The Quiet

 Travelling six days out of the last three weeks is quiet. Yes, the radio still plays classic rock loud.  Yes, I still sing in the car.  Yes, the grandkids hook up their phones to my car and play their music.  It's quiet in a different way.  A soul way.

I got six days of no doom scrolling.  Yes, I checked my phone every night and did a bit of scrolling.  But during the day you can't do that driving down the road.  So peaceful.

I noticed all the cattle.  Lots of calves.  I noticed the fields as I drove past.  They hayed in between my drives, so I enjoyed the fields full of hay rolls.  I loved the hawks that looked different than the ones at home.  Lighter in colors.  

Driving across the country you really get to see the beauty that is our country. So many different landscapes between the PNW and the Midwest. I enjoyed seeing the work being done, the trucks travelling down the road, the trains and all the road work getting done.  It's all positive amongst all the negativity of the doom scrolling.  

Did my soul good and gave me a different perspective for awhile.  

Nostalgia Rides

 I just finished up my second back-to-back trip to Indiana.  As I'm driving along, I am remembering all the trips before.  Prior to 2000 all trips through Idaho meant a stop in Coeur d'Alene to see my uncle Ernest. His house is still there, but the property around it has been turned into a housing development.  

Seems I always spend my first night in Billings.  I don't have a reason other than it is on the way and seems like a good stop.  One of my friends asked me what is in Billings.  My answer was I don't really know.  I get off the freeway, spend the night in a hotel and get back on the freeway in the morning.  But in my memory banks is the fact that my dad lived there for a while back in the day and we spent a little time there on a visit.

I tend to use the same gas stations, hotels and fast-food places.  One gas stop is always in Miles City.  Mom lived there for a year in the early 90's.  

I pass a lot of memory producing places.  The oil wells take me back to when there were a lot more of them you could see from the highway.  The big cow on the hill stands out, and now there is a chicken I sometimes spot.  I almost always swing through Painted Canyon looking for the bison.  Most of the time I do not spot them (like neither trip this summer) but I am so happy when I do.  Just pure joy.  Fargo has a memory pull that I can't quite get.  Something to do with visiting friends of my dad's.  Minnesota is all things family.  I swing by Wayne and Helga's when I go through Illinois.  Now I just see Helga and count myself blessed.  

The best nostalgic memory though is all the Fallen Rocks sign.  When I was very young and we made the trek from MN to Idaho Grandpa always said, "that Indian gets around" and we always asked what Indian.  He would proclaim Fallen Rocks.  Fallen Rocks could very well be an Indian name. 

So, when people ask me about the long drive and how I do it, I just say I do.  Terri and I had a conversation a few years ago when we met for lunch (another nostalgia thing as we can't do that anymore) about driving long and hard.  We both are children of long-haul truck drivers, and it seems to be part of our make-up.  For me it is like taking a trip back in time and remembering all that came before on those trips.  Trips with grandparents, parents, husband, self and grandchildren.  This trip was no different.  And now I have grandchildren saying hey I remember that from last time or a couple of trips ago.  

New Scenes From the Road

 

Made a quick driving trip (not so quick) to Indiana to pick up my grandson and his friend.  Three days there and three days right back.  Sunday through Friday.  Home for the Fourth.

When driving I am always looking for wildlife.  Hopefully not on the freeway.  This trip I saw three live deer, not on the freeway.  The first one was on an uphill embankment next to the freeway.  It was heading uphill and looked at me. So majestic.  The other two were just in ditches eating.  The boys got to see those ones. The most exciting was the coyote that ran across the road.  It stopped just at the edge and turned around and looked at me.  I was sending it move on thoughts.  It was nowhere near in danger of me hitting it, but it could be on the other side as it finished crossing.  I didn't see a roadrunner.  Then there were the three chipmunks who crossed the freeway.  Those critters are fast.  Amazingly so.  All three made it.

When we were travelling through Oregon there was a sign about HWY14 being closed due to a wildfire.  It didn't appear to be a big one.  But the boys were fascinated about the helicopter fighting the fire by grabbing water from the Columbia River to drop on the fire.  That is a pretty good skillset for the pilot.  And not something the boys get to see every day.

We stayed at Brenda's in Minnesota and the boys played with Daisy.  Wearing her out and getting rid of some of their energy.  The next night was a hotel in Billings that had a pool.  Again, getting rid of the energy that builds up all day from travelling.  Every gas stop I had built in window washers.  A necessary chore when on the road, although I noticed there weren't as many bugs this year.  

It was another very quiet trip for traffic.  Obviously, cities had traffic.  But the country seemed very similar to the covid summer.  Same last year.  Very very odd.  Gas prices were fine all the way across once out of the PNW.  Less than $3 a gallon in Indiana which amazed me. Illinois was still the highest I saw beyond the PNW. 

All in all a great trip.  

