Outside the airport, it smells like ribs.
It’s 55 and rainy here today.
The hotel is downtown but overlooks a lake named after a First Lady.
They have chips and pimiento cheese on the room service menu!
Where am I?
Category Archives: Travel
Small But Mighty
I made a quick trip to Bismarck one morning a week or so ago, and on the way back I noticed that the tire light had gone on, indicating that there were uneven pressures in the van tires. I didn’t give it much thought as the tire light always seems to be going on in the winter when there are lots of temperature variations. I drove back to town and back to work and parked in my usual spot. At 4:50 pm, two of the secretaries contacted to me tell me that one of my rear van tires was completely flat.
It was one of the days when Husband was out of town on the Rez. There was no way I could change the tire myself, so I phoned Jeff’s Towing, a business about 4 blocks from my work. Jeff zipped right over with his tow truck, filled the tire, and had me follow him to his gas station. In twenty minutes he had repaired the tire and I drove back to work. He charged me $35 for the repair. The three square plastic pieces in the header photo are what had punctured the tire. I was amazed such small things could do so much damage. Jeff told me that front tires fling objects backwards toward the rear tires as you speed down the highway, and these three little pieces had probably been flung into my back tire with great power.
What in your life has been small but mighty? Got any flat tire stories?
A Brand New Start
Today’s post comes from Steve Grooms.
I have been marveling at what my daughter accomplished this past year. Last winter she, her family and I were living in Port Huron, Michigan. She couldn’t find a job, for the local economy is depressed. My son-in-law had a job he detested, with no possibility of finding a better job. I lived in a senior citizen complex near their rental home, staying alone in my room unless my daughter was visiting me. Nobody was very happy.
It became painfully clear that my daughter and s-i-l had to move and set up new lives. Since I cast my lot with my daughter’s family when I sold my home in 2014, I would have to move too. The experiment of living in Michigan was mostly a botch.
Because my daughter was not working, she was the obvious person to do the research and planning necessary to make the move possible. But, oh my, what a fiendishly complicated task that would be.
Breaking this challenge down into smaller pieces, my daughter needed to:
- Pick a new town and neighborhood to live in where all four of us (three adults, a kid and a large old dog) might be happy.
- Find a new apartment or rental home where my daughter’s family could live, doing this research while living in Michigan, unable to look at rental properties in person. This would be especially difficult due to the shortage of affordable housing.
- Find a senior living community for me. It had to be near her home near her new job . . . wherever they might be. Once again, my daughter had no way to visit the various facilities under consideration.
- Find movers who could relocate two households 800 miles without charging much.
- Devise a way to get three automobiles from Michigan to Minnesota, a feat complicated by the fact we had only two drivers.
- Find a job for herself (a job near her new home and my new apartment, wherever they would turn out to be). This decision, too, had to be done without the benefit of a visit.
- Find a job for her husband (or at least identify a process which he could follow to find one).
- Find a great new school for her fourth-grade son.
- Do all the physical work of boxing up two households for the move.
- Clean her rental home and my apartment.
- Accomplish all of this and make the actual move in less than three months.
I wonder if that list adequately reflects how complicated this was. The sixth item alone is daunting. Everything on the list was inextricably connected to all the other issues, which made the overall project extremely tricky. Each choice depended on several other decisions, and there seemed to be no obvious place to start.
My daughter was amused by how her research turned out. The Minnesota metro region emerged as the clear favorite for many reasons but especially its strong economy. St. Paul seemed the most attractive city in Minnesota. The most desirable place to live in St. Paul, her research said, turned out to be Highland Park. So my daughter’s search for the ideal place to move led her to exactly the neighborhood where she had grown up.
We made the move last June. I believe this is the most difficult my daughter has ever faced. As of the middle of January, 2020, every single item on the list has been met successfully. My daughter now lives in an apartment a few blocks from her childhood home (although serious house-hunting begins this spring). And everybody, even the old dog, is delighted to be here.
What is the hardest thing you have ever done? Have you ever discovered that you needed to make a brand new start?
Hotdogging It!
