their business at home and left the day before for a cruise to Alaska.

~ We played 500 Rummy on the Katy Trail-ish bench at Medford. I lost 620 to 405, but enjoyed the game.

~ On our way back to Chilhowee, we again stopped for a bun break on the White Oak Creek bridge, and while sitting there and thanking God for our wonderful day, a man who was biking westward toward Medford stopped to chat. He was probably in his 70s, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, and riding a trim, black e-bike. He told us that he’d bought the bike on Amazon for $590, and that included an upgraded seat, that he had recently replaced the battery, and was on his third set of tires. But get this, he has put 8,440 MILES on that bike in three-and-a-half years! And he’s done almost all of it on the 47.5 mile long Rock Island Trail! For comparison, we’ve had our bikes three-and-a-half years, and mine has 1,970 miles. I don’t know his name, but we will remember him as the 8 Thousand Mile Man.

~ We are using the Asch Principle on our meals this trip, and we brought leftover pizza and three potential crockpot meals, so we (Scott!) wouldn’t have to cook at the end of a long, hot day unless we (he!) wanted to. Our camper’s oven has always had issues and has never really baked anything properly, but this has no effect on My Hero’s determination to use every resource maximally.

The amount of time he spent trying to re-heat pizza in the oven was impressive, although I would’ve been totally fine eating it cold or using the microwave, I just asked Claude how best to do it on a pizza stone (use parchment paper or aluminum foil, of which we had neither!), said nothing, and thanked him for the end result.

Tonight we had picked up some “Garlic Butter Knots” from WM to go with our Stuffed Pepper Soup, and the needed to be baked. He was fine to handle that while I tried to help with the puzzle (see below), but the foil bag said to use parchment paper or aluminum foil on a cookie sheet (of which we had thought to purchase neither!), so he put it in on the oven rack, the bag melted, and the knots were burned, but we did not set the camper on fire!

~ The puzzle. At our library’s puzzle exchange a couple weeks ago, I picked up a 500 piece puzzle of grinning sloths. It’s lots of brown and white fur and tree barkwith some green leaves and a few blue butterflies thrown in for fun.

Scott loves a challenge and began assembling said puzzle on a large marker board at home. He also has several cardboard trays into which we’d sorted pieces of various colors. I figured he/we would resume work on the puzzle when we got back home, but no! He brought the marker board and puzzle trays with us in the camper and has been working on it at the picnic table.

We are having a grand time! Ahhh!!!

Door-to-Door

After the AC ran all night, I thought it might have dried out the front door a bit, allowing it to shrink enough to be opened.

So this morning I unlocked the front door, went around, and carefully got myself up onto the porch. Then I braced my left foot against the frame at the bottom and pushed hard on the door with my right foot. It didn’t even begin to budge.

Next, I planted my right shoulder and upper arm against the door and, like some defensive lineman in an (American) football game, shoved as hard as I could. Still nothing. That door didn’t move a millimeter.

I then grabbed the doorknob — confident that since I was pushing rather than pulling, it would not come off in my hand — and pushed as hard as I could with my (ahem) admittedly impressive upper body strength while at the same time doing a well-placed, right foot karate kick, and it finally came open. Whew!

But consider this hypothetical: Let’s say you’ve been working really hard for a couple of minutes trying to open a window that somebody else painted shut 20 years ago, and then suddenly there’s a loud, ripping, cracking kind of noise when you finally get it open. Well, that’s EXACTLY the sound our front door made. But it’s open! And now I guess I’ll need to do the same defensive linebacker, karate kick, shoulder-shove thing tonight from the inside to get it closed and locked. 

Thankfully, the doorknob is intact, and there is no splintered peephole at waist level in our front door.

I just did a bit of research on the interaction between relative humidity (currently 60%) and dew point (currently 74^o), and Google’s AI responded with this: “Meteorologists rely on the dew point as the definitive guide to human comfort because it does not fluctuate with the daily temperature cycle:

Under 55°F:      Dry and comfortable.
56°F to 60°F:     Becoming noticeable.
61°F to 65°F:     Sticky and humid.
66°F to 69°F:     Uncomfortable for most.
70°F to 74°F:     Oppressive and tropical (Your current conditions).
75°F or higher: Miserable and dangerous.”

