SpringTrip07 - Report 20. Boiling Springs

My brother, two sisters, and I, plus families, have been having reunions every five years coinciding with Mom's numerically meaningful birthdays - 70th, 75th, 80th. Last year we couldn't get one organized for her 85th, but we made up for it this year in grand style.

Mom isn't up to long-distance travel, so we hit on the idea of meeting at Boiling Springs State Park, near Woodward in NW OK. This is the part of the state where Mom was born and grew up. My dad, too. More on that below. It's only about a two hours drive from Edmond where Mom and my two sisters live.

Thursday, June 7, we trekked across OK from the Red Barn in Carthage, MO, mostly on interstates and toll roads. Took this route to save time and because of very strong crosswinds from the south, blowing hard when we left and correctly forecasted to last all day. I’d rather deal with crosswinds on divided four-lanes than on narrow two-lanes.

Somewhere along the way, saw this sign: Cross Winds Ahead. I hate it when wind gets grumpy.

Speaking of signs: Early warnings of upcoming lane closures or changes are very helpful. Illinois wins the award: Right Lane Closed/Eight Miles Ahead. Of course, by the time we got there, I’d forgotten which lane was to be closed (actually, there was another warning at one mile). This was in a rural area, not in the Chicago commute area where such an advance warning might be especially helpful.

Got to Boiling Springs (I won’t abbreviate) and found a campsite by around 5:00 pm. Full-service hook-ups, spacious, too. Will be room for four of my nephews to set up a tent. My brother, Lael, and wife, Katherine, will park their VW camper in the campground, too, and everybody else will stay in four cabins we rented.

The clan arrived Friday pm. – total of 25, almost all of my parents’ descendants and spouses. We kicked the festivities off with a cookout.

Saturday was sightseeing. First to Little Sahara Sand Dunes. We hoped to relive some experiences of 11 years ago when we all went to White Sands - jumping off dunes, rolling down, ... . However, Little Sahara is a playground for off-roaders so that didn't work out. We proceeded to Alabaster Caverns for an enjoyable lunch and cave tour. Pizza in town finished the day.

The three youngest boys, two nephews and a grandson, next picture, hit it off big. Kept busy all weekend fishing, chasing ducks, playing ball, swimming, inventing things to do. Also slept with us in TuziTwo. They had a memorable pillow fight - at least I told them they would remember it when they're my age.

The spring has been unusually rainy this year and everything is much greener than usual. Rivers that usually trickle are running bank-full and over. Flowers are blooming in the pastures. A windy cool front came through Friday night - got us up to close the awning and the tent guys up to tie things down better - so the weather was pleasant, too.

Some family reunion background (some of this I’ve reported before, but for completeness and for faded memories, I’ll repeat it here): Both of my parents came from NW OK. They met when my Dad was hired to teach at Mom's home town of Selman. She was 14 at the time but the spark was lit. Dad was young, too. He had skipped two or three grades along the way, but he was still a college graduate. They dated after he moved to become superintendent at another school and married after Mom's freshman year in college.

Mom’s parents, Gene and Ethyl Bennett, had settled in NW OK, recently Indian Territory, in 1915. Their family grew to five daughters. They built a successful and respected farming and ranching operation – Grandpa was president of the school board when Dad came knocking on the Bennetts' door. From reminiscences of my Aunt Sammie, now deceased:

[When my parents moved to OK:] Old timers in Barber County, Kansas, on large ranches predicted my father would take Ethyl out west and they would starve but our father was a hard worker and my mother a saving type and they did very well.

What a summary! What they faced, what they did, and how they did it. Gives me chills. Here's a blurry picture of a picture of the Bennetts.

I worked for Grandpa the summer after my junior year in HS and it was a formative experience. Did me a world of good. (Son Mike later recalled that I often lamented during their growing-up years that it was too bad they didn’t have the opportunity to spend time at grandpa’s farm. It’s interesting what kids remember. I think I threatened to send them to work on my cousin’s farm if they didn’t turn off the TV and do something else.)

Sunday we had lunch in town. We had invited all the Bennett cousins and families living in OK to join us. Several live near Woodward, but others came from Tulsa and the Oklahoma City area. Had a great time sharing pictures and memories, catching up with families.

Most of the group left Sunday afternoon, but a few of us stayed until Monday morning. I took Mom for a drive and couldn't pass up the opportunity for a picture of her against a backdrop of Oklahoma sagebrush, sunflowers, and sky. We love you, Mom!

We drove all the way home on Monday. Went west through the OK panhandle to Guymon, then SW on US 54 to Tucumcari. In stark contrast to some of our Midwest passages, this is a stretch of nearly 300 miles with only two towns with a stoplight and just a handful of country crossroads to slow down for. Amazing!