Every now and then I just have to laugh at what makes the news these days. I’m not talking about the incessant political news that is spewing these days, or even the complete over-saturation of stories about the helicopter accident last weekend. No– I’m talking about the fact that a Weinermobile driver got a traffic warning.
The Weinermobile driver (drivers are called Hotdoggers) got pulled over by a Wisconsin traffic officer and was given a verbal warning about the state’s “Move Over Law”. This law says if someone is pulled over on the side of the highway with their flashers turned on, you have to move to the next lane over from them or if that is not possible, to reduce your speed significantly.
Oscar Mayer was quick to announce how much training their Hotdoggers get before they are allowed to take to the road in the Weiner mobile, but I guess there will always be a slip up. Luckily instead of getting a fine and points on his license, the Hotdogger just got a warning.
What’s the whackiest “news” you’ve heard/seen recently?
No More Booze Cruise
In the news this week, the Spanish Balearic Islands have decided to re-brand themselves. Apparently the islands (which include Majorca and Menorca) have a hard-hitting party buzz and it’s becoming a problem.
Starting this week there are several new laws being enacted to try to get the problem under control: no more party boats with the drinking the only agenda, happy hour specials are prohibited and once the clock strikes 9:30 p.m. no more alcohol can be sold until 8 a.m. the next morning. In addition pub crawls will now be against the law, as well as “balconing” (which I had never heard of) – the dangerous craze of jumping off balconies into swimming pools.
The new laws will be in place for at least five years in attempt to encourage “respectful tourism”.
Any bad behavior you’d like to blame on too much imbibing?
Tissue Time
I went over to Tom and Lori’s last night to help them with some last-minute packing. When I got there, Lori handed me a small bag with my name on it. “We got this for you at the State Fair.” What you need to know is that Lori and Tom love the State Fair as much as I do. We usually meet up once or twice a year, although we don’t spend long periods of time together, as we like different things. They love to shop in the Grandstand and Lori loves to sit through lots of radio shows. Oh and she loves Math on a Stick.
When I started to open the little bag, I said “this isn’t going to make me cry, is it”? They both said no but as you can guess, it did make me cry. A little rock with the Chinese character for friends. It’s exactly the kind of item that I would never acquire for myself but will now keep forever.
So we cried a little last night and I’ll go home mid-day today to wave goodbye as they depart the neighborhood – so probably some more tears at that point too. Remind me to take tissues.
What can make you tear up?
Two Days
Before my trip to Peru, I was well aware that this would be a trip of a lifetime. Even if I hadn’t already thought this, everyone I knew was sure to tell me. As you all know, one of my life goals is to not have expectations set too high. So this felt dangerous to me, to hear so many folks talk about bucket lists and dreams come true.
As a way to try to tamp down my expectations, I did not do ANY research on Peru or Machu Picchu prior to the trip. From our hotel in Cusco, we took a minibus to Ollanta Station (1.5 hours) and then took the Vistadome train to Machu Picchu City (another 1.5 hours). Then there was the tourist coach up the side of the mountain (hint: if you are afraid of heights, always try to avoid the window seats on a trip like this). On this last leg of the trip to the site, I reflected that I really didn’t know anything at all about Machu Picchu, with the exception of the altitude – 8,000 feet.
Turns out that there isn’t a massive amount to know. The pre-Andeans had abandoned the site centuries before it was re-discovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911 and they left no written record. In fact “Machu Picchu” is just the name given to the site in the local dialect and means “old mountain”. Archaeologists and scientist are pretty sure what many of the buildings were for: homes, palace for the Inca when he visited, security look-out and even a temple (although they only believe this because on the winter solstice the sun shines directly through the main window of the building) but other than that, they don’t know much about how life was lived here.
As I stood gazing out over the stone buildings I was struck with a strong desire to go back in time for just a couple of days to see what life was like when Machu Picchu was populated. How did they live, what did they eat, what were their favorite past times? Of course it would be nice to know why they abandoned the settlement, but if I only have two days, I don’t think I want it to be the last two days!
Two days to visit a time in the past. Just two. When and where do you choose? (And an absolute guarantee you can get back home after the two days!)