With that knowledge, I checked the current dew point in Hong Kong where our daughter and her family live; it is a “miserable and dangerous” 78^o. Ugh! But they just left yesterday for a two-week vacation with her husband’s family in Sydney, Australia, where it’s now mid-winter and 60^o F with a much more pleasant “dry and comfortable” dew point of 46^o.

This whole stuck-door situation reminds me of Dr. Dolittle’s pink, llama-like, two-headed Push-Me-Pull-You. Until our Walnut Shade dew point drops back down below 74^o, I must remember to PUSH this door from whichever direction and resist my strong temptation to PULL on the doorknob. 

Relative humidity

It’s 9:21 pm, 80 degrees F, and, after six weeks of nearly daily rain, so humid that the front door no longer opens.

At all.

I actually thought about bracing my right foot against the inner doorframe and trying to yank it open, just on principle. After all, “opening” really is half of a door’s job, but I realized that if I succeeded, I’d then have to figure out not only what to do with a handful of ripped-out doorknob plus associated hardware, but also how to patch or otherwise cover the new, massive, splintered peephole created at waist level in our historic wood door! Neither my brain nor my brawn wanted to work that hard, so I left the door closed.

Anyway, only guests and Amazon deliveries come up on the porch. Guests can come in the breezeway like family, and I can go around to collect any packages, fill hummingbird feeders, or relax on our new glider, which I still call a porch swing because don’t you agree that “porch swing” rolls more trippingly off the tongue than “porch glider”?

Our nifty triple-seat glider

The middle seat folds down to a table with cup holders, quite classy

Our new-and-greatly-improved porch swing replaces this older model that we think we’ve had for at least 15 years. Scott put it out by the street at 7:45 AM and it was gone shortly before 1:00 PM.

We hope it went to a good home.

But mostly, we’re just glad it went away. = )

Sabbath joys

I’ve had a fun Sabbath. My definition of Sabbath is only doing things I want to do instead of things I (think I) have to do, and doing one thing that’s not normal.

Well, I did prepare and send out a short timely trip update – NOT a Sabbath-y thing to do! – because I thought it was very important, and unfortunately that resulted in contacting our IT genius and spending nearly an hour trying to figure out how to print out a bunch of screenshots, but I finally DID it! After that, I got back into Sabbath mood with…

1. A stop at the Ozark post office to mail some peanut butter with M&M’s cookies to Scott’s mom.

2. A pause at the Ozark courthouse square to snap a shot. It gets a point for having a legitimate courthouse square, but sadly loses two points because, as you can see below, the courthouse has neither a name NOR a date on it. Clearly an appalling documentation failure. ☹️

Christian County, MO Courthouse

3. A pleasant hour perusing the Christian County Museum and Historical Society. Lots of interesting stuff, photos, and verbiage. Much better documentation than the courthouse. I also bought a book about Bull Creek there. ☺️

I saw these two historical items in the museum and sent pictures of them to my dad. Since he recently did some clothing alterations with my portable sewing machine (at age 89!), and since he plays the accordion, I thought these would make him smile.

A 100 year-old sewing machine!

A really deluxe, fancy-schmancy, old accordion

4. A really fabulous lunch at a small, Claude-recommended café called Lolli’s, just off the square. I had pulled pork sliders, broccoli salad, and Kellybeans, all superbly delicious. I don’t like normal BBQ sauce, and I was pleased that they served their pulled pork sauceless and provided six different bottles of sauce you could self-apply. I opted for the smokey garlic, and it was an excellent choice. Then I heard someone mention cheesecake, and how could I pass that up?!? I bought a piece to go and will try it later.

UPDATE: (And I cannot figure out how to remove the large space above this update. Ugh.) Our power went out for four hours while I was typing the above, so I took that opportunity to sample a bit of the cheesecake; that being one of the few things one can do when one has no power, no lights, no internet, no phone service, and no water. I was pleasantly surprised! I was – and is and will be – very good. They only had the one flavor, S’Mores, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about actual chocolate cheesecake, but it’s very light chocolate, about the same color as the inside of a malted milk ball, and has a great texture and flavor. I think the term for the chocolate glazing on top would be ganache (GBBS anyone?), it is topped with a few lightly toasted mini marshmallows, and sits on a tasty good graham cracker crust; all in all another excellent choice from Lolli’s.

5. An unplanned joyride somewhere northeast of Ozark. I had gotten off 65 at the 2nd Ozark exit, Jackson Street I think it is, the one in the valley where they recently finished a long construction project to widen it to three lanes. That took me to the PO and then the square. I had ordered a pizza for pickup in Ozark, and for that you get off 65 one exit farther north at Lambert’s and James River Church.

After Lolli’s, rather than going back west to 65 and then north a mile or two, I thought I could just go north on back roads from the square, which is maybe a mile east of 65, till I hit whatever road it is that I could turn left onto and would take me back to 65. Papa Murphy’s is on that street on the north side, right across the street from Lambert’s. So I made a humorous probably 1.5 or 1.75 circuits around the square till Thomas finally said I was pointing north, and away I went.

I went along a river, past a ball field, and all over the place on scenic winding roads. Saw some homes of landed gentry, horses, lots of green grass, green trees, blue skies with big, bulging white clouds, all very fine. Fine until I came to an east-west T. Hmm… I turned east because on Thomas’ map screen, it looked like that road would head basically north. It did not, but it was a gorgeous ribbon road for a while, before appearing to end at some gated community-looking place. So I backtracked and went west, then turned north again and thought, “I had no idea it was so far to the Lambert’s exit!” Well, it wasn’t.

I ended up on Hwy 60(!!!), where I did finally turn left (west), and that took me two miles back into, not Ozark, but SPRINGFIELD where you go under 65 and have to make a really tight 20 mph loop to get up onto 65 south. Sweet Georgia Peaches! But I did get the pizza and made it home.

Please note that it is definitely time for Scott to come home. In trying to get the pizza into the oven, I partially dropped it, splattering shredded cheeses and a few chicken chunks onto the open oven door, where burning immediately began. That would be the same oven door I had JUST SCRUBBED a week ago. But I did my best at 425 degrees, and all was well till I tried to get the ever-loving pizza out of the oven 15 minutes later, when I did actually drop half of it, kind of folded in on itself, but managed to catch it without burning myself. It’s cooling now, and it’s been a great Sabbath! My next fun thing will be to try to create a google spreadsheet to put my courthouses online so I can access them from anywhere.

UPDATE #2: I figured out that I had already created such an online spreadsheet = ), but not all the information has been entered into it. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to tackle that task, but I got some tips from Claude on how to add links to pictures, so that will be a fun project at some time in the near future. I really do want to get my courthouses organized.

In a blaze of glory?

On Wednesday, the 18th, I stopped by Dollar Tree to replace my cheap, grey bathroom water bottle that had completely evaporated (full of water) from our house. I remembered filling it at the kitchen sink, but despite my thoroughly scouring the first and second floors, it was nowhere to be found. The attic stairs were still closed off with plastic, so I obviously hadn’t put it up there, and I haven’t been out to the camper in at least six weeks. So, to Dollar Tree. (Embarrassing Note: I found it in the bathroom the next day, all of two feet from where it belonged. Eyeroll.)

As I drove away from Dollar Tree, I was shocked and slightly embarrassed to see that the building next door to it appeared to have been devastatingly BURNED!

Crooked picture shot through passenger window

The building was so damaged that I wasn’t even sure what it had been; some restaurant, but which one?

I could read the 1050 address sign, so I asked Claude (AI) the following highly technical voice-to-text question: “What used to be at 1050 in oh, gosh, I don’t know the name of the street. Okay. What used to be next to Texas Roadhouse between Texas Roadhouse and Dollar Tree, in Branson, Missouri?”

The response was, “The street you were thinking of is Branson Hills Parkway! And the answer to your question is Pizza Hut — it was (and may still be) located at 1050 Branson Hills Parkway, right between where Texas Roadhouse is now and the Dollar Tree.”

And this link to a local news story was included. So, it sounds like it had burned completely only two days before I drove by. Wow. A bit more digging indicates that the Pizza Hut/Wings building was vacant and not in operation at the time. But why would an empty building catch on fire at 2:00 a.m.? I couldn’t find out how long the restaurant had been closed, but a closed Pizza Hut is not nearly as significant of a community loss as a closed Papa Murphy’s!

Closed in Hollister last year – Boo hoo! = {

Closed in Ozark this year – Boo hoo! = {

But although I could find no pictorial proof online, Papa Murphy’s was still open on Battlefield as of two weeks ago, so as of this writing, we can still get a delicious pizza whenever we’re up in Springfield. Which some of us are frequently; Scott was at the Springfield airport five times in 14 days from March 3-16!

Neighborhood news, continued

As mentioned, Paula and I had been texting back and forth about her dead skunk. Meanwhile, Scott’s mom had come for a visit, and we planned a small party luncheon at our home on Thursday to celebrate her 92nd birthday. We invited Paula to come.

ME: Hey, we are trying to plan a very simple birthday party for Scott’s mom this week. Would you be available and willing to come over for lunch with us, Mom, and a small handful of our church friends on Thursday? If you leave your skunks at home I’ll give you back your chopsticks.

PAULA: Looks like I’m free on Thursday. What can I bring besides my skunk? You keep the chopsticks. Once bamboo is tainted with smell it never goes away. It would be best if they stayed at your house. I can check Kodii’s freezer [Paula’s veterinarian daughter who once had a bobcat in her freezer!] to see if she has some special meat in it that would be good for the party! What food do you think?

ME: You can bring a big smile and a hug. No gifts. No food needed. We’ll have sliders, salad, and some dessert, and Mom will feel special. We’re thinking 11:30-1:00.

PAULA: Oh, sorry. I don’t get up til noon.

ME: Maybe we need to schedule a later private seating for the Queen-of-the-Shade.

PAULA: That would be nice. How about 4:30? I need a little extra time to get your skunk prepped for party mode!

ME: I was really hoping you could come for lunch, but if it’ll take you till 4:30 to finish out your skunk skin cap, well, I hope it’s worth waiting for. Or at least impressive. 

PAULA: I hate to disappoint you but I have already laid out my coon skin hat. I’m bringing YOUR skunk as a plush one.

Paula came, thankfully skunk-less, with all the other ladies at 11:30, and Mom enjoyed her party and then was here with us for several more days. She left on Tuesday. Scott left on Thursday to meet Josiah for a father-son ski trip in Salt Lake City, and that brings this tale up to last Friday morning, the 13th.

When I went out to Thomas to go to the gym, I did indeed laugh out loud. It was too dark then to take pictures, but the situation had to be documented, so I took a series of shots when I got back home.

The wide shot,

The tighter shot,

And a close-up

Here’s another angle

Extremely impressed by Paula’s creativity and wondering what time my night-owl friend had snuck over to rig the skunk. She (or an accomplice?) had done a very clever job of rigging Mr. Stripe with chopsticks and affixing him to that branch, and I decided that neighborly turnabout was fair play. So, I took a deep breath, untwisted the wire, looked both ways before crossing, and carried him over to Paula’s mailbox!

Lovely, isn’t he?

There being no branches, I hung him from her mailbox’s flag and then scooted back across the street. = )

Still gripped by Paula’s chopsticks!

Back inside, I sent her the following text.

ME: Today’s Bible reading is found in Luke 6:38

A few hours later, she replied as follows.

PAULA: Gee Patty, that is so nice of you to think about me in terms of a Bible verse.

(She then made a hilarious comment about how something could “runneth over.” She clearly had not been out to her mailbox yet.)

PATTY: Truth be told, it may only dangle and not run over. The most important point in today’s reading is actually just the first phrase of that verse. I’m sure you’ll find it encouraging. Have a wonderful day!  

In a little while, I saw her standing beside her mailbox and taking a picture.

PAULA: You are funny!

ME: Haha, thanks. Okay, so I wanted to be generous with my surprising and lovely yard ornament. I thought it would look great on YOUR mailbox, but now it seems to have vanished!  It’s obviously a magical mammal, showing up and then disappearing, much like some fragrant roadkill it resembles. I was especially impressed with its chopsticks! It was obviously designed and securely positioned by somebody who is VERY clever and creative. Unfortunately,  Scott is out of state on a ski trip with our son and so was not here to experience the shock and early morning joy it brought me, but I did do an impromptu photo shoot so that all posterity will be able to  appreciate it. Trespassing aside, I’m sure that over time it will prove to be THE most original piece of yard decor in downtown Walnut Shade. …

I realize that significant works of art are generally titled; I’m debating between “Skunk On Dogwood” and “Fragrant Chopsticks.” What do you think?…

Seriously, when I first looked out the window about dawn, I thought, “Is there something caught in that tree? What on earth could it be?” Then when I realized what it was, I laughed out loud, and thought, “I have such a special friend.” 

PAULA: Well good morning. Hope you have a great skunkless day! Speaking of trespassing, I think messing with federal mail boxes is a much greater offense and requires some prison time. So from now on I would choose your skunk locations wisely. When we went to Eureka Springs last week and I saw him, I immediately thought of you! Not sure what that means or if it is bad or good!?? But anyway, he did what he was supposed to. We had joy skunking you, and hopefully you got joy from being skunked. I took him off the mail box so he can be preserved for future appearances. Thought someone might try and take him without knowing the meaning of him. Glad we both got a laugh, but I think I got a greater pleasure than you! Glad we are neighbors and now friends. You have brought joy to me and Kodii. Thank you for loving us. It’s been hard [the passing of her husband / Kodii’s dad] but with our friends and prayers we are making it pretty good…

PS: I like “Skunk on Dogwood.”  It sounds kind of like a best selling book!  Maybe someone will make a movie out of it.

ME: Yes, I did consider the legalities of hanging a stuffed skunk on your mailbox. I had hung it on the hook first, but then thought it might keep Taylor from putting your mail in the box. So I moved it to the flag, although I’m pretty sure I would’ve been safe anyway; it would be challenging to lift fingerprints off a skunk!!! Movie rights… now there’s a thought. Just think of all the additional neighborhood news we could include! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And that’s the latest from downtown Walnut Shade!

Neighborhood news, part 1

On Friday morning, March 13, 2026, as I wrapped up my exercises in the queen room, I did what I always did and looked out the front window. With the time change it’s still dark at 6:20, but I could barely see what looked like something stuck in the dogwood tree. The only thing I could figure was that it must’ve been a Walmart bag that got blown there. But I didn’t think it was windy. Oh, well. Whatever.

A few minutes later I went out to the car and laughed out loud at what was stuck in the dogwood.

The backstory is essential.

Some weeks ago, I noticed – actually olfactorily before visually – a black-and-white-striped roadkill specimen in the road in front of our house. It was probably close to the center line, but in the far lane, and it was POWERFUL.

The skunk stayed in the road a couple days, eventually ending up squarely in front of our neighbor Paula’s driveway. After living across the street from each other for 15 years, we had finally gotten to know each other after her husband’s tragic death two years ago, and we have become fast friends, occasionally getting together for meals and games, and frequently texting back and forth about curious neighborhood happenings. She likes to give Scott and me a hard time, and I throw it right back at her.

As in this exchange concerning the skunk…

PAULA: Finally glad we got to meet you and Scott. Real treasures living across the street from us and we didn’t even know it! We hope we have many more good years together. However, that process could be aided if you would keep your dead skunks on your side of the road! Thanks for being a friend! Is that your skunk laying in the middle of our driveway?

ME: Actually Mr. Stripe had already met his demise before I got home from town today. However, I wasn’t paying close attention when I turned into our driveway and swung around to back in, and I was surprised to hear and feel a thump. I thought some malicious neighbor must’ve left a chunk of wood in the road, but then realized I had run over a dead skunk. I’m hopeful that the turkey vultures will take care of him for all of us. Unless of course your daughter [she’s a veterinarian] wants to freeze-dry him.

PAULA: Ok, let me explain this to you.  Once the skunk is dead it does no good to try and kill him again. So you can run over him many times but you are just wasting your effort. Dead is dead! Now, if you like to ride in a car that smells like a skunk for a couple of weeks just keep running over him! For myself, I’d prefer to sling the mashed-up varmint into my sweet neighbor’s yard after dark!

The next day…

ME: So exactly how far into my yard did you sling it, and how are you getting the smell off your hands?!?

PAULA: I think it landed somewhere near that new [porch] railing. No smell on my hands. I used chopsticks! By the way, those are in your yard too!

ME: I suggest you have [your physical therapist] work on strengthening your throwing arm. We did receive the chopsticks and put them straight into the trash, but the deceased skunk is still odorously guarding your driveway. He never made it to our property, a fact which, frankly, I deeply appreciate! 

PAULA: Throw, throw, throw your skunk quickly down the creek.  Barely, barely barely, barely, stinking in the street!!   

ME: That’s VERY catchy! I was going to text you this morning that YOUR skunk was especially ripe this morning. Did you use chopsticks again to throw him in the creek?

PAULA: I had to use a snow shovel, and now the old barn stinks. And I have it stuck in my nose too!

ME: But with this newfound song writing talent of yours, you can open your own show on the strip!

PAULA: I’ve been hiding my talent for a long time. Now I guess it’s time for me to come out!!

And the next day…

ME: The neighborhood “aroma” seems quite pungent this morning. Is there a possibility that your skunk  has experienced a resurrection?

PAULA: I checked yesterday, and the skunk YOU ran over is somewhere way down stream. I smelled that aroma too. I thought you and Scott were cooking up something special and maybe somewhat illegal in that smokehouse of yours!!

ME: I was just getting off the phone with someone who is going through a terrible situation that may all blow up on March 1st, and I was SO discouraged and sad. At the exact moment I hung up with her, your text above came through, and I said out loud, “Oh, thank you, God for giving me such a wonderful friend right across the street!!!” (skunks aside)…

I’ve seen some of your security lights, and after an incident a few nights ago, I’m thinking we may need to get some too. But if we do, I think we should work together to coordinate them; you know, kind of a strobe-effect light show back and forth across the road, maybe to music! What would your horses think?!?…

I just read an article in the Missouri Conservationist magazine about skunks. It said their odor can be smelled 1.5 miles away. It didn’t say what to do when your neighbor tries to sling a dead one onto your porch with chopsticks! Thanks for being my friend. 

PAULA: Our horses are used to flickering lights. The state of Missouri saw to that when they put that rolling sign on our property for 2 months!  What kind of incident did you have?… When you get a chance could you wash and de-scent my chopsticks so we can use them again please?… Oh I figured out what the “incident” is. Skunk flinging !! You better get those security lights ‘cause it could happen again!

(To be continued)

Two passings

Neither of which is anywhere nearly as bad as Thunderation, thankfully.

First there was this. (Kindly note the color of the probe in lower left and the black splotches at roughly 10:00 and 12:30 on the dial.)

It happened a month or so ago when we were heating some white chili for supper. We smelled a burning and found that the crockpot had overheated and was running at a full, boiling blast, there was an amount of smoke involved, and a subset of the white chili was solidly burned to the bottom of the crockpot and definitely no longer white. We don’t know what actually caused the “fire,” but since at the time we’d been married 38 years and 4 months and the crockpot had been a wedding gift from Charles and Mary Kelemen at Agape Church, it does seem reasonable that after almost four decades of reliable use, it would finally go to its eternal reward. It was crafted in the day when small appliances lasted at least ten years, and major appliances twenty or more. Thankfully, the controller for our Presto griddle is now working just fine on the crockpot so all is not lost, but family members would probably want to at least observe a moment of silence for the familiar, but now-deceased controller of their childhoods.

And then there was this. (I’ll draw your attention to the TWO cracks – one jagged and one nearly vertical – at the top center.)

I’d noticed a few months ago that when I drained the macaroni and dumped it back into the bean pot, and then banged the colander on the ridge between our double sinks to get every last bit of pasta out, that there was a jagged crack in the plastic. This, of course, did not make me think I should stop banging the colander, but when the straight crack appeared beside its brother, I sighed and decided that it might be time to look for a replacement. I searched Amazon, but didn’t have confidence that something there would meet my high standards:

• Plastic, not metal, and of a cheerful color, (but not flowery or otherwise patterned)
• Thick plastic that could endure sink banging
• Sufficient drain holes appropriately placed (you’d be surprised how many look like the drain holes will be above the pasta!)
• Bottom ridge that allows colander to sit level on a hard surface
• Approximately the same volume as Old Yeller (I already have a huge green one for really big dumps)
• Hook or handle to hang it in the pantrty

The above gem is, I believe, even older than the crockpot. I am pretty sure that I bought it when I moved out of my parents’ house to the little house on Franklin Street in North Little Rock. I remember making tuna mac with my co-worker, Shiela (yes, Spell Check; get over your red, squiggly self!) in that house and draining the mac in my yellow colander. That would’ve been when I was working at Burger King about a year after dropping out of college, so… probably around 1982. That would make my yellow Old Faithful approximately 44 years old, so all in all, I think I’ve gotten my money’s worth from it.

In our local Walmart I found a nice red colander that met all my above criteria, and so far I’m quite pleased with it. However, I have taken to emptying it with more of a gentle tap than my previous slam-bang.