Usually, it starts feeling like home when TX cropland gives way to NM mesas and valleys on I-40. This time, coming down US 54 it was the sight of Tucumcari Mountain, named, it is said, for the tragic tale of the Indian brave, Tocom, and Kari, the maiden he loved. Almost home.

Arrived home in a light rain about 7:30 pm. Final statistics: 5800 miles, 46 days, 6 kids, 5 grandkids, and much more -- priceless!

Cheers,

Rob and Susie

SpringTrip07 - Report 19. MI to MO

Tuesday, June 5.

Got an early start from Grand Rapids. Skirted around the Chicago metro area, happening by this impressive county courthouse in Rensselaer, IN, then plunged southward through IL via I-57, thereby avoiding St. Louis. Although there are some diagonal roads that would get us from MI to NW OK, we're making more of an ell-pattern: south then west.

Covered about 450 miles and spent the night at a KOA in Benton, IL. Had a problem for a while in that we weren't getting electricity into TuziTwo from the campground's power source. Finally discovered that in pulling heavy-duty power cord from the storage compartment I had inadvertently turned a key in a control box that cut us off. Live and learn. The key doesn't have an obvious on/off label and of course I hadn't read the manual, or even looked it up.

Not long after we got set up a van pulling a camping trailer parked in a spot just across the road in front of us. People started piling out. They kept moving and I never got a good count, but it appeared that it was two men with 9 or 10 kids ranging from toddlers to teenagers. They set up a tent in addition to their trailer. Later, though, as they ate dinner I saw that it was a man and a women with 8 plus kids. I'd mistaken one of the older boys as a second adult. Later I told Susie about this group, but too late for her to see the show. In the morning, though, just as we started to pull out, kids started coming from everywhere: trailer, van, tent - looked like a stirred-up ant hill, or circus clowns coming out of a car. It was Dad and the kids, fixing and having breakfast. Susie said, Don't go. I gotta see this. We still couldn't get an accurate count with all the coming and going - statistics means never having to say you're certain. The youngest was strapped in a booster seat that wasn't fastened to the picnic table bench and he kept falling sideways on the bench like Arte Johnson on the tricycle in Laugh-In. Dad would right him and breakfast continued. Mom never showed up. I said maybe this is her quiet time. So, we left, soon after 7 am.

As we drove south from Benton I discovered where all of Illinois's hills are - they've fallen to the bottom, like potatoes sinking in soup.

Goal today, Wednesday, was to drive across southern Missouri via Route 60. Three years ago we started west from Virginia Beach, the eastern terminus of Route 60 (historic sign shown here), once known as the coast to coast highway. I'd gotten interested in route 60 for a variety of reasons including that it runs through my home town of Tonkawa, OK, and I remember in the 50s that my dad was involved in a Route 60 Association - trying to repeat the Route 66 magic. Here's the series of reports on that Route 60 journey:

In 04, because of a side trip for repairs, we skipped the MO portion. I'd heard, also, at the time, that it was a pretty tortuous drive through the Ozarks for a motorhome, but now with more power, thought we'd give it a go.

After crossing the Mississippi one more time, next picture, this time on I-57, we soon picked up hwy. 60. Made a Wal-Mart stop in Sikeston, MO, and headed west.

Turns out the much of MO's 60 is new, four-laned. They're turning it into a parkway. Our Magellan GPS, even though I updated its memory just before we left, wasn't up to date. It kept showing our position as off the road, wandering somewhere through the mountains and not on what it thought was route 60. Occasionally, we'd see a parallel road labeled as Old 60. We took Business 60 loops through a couple of towns, apparently the old road bed. But, in contrast to what we saw in other states in '04, we didn't see preserved, still active businesses, such as motels or diners, or buildings from 50 years ago or so. The buildings we saw from that era were abandoned derelicts. If only I'd launched a Route 60 Heritage Association three years ago, things might have been different. Oh, sure.

Around lunchtime I made one serious mistake. Took an exit advertising a family restaurant. It wasn't where the sign said it should have been and we found ourselves heading away from 60 on a county road with nowhere to turn around.

After 3-4 miles we came to a fairly wide intersection and I decided we could "make a legal U-turn," as Magellan is forever instructing me. Well, we couldn't, not without backing and working back and forth. Not a good situation to put the PT in, but I nursed it carefully and we finally made it - luckily no traffic during our tortured turn-around. Also, no damage to PT, Tuzi, or hitch. As I was U-turning, I could see myself stuck in the intersection, having to disconnect the PT while traffic lined up, drivers either fuming or laughing at us.

We ended up eating left-over sandwiches from Kaci's open house in the parking lot of an abandoned grocery store. I guess that should have been my featured Route 60 photo. I had been sure we would find an Ozark restaurant specializing in catfish or barbecue. Oh, well. Later in the afternoon, at a Dairy Queen break, I got us into a tight parking lot but managed to get out by cutting across a strip of lawn to an adjoining business's parking lot. Not my most pleasant day behind the wheel.

For the record, the middle 50 miles of our Missouri Ozarks Route 60 transit was two-lane hills and curves, but no problem to negotiate. Even there you can see that they're starting to clear land for a four-lane parkway.

In 2004 I had noticed a dearth of businesses with Route 60 in their name (as contrasted with Route 66 promoting businesses). Well, our Passport America campground book listed a Highway 60 RV Park in far SW MO, so that was our destination. The deal with being a PA member is that you camp for half price. This place listed at $30 regular, $15 for PA. Well, it was nothing but a pasture with hook-ups. No amenities, no ambiance. Outrageous! Maybe worth $15 period, but no way worth $30. At other PA RV parks we've stayed at I didn't have the feeling that their listed prices were phoney, but here I did. Nice manager, though, so I just said I thought we'd drive a little further. It was only around 4:00 pm so there was ample time for Plan B.

We were not far from the Big Red Barn RV Park near Carthage, MO, where we have stayed before, so that's where we headed for the night. They were sold out in their full-service sites, but we decided we would rough it with only 30 amps and no cable TV. We ordered pizza

delivery, turned on the satellite TV, and had a nice, relaxing evening.

Around 1:00 am, though, I woke up and noticed that we had no AC power. Oh, no, I thought: electrical problems again. Checked the things I know to check and found no problem. The little key was in its proper position, but the little red lights signifying power-in were not on. Outside, we could see that the campground lights were out, so the problem was elsewhere. Within an hour the power was back on and all was well.

Medical Update. Susie's foot, injured two weeks ago, is still giving her quite a bit of pain. She spent a lot of time on her feet in Grand Rapids and we think that may have delayed recovery, but there was no way she wasn't going to be in the middle of all this fun and activity. Memories are made of this!

I'm going to post this now because I'm not sure about internet access once we get to Boiling Springs State Park, near Woodward, OK, where our family reunion is taking place. At last, after all this time with Susie's side of the family, we're finally gathering with mine - I joke :-).

Susie's insert-- Actually, I said that we had done the "Hinkle family thing" we were now heading for the more sane and sedate Easterling (actually, Bennett family--Bonnie's extended family) family. I'll report later if the reunion is sane and sedate. We are very anxious to see the kids--big and little. The good news is that we will be home soon. The bad news is that we will be home soon. We have had a WONDERFUL trip.

Incidentally, I have no idea how Blogger does paragraph breaks. Every time I open a draft to update it, the breaks have changed. Then when I post, not all of the breaks translate to the posting. Also, I've noticed that dashes don't print as dashes - more like heavy dots. Oh, well.

Cheers,

Rob and Susie

SpringTrip07 - Report 18. More Michigan

June 4.

Friday and Saturday we worked getting ready forKaci's open house. Late afternoon downpour Saturday altered plans a bit, but the party went on in fine style. A couple of pix. Tony is testing the chocolate fountain while Susie arranges the goodies.






That's a reflection over Kaci's head, not a crown.

We try to be in Grand Rapids on Sundays because we greatly enjoy the Methodist church that Matt and family go to. Matt leads the musical praise team, which makes his Momma very proud and teary, and we always enjoy and appreciate Pastor Will’s sermons. He’s in a series now on the book of Revelation. The writer’s message, he explained, is that people have a choice: God’s empire or Satan’s empire. Satan’s empire has a front man – the beast. At the time the book was written, the symbolism pointed to Nero, the despot of the time, as Satan’s beast. As Albq friend Jack Nuzum, who teaches a Bible class in HS, often points out, the final outcome forecast in Rev is that God’s empire wins in the end. In the meantime, it’s not necessarily easy; in fact it may be terrible. Every generation since Nero, loosely speaking, has had its own beast to deal with, Hitler being the easiest example. On a personal level, Christians face the same choice of empires to follow in their individual lives.

On a global level, the event of the last couple of years that sticks with me is when a TV crew was kidnapped by Islamic radicals. Convert to Islam or die, they told the hostages. They converted. How do we deal with that beast? I asked Will later. There’s no clear answer, but history tells us there could be much bloodshed, he said. Sobering.

Sunday evening Matt took us to visit his plant – a box manufacturing plant. About six months ago Matt made a gutsy career move: left the company he had been with since he got out of the army and where he had risen to sales manager of the Grand Rapids plant to become plant general manager at another packaging-manufacturer in Grand Rapids, Pratt Industries. The plant was in decline – sales, morale, pride, image. He’s been working hard to turn things around. And making progress: the workers recently made wage concessions to help the business succeed. Setting the tone, Matt and Suzy spent weekend time painting and sprucing up some break rooms and conference rooms. Son Tony is working there this summer – odd jobs, filling in for people on summer vacations. Susie said to him, “I’m so proud of you, Tony.” “You should be prouder of your son,” he said. “He's got a huge job and the respect he gets in the plant is amazing.” It’s not easy, though. There are some “beasts” lurking around that he has to deal with. Something you might want to know: Pratt makes all their boxes, and other corrugated products, from recycled paper. Their PR material says they save 30,000 trees a day! That's your statistic of the day.

Cheers,

Rob and Susie

SpringTrip07 - Report 17. Michigan

Tuesday, May 29.


Crossed the MacBridge headed south for Grand Rapids. Susie got some bridge pictures from the co-pilot seat. The guard rails don't seem very high, particularly from the elevation of Tuzi's driver seat, and the lanes are narrow. Matt told us later that drivers are standing by: if you don't want to drive yourself, just tell the folks at the toll booth and they will summon someone to drive. We didn't have a problem, even changed lanes a couple of times. The inner lanes are metal grids that give you a buzz.




(After the bridge) the first 150 miles were almost all tree-tunnel. You know what they say about sled dogs: If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes. Well, in a tree-tunnel it doesn't matter who you are, the view never changes. Most of the time you can't even see the northbound lanes. Michigan! Show us your barns!



Finally, Magellan took us on a westward jog, two-lane highway with farms, homes, and businesses fronting it. Even found a stop for MacFudge (Mackinac Island Fudge) ice cream, though it took some fairly tight maneuvers going around a residential block after first pulling in to what I thought was parking space in front of an abandoned building, but it, the building, wasn't abandoned, so we had to squeeze out of there. On these town excursions you never know if you're going to encounter overhanging power lines and tree limbs, or a dead end. But, for MacFudge ice cream, the risk is worth it.



Wednesday, May 30.



After cold and wind a few days ago, summer is happening - warm, humid weather in Grand Rapids. Grand-daughter Kaci's HS graduation takes place in the football stadium in the evening and it's right pleasant. Kaci is class president but you would not know it from the program: it only lists a group as the class Executive Committee, alphabetically. All very egalitarian. The valedictorian and salutatorian are not identified, but they jointly give the commencement address. The program does identify, however, the cum laude, summa, and magna students, so excellence receives some recognition. (Pardon the curmudgeonism.) Kaci graduated cum laude and is headed for Baldwin-Wallace and their music program in the fall.

Here's a selection of graduation pictures.





With the proud parents (note Matt's Baldwin-Wallace cap):

With last year's graduate, brother Tony, now a student at the College of Santa Fe :

With both sets of grandparents. That's Alan and Elizabeth Anthony, from San Antonio, TX, now; they were living in Fort Davis, TX, when last we saw them on our trip to Big Bend. Kaci has two middle names - Sue Elizabeth - in honor of her two grandmothers.

Susie with all three grandkids - that's Andrew on the right.

Well, that's it for now. We'll be here through the weekend - graduation party, doing laundry, etc. - then off for Oklahoma for Easterling/Bennett family reunion next weekend.

Trip so far: 4100 miles. 1500 to go. Turns out that I had accidentally switched the odometer from miles to kilometers. In trying to recover from that I zeroed out the trip mileage for about 15 miles during which I figgered out what happened. So, as they say, actual mileage may vary from what I report, but close enough.


Cheers,



Rob and Susie

SpringTrip07 - Report 16. SD to MI

Sunday, May 27. We left Aberdeen early, heading east with a slight southerly dip. In sharp contrast with SD, as we cross Minnesota the towns become quite frequent - every 10 miles or so, even less - so it's pretty slow going. It's nice to see all the flags out along Main Street America, though. Got behind some slow pick-ups that I thought were probably being driven by some of those Norwegian bachelor farmers who figure in so many of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegone stories.

Seeing the flags, we recalled that five years earlier, on an early Tuzigoot trip, what we called our 40daysand40nights tour, we were driving across northern Wisconsin on Memorial weekend Sunday and spotted a hand-written sign advertising a holiday lunch. It was lunch time, we stopped, and had a nice lunch and visit with the church folks putting on the lunch.

Anyhow, we eventually plunged into the Minneapolis freeway tangle and got through the Twin Cities via I-94 in early afternoon with pretty good ease - light traffic, the keep-lefts and keep-rights directions all timely and accurate from Magellan and from the MN DOT.

(I updated the Magellan software before we left home and it's doing strange things the original didn't. Most disconcerting, just after executing a turn as directed, Magellan will occasionally erroneously and immediately say, "When possible, make a legal U-turn." In a panic I check the map display and confirm I did right so I ignore the voice and continue. Magellan doesn't persist in her mistake or apologize (Susie says that just because "it" has a female voice, I shouldn't say "she" goofed). If I switched to the male voice, though, "he" wouldn't ask for directions from the big satellite in the sky and we would get hopelessly lost.)

After about a 400-mile day we stopped at a nice little campground near Chippewa Falls, WI for the night. Turned out to be free popcorn night! Picked this campground out of a guide we picked up at the WI welcome center, called and found out we could park in their overflow area - electricity only. This is fine and about all we could expect this holiday evening - manager helps us add water to the tank.

The next day we continue east on WI state hwy. 29 - a really beautiful four-lane road that goes right across the heart of Wisconsin with hardly a stoplight. (Only question: Why didn't they follow convention and assign an even number to an east-west highway? The campground manager called it a "new" highway, but that sort of new can be 20 years old or more.)

More majestic farm land. Not only barns but lots of silos, presumably for storing silage for feeding all those milk cows. Susie likes silos; I like barns. Hmm. I imagine the farmers bragging at the local coffee shop: Mine's taller than yours. Mine's bigger, volume-wise. I got more of them. If you stack all of mine on top of each other, I've got the most (volume). Etc. This sort of profound thinking helps pass the miles.

(Incidentally, I've about had it up to here with this magnificent Midwest farmland, barns, silos, churches, creeks and rivers, ... . How about you? I'm ready for mountains and mesas and bone-dry arroyos. Just kidding, sort of. Actually, we pledge that the next time we make this Aberdeen to Grand Rapids trek we'll take our time and devote a week or two to enjoying Wisconsin.)

Our goal today is a KOA campground on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, near the Straits of Mackinac and the Mackinac Bridge. This will leave us with only a 250-mile day on Tuesday to get to Grand Rapids in time for dinner.

(The UP is another place we've vowed to spend some quality time in. This will be our third trip across it. Maybe more time next time.)

Magellan and Hwy 29 take us to the outskirts of Green Bay (I apologize to any Packer fans; thought about driving in to see hallowed Lambeau Field and maybe some cheeseheads, but skipped it). From there it's north and east toward the UP, land of Yoopers and pasties. In Oconto, WI, we're stopped to allow a Memorial Day parade to go by: a HS band, a Mid-school band, a trailer with veterans and flags, and a Cub Scout troup. That was it. Marvelous! Memorial Day parade with McDonald's in the background. America the Beauiful! Found some Memorial Day music on local radio and on XM, so it was a good day for remembrance and celebration.

Faithful readers may recall that we were in the UP in the fall of 05, in search of Grandma's pasties. Natives of the UP call themselves Yoopers. They regard themselves as partially frozen analogs of rednecks, but smarter. Yooper humor is pretty entertaining. Here's an example for you trolls down below:

YOOPER CREATION STORY

In the beginning dere was nuttin.

Den on da first day God created da Upper Peninsula.

On da second day He created da partridge, da deer, da bear, da fish, and da ducks.

On da third day He said let dere be Yoopers to roam da Upper Peninsula.

On da fourth day He created da udder world down below.

On da fifth day He said "Let dere be trolls to live in da world down below."

On da sixth day he created da bridge so da trolls would have a way to get to heaven.

God saw it was good and on da seventh day He went huntin.

In turn, Yoopers created pasties - meat and potatoes in a pastry shell. In '05 we came across this pasty shop - a special place, left-side picture. You can look our report up here: http://rgeasterling.com/05NewEngland/report5web.htm. Well, we found it again on this trip. So, if you're ever on the UP, on US-2 about 20 miles west of the Mackinac Bridge, stop here for home-made pasties.

And ice cream. I got an ice cream cone - Mackinac Island Fudge, which I'd been looking for and thinking of all afternoon. That was my favorite flavor when we were in Ann Arbor.

We picked up a couple of pasties for dinner. Susie fixed gravy. Great meal! ! I think, though, that pasties would benefit by adding chopped Hatch green chile to the contents. There's an idea. This morning, 5/30, I had left-over pasty with an egg and salsa on top. Call it Pasty Ranchero. Somebody should start a Youper-Mexican restaurant: We've got you covered, border to border.

Got checked in to the KOA, this one a disappointment - high in price and low on convenience, readiness, and staff helpfulness - then went to St. Ignace for provisions (that's a town not a local holy man), and took a picture of the Bridge.

Here's a night view off of the internet:

Saw another pasty sign we couldn't pass up. I wanted Susie to pose in front of it. She said it wasn't spelled right for her, but it surely referred to daughter-in-law Suzy whom we will soon see in Grand Rapids.

Cheers,

Rob and Susie

SpringTrip07 - Report 15. SoDak

Thursday, May 24.

After the Music Museum, we got to Sioux Falls in mid-afternoon and made ourselves at home via Valerie's hidden housekey. While Jeff is in Aberdeen, Valerie continues at her Sioux Falls probation officer job and keeps the house ready to show potential buyers. Dinner (Valerie is a great cook), visiting, and clothes-washing pretty well finished the evening for us all.

Valerie provided Susie with a protective shoe for her injured foot - Valerie had a broken foot not long ago - and that has proven very helpful. Susie continues to progress (this is being written May 27), but it remains to be seen if she will be dancing at Kaci's graduation party next Saturday. I took a picture of her multi-colored foot - mostly green and black - but she doesn't want me to show it.

Friday, after a couple of morning errands, we had lunch with Valerie, then headed north to Aberdeen. Here's a picture I shot while driving - looks kinda like a Microsoft screen saver. Do you see any bugs on the windshield? Lots of pretty shades of green in the South Dakota landscape right now. In the weekend USA Today there was an article about 15 destinations to see. One was South Dakota. Writer said take your kids and drive west across the state on I-90 just to show them how big this country is -- what it's like to have miles and miles of just grass and sky. Awesome! See Wall Drug!

It was cold and windy in Aberdeen - lows in 40s, highs in 50s the two days we were there. Jeff had gotten permission for us to park in front of the Holiday Inn Express where he is staying. We had dinner and he drove us around to look at the exteriors and neighborhoods of some houses he has looked at. A couple of places were located on a lake several miles out in the country.

We had planned to sleep in TuziTwo but as cold as it was we weren't too sure about staying warm enough without either running the generator or the batteries more than I wanted. So, we got a room in the Inn. WimpsRUs. Free breakfast with it, though.

Saturday it was even colder and windier. We went to Jeff's ShopKo store - the one he's now managing, the saner upper Midwest alternative to Wal-Mart and Target - and stocked up on some needed items. We then toured the city and countryside some more looking at houses for sale. There aren't many and they seem pricier than you might think - supply and demand at work. The town has 1% unemployment and Jeff says it is very hard to fill vacancies in his store. Valerie is coming up next weekend for some serious house-looking.

How windy was it? At one point we were driving along a highway, downwind, about 60 mph, and I looked to our right and above and there was a duck, flapping his wings as fast as possible and, it seemed to me, with a smile on his face. Having a great time. He stayed with us for a quarter of a mile. I kid you not! Also, Jeff said you generally see a lot of pheasants along the roads. Not today, pheasants were grounded by a high wind advisory.

There's a lot of water in this part of the state - lakes, ponds, creeks, marshes, and rivers. Jeff says a large portion of the country's duck population is South Dakota born and bred. He's looking forward to fishing and hunting opportunities in the area. Also, now, there's a lot of water standing in ditches and low spots in the fields. Three weeks ago Aberdeen had major flooding - same time as the Greensburg torndado, so it didn't get the publicity it might have. We saw many houses that were orange-tagged as unsafe for habitation. Mostly it's a case of basement walls being so damaged that the house may collapse. We said, Well, at least now you know what parts of town you don't want to buy a house in.

Here are some Aberdeen pictures Valerie sent us a couple of weeks ago -- probably not from their real estate agent. What's that motor home doing out there!

After we left I looked up Aberdeen in Wikipedia and found ironically that in the late 1890s it was known as "The Town in the Frog Pond" because of its proclivity for flooded basements in rainy times. The more things change, ... . When the city dug a ditch to provide drainage they hit an artesian pool that flooded the area they were trying to protect.

You will be interested to know that Wikipedia has a paragraph about the May 2007 flood. How's that for timeliness. Aberdeen had 5.8 inches of rain in a 24 hour period breaking previous record of 4.0 inches. Welcome to Aberdeen, Jeff and Valerie. I had told Jeff, though, that since they'd just had their 100 year flood, statistically speaking, there was nothing to worry about.

Actually, we liked the town - nice mix of old and new and not as crowded and traffic-clogged as the metropolis of Sioux Falls. We went out for Mexican food Saturday noon. Jeff shook his head: "What's an Albuquerque boy doing eating Mexican food in Aberdeen, South Dakota?" "Next stop, Fargo," I said helpfully.

Incidentally, the preferred label for Aberdeen is the Hub City, because several railroads intersected here.

We decided we wanted to spend Saturday night in the Inn, also, but they had no room. We waited until 6:00 pm, the cancellation deadline, but no dice. We called a few other motels: same story. There are many flood victims still in motels, plus FEMA agents, and this is both Memorial Day and graduation weekends. There's a college here - Northern State U. There's one campground in town, but we checked twice and it had no slots available. Went to Plan C - Jeff slept on the fold-out couch in his room, we slept in his bed. Worked fine for one night. Helped us get an early start on Sunday morning. Heading for Grand Rapids, MI, around the top, i.e., - via the You Pee (Upper Peninsula). Will be a three-day trip, about 1000 miles.

We've now been on the road a month. The trip mileage odometer got messed up, so I don't have an accurate mileage reading. Too bad there's not a statistician around here. Be home in just over two weeks.

Cheers,

Rob and Susie

SpringTrip07 - Report 14, Across Iowa

May 20 - Sunday. It's on from Dubuque to Ames, Iowa, with a stop along the way in Dike. This is the home of Bill Hinkle, cousin to Susie's late husband, Manny. It worked out fortuitously that we met with Bill and his wife, Corrine, at their Church just as a potluck lunch was finishing, but not so late that we couldn't have lunch there, which we did. We said next time we'll try to be in time for church before we eat. Had a nice visit and a tour of Dike. Sorry, for you family members, that we failed to get a picture of the Hinkles.


Got to Ames in late afternoon, parked TuziTwo in the conference hotel's parking lot and checked into the hotel - treating ourselves to three nights in hotel because there didn't seem to be any campgrounds close enough to campus and this way Susie would have the car during the day, which she used to good advantage.

Conference went well, too. I had organized two sessions and modestly included myself as a speaker in one of them. Some last minute schedule changes had me concerned about attendance, because of timing (8:00 am on final half-day of the conference) and competition with other sessions, but these proved unfounded as both sessions attracted a substantial part of the 90 or so conference attendees. Good discussions and reactions, too.



On Wednesday morning, the plan was that I would get back to the hotel in time to load our stuff and check out. However, friend Max Morris, fellow Oklahoma State U grad and now on the faculty of Iowa State University, invited me to come visit hallowed Snedecor Hall, home of the university's Department of Statistics and Statistical Laboratory. (Earlier in the week I had said I wanted to go and this was the first opportunity - having been riveted to conference presentations on statistics all week.)


The Statistical Laboratory is an independent unit that provides campus-wide consulting. It was the first such organization in the country - established in 1927 - and the Department was one of the first (along with North Carolina State U.) in the country, established in 1935 as a section of the Agricultural Experiment Station, then as a department in 1947. George Snedecor was the leader in all this, with a boost from Henry Wallace, who went on to be Sec. of Agriculture and Vice President of the USA. All the big names in statistics in the early years visited here or were on the faculty. Graduates of the program started the statistics department at Oklahoma State University, and, as far as I'm concerned, the rest is history.


Anyhow, Max gave me a tour of the building and I got to see, among other things, a collection of historical calculating machines that Department member Bill Meeker had assembled for 60th anniversary observance. In the very early years the "computer room" was where a bunch of "computers" (generally ladies) punched in numbers and turned cranks to produce more numbers. When I went to Sandia Labs in 1967 I remember wanting to be sure that they had the Monroe calculators I was used to - ISU had one of those. I guess I should say something profound here about the advance of computing over my career, but I'll take a pass.

Max and I also took a scenic stroll around campus. Here's a picture off of the ISU website.




Snedecor Hall is going to be gutted starting this winter and the interior modernized. Max said that when plans were made to modernize another historic hall on campus, the choice was to tear it down, then build a new building that would look just like the old one, for X million dollars, or to keep the building shell, gut it and rebuild internally for 2X million dollars,. The latter plan was the decision. Don't touch those hallowed brick walls!

One other piece of trivia: Ames was named for a Massachusetts congressman who was influential in getting a RR routed through the unnamed hamlet. They invited him out for the dedication; he stayed about three hours and was reported to be very bewildered by it all.

I had called Susie and said I would be late, maybe she could have our check-out time extended. Well, there wasn't that much to load, so Susie went ahead. All went well until on the last trip into the hotel she slipped on some wet steps leading to the hotel. Fell hard, really twisting her foot and banging her head on a bannister. When I got back, she was in TuziTwo fighting back tears. It hurt and it made her mad. She had turned to look at someone who came up behind her as she started down the stairs and that distraction led to the slip and the fall.

We decided to go to emergency room to see if anything was broken. Very pleasant and efficient staff at the ER. Foot was not broken and CAT scan of Susie's head showed nothing - wrong. Very painful, though (her foot), and difficult to walk. She didn't think crutches would help, particularly in motor home, so we opted not to get crutches.


We went back to TuziTwo, hooked up, and left Ames about 4:00 pm. Things could have been worse; things could have been better. We, especially Susie, will just cope. The foot, however, is providing us with many stages of swelling and coloration changes. Susie thinks it may be the Lord's way of saying that she has bought enough shoes on this trip. We didn't think we would try to get to Sioux Falls, SD, but Sioux City, SD, looked to be in range as well as having a KOA. Drove through some heavy rain - flooding reported in Iowa a day later - and got to the KOA about 8:00 pm. Still lots of daylight at this northern latitude this time of year.


No hurry to get to Sioux Falls the next day - Thursday. Jeff is at his new store in Aberdeen and Valerie is at work. Real estate agents may be showing the house, so we wouldn't want to be in the way. It had rained all night and rain continued most of the morning. Haven't detected any leaks - last fall we did have some.)


Stopped at the National Music Museum in Vermillion, SD, along the way. Susie stayed in TuziTwo, resting her injured foot, while I toured. Lots of historic instruments, many of which you could hear played on the portable audio system you could carry.

Here's the Stradivari case. Strad made not only violins but also violas, guitars, and a mini-mandolin.

Of course there was a banjo display, but they didn't have a recording to listen to. At least they didn't have a display of shameful anti-banjo jokes like they did at the Owensboro Bluegrass Museum.

Here's a novelty double horn.

A Civil War display was interesting. Several instruments, like trumpets and basses, were made with over-the-shoulder facing bells so that the troops marching along behind could hear the music better. I bought a CD called Custer's Last Band -- music he favored. It's got several nice brass band numbers.

Update, Sunday, May 27: Susie's foot still very tender, swelling and turning technicolors, but it's getting better.

Cheers for now,

Rob and Susie

SpringTrip07-Report 13. Dubuque

Report 13. Dubuque

But first ... John Deere addendum: Was curious about history of John Deere company and when they got into tractors. Some info from the company website: John’s son, Charles, took over the company reins in 1859, at age 21, and ran it for 49 years. It wasn’t until the 1920s that Deere got into the tractor business; apparently Ford and International Harvester were the first companies doing tractors. During the Depression, the company carried debtor farmers, which earned them gratitude and loyalty. Recently, they provided free equipment for the Greensburg, KS tornado clean-up.

May 18. Our quest for an RV park with wi-fi led us to the Rustic Barn RV Park in Kieler, Wisconsin, just across the Mississippi from Dubuque, Iowa. I'm a sucker for barn RV parks. Here’s the barn and our view of America‘s Dairyland from the park.

Turned out wi-fi didn’t reach much beyond the porch, certainly not to our site, but the park had an ethernet connection in the office that we used quite a bit - to send out the last batch of breathlessly-awaited blogs. (Incidentally, Blogger doesn’t seem to be able to reproduce double dashes. Or maybe the problem is that I’m typing reports in Word, then copying and pasting them into Blogger later when I can get an internet connection. I’m going to try single dashes and see if that translates.)

In early afternoon we headed for the Field of Dreams movie site - near Dyersville, around 25 miles west of Dubuque. If you build it he will come. I had wanted to see this place for a long time – holy soil for baseball fans. We had to skip it last time through the state, last year, in the interest of time. Ample time on this trip. Here’s a picture of owner, Don Lansing, and myself.

Just as we pulled up a traveling softball team was taking pictures and leaving the field. There are no organized games on the field, but groups are allowed to play a little ball when they visit. we left, a school field trip showed up and took the field. Field trips give Susie Schoolmarm the willies.

It turns out that the Field straddles two separately owned properties. The movie folks located it for lighting and sight lines. Don Lansing owns the farm and most of the field, but the property line runs across left and center field. There are two souvenir stands – one on each property. Also two signs and two access roads off the highway. There’s a sign on Lansing’s property saying don’t shop over there – it’s owned by an investment banking group (boo! hiss!). We got to visit with Don Lansing and he said he and the other owner tried to work something out, but couldn’t. The present owners wanted to put in several fields and make it a baseball/softball complex. Make lots of money. Lansing just wants to preserve it the way it was for the movie, keep it low-key, supported by sales and donations, not admission charges. He was a nice guy to visit with.

Here's close-up of house and barn. The Lansings do not live on the property – they have a new house across the road.

We bought souvenirs from the Lansing's shop and went back to Dubuque. I had spotted a Catfish Charlie’s restaurant in a brochure and that led to a fine meal, sitting on a deck overlooking the Mississippi.

I think there should be a partnership between Dubuque and Albuquerque – and any other cities ending in que. Are there any? (Martinique?) Other things in common: Dubuque’s airport code is DBQ and Albuquerque’s is ABQ. Both are situated on the bank of a great River. Both have casinos on their peripheries. Probably other similarities to bring us together.

Saturday we took a lunch cruise on the Mississippi in a stern-wheeler. That was restful and scenic. Learned that there are about 17 sets of locks and dams on the river between St. Louis and Minneapolis, authorized, I think, in the 1930s and built to permit river barge traffic and shipping through the upper Midwest.

The scene below on the river reminded me of a story I read in "Uncommon Carriers," by John McPhee. The book is about the shipping industry - planes, trains, trucks, barges. McPhee rode with a crew pushing barges on the Illinois River, rather narrow and shallow compared to the Mississippi. One big hazard was pleasure-boaters, whipping around the barges and tugboats. On the other hand, the crew fantasized about pleasure-boats on which gorgeous women would, uh, reveal themselves as they cruised past. Well, it actually happened when McPhee was on board - spectacularly, as I recall the