Alaska Air Customer Service

 Apparently, someone took a trip (or something) on me. I logged in to my Alaska Air acct. and noticed I had lost a lot of points. Alaska Air became part of Atmos Rewards a little while back so at first, I thought maybe my points were counted differently in the new program. Which would be fine as long as I could still take the free flight that I had enough points for. Looked all over the website and supposedly every mile still earns a point and they don't expire. I had to email them. They responded back looking for verification that I am me. I sent that. Very timely they responded back and gave me the missing unauthorized points back. They kindly suggested that I change my password and turn on multi-factor authentication. I did this but noticed I must have had this acct. for a long time as it was an old password. Makes me think whoever stole the points was either incredibly lucky or knew me back in the 90's. Either way I am so happy to say that customer service of Alaska Air is fabulous. Happy to have two trips planned using them for flights this year.

Reading "Demon Copperhead"

 There are books that grab you.  There are books you read to get to the end just to finish it.  There are books that take you to other worlds.  I just read.  Good, bad and I almost aways finish what I start.  Even though sometimes that feels like a waste of time. 

Over the years I have discovered something about myself.  If I really really enjoy a story, I will slow it down.  It is like wanting to hurry to the end but not hurry so to make it last. Most books that I read are just stories and I can hurry if I want to.  I no longer read the endings before I am halfway through.  I almost always take a Stephen King book and make it last as long as possible.  I slowed down the Harry Potter books.  I just liked to live in the stories. 

Right now, I am reading "Demon Copperhead" by Barbara Kingsolver.   Her stories kind of rival King's stories in that I want to live there.  And as I am reading this book, I realize that I have done this with other books by her.  She has a way of writing that just sparks my imagination.  

My friend Kim had recommended this story to me last year.  She said it was great.  And she is right, so I recommend it to anyone interested in the subject matter, anyone who likes Kingsolver books, and just in general.  The story takes you through the life of a poor boy from birth to adulthood.  It touches on addiction, poverty, social programs and life.  

Kingsolver has an interesting way to write.  I have had a friend tell me Kingsolver is just not interesting enough to hold anyone's attention.  That friend meant her attention.  Because if you get Kingsolver's way of writing you get another world that you want to live in for a while just for the story.  She is a marvelous storyteller.  

Fishing

 One of the residents where I work at asked me if I was a fisherman.  I said no, because I'm not.  He told me my shirt begged to differ.  I looked down and realized I was wearing the shirt from Prince's Bait in Milaca MN.  I'm from Minnesota.

I then told the resident about my shirt.  My mom would take us fishing when we were kids.  And in Minnesota you fish with bait, minnows.  We would get our minnows at Prince's Bait.  I caught my first fish out of the Rum River, and it was a northern (which I believe is a type of trout).  I don't know how big it was, but it seemed big to the child me.  

We also fished in some of the lakes up north.  Sun fish specifically.  I remember being on pontoon boats.  I think my fishing ended on one of those trips.  My mom got stung by a bee and it turned out she was allergic.  We were switching lakes and as we are getting ready to go out on the pontoon, she told my uncle she was having problems breathing. We loaded up really quick and headed even further north to a hospital.  This is a weekend and it is a two-lane highway that is busy on weekends. My uncle took us down in ditches and around cars.  Felt scary.  We got to the hospital, and me and my cousins stayed in the vehicle while he and my mom went in.  We waited what seemed like an eternity.  The doctors there did what they do and Mom was okay.  But they did tell her if she had been five minutes later, she would not have survived.  Thank God for ditches. 

We moved to the PNW when I was a child. Here you can't use minnows.  Bait is worms.  My dad is not the type to buy bait.  So, he would go out and water the lawn really well.  We have night-crawlers in our yard.  Watering really well makes them come to the surface.  When it was dark we would go out picking worms out of the yard.  That was fun for us.  I don't recall ever fishing with those night-crawlers, but someone did.  

We also loved smelt in Minnesota.  When we first were here my parents went smelting and brought them home.  Mom cooked them up and we tried to eat them.  They are different for some reason than Minnesota smelt.  Maybe our proximity to the ocean?

So back to my shirt.  A couple of my trips back to Milaca took me on nostalgia trips and I stopped at Prince's Bait.  Looked at all the minnows swimming around in their tanks.  And I bought a couple of shirts.   And no, I still don't fish. But I will eat fish. 

How Old is Sunset

 We got Sunset in 2016 so that means our black cat will be 10 years old this year.  I was talking with my girl about cats and Sunset came up.  But that is not what this post is about.

Every variation of the blog seems to have its own thing.  And when I change it, I remove all the old posts and start over.  The old posts do not just disappear though.  They move to another blog for safe keeping.  I use the blogs a lot to check when things happened.  Like when we got Sunset. 

So, after my conversation I went to the safe keeping blog to find the answer.  And I was very surprised.  That blog has nothing new since December 2020.  And yet it is getting so much viewing.  Over 500 views in the last 24 hours, almost 500 views yesterday and 4000 so far this month.  

I have no idea what is so interesting to be generating these numbers. But there must be something in the 4400 posts that live there.  Blogging since 2008 is a long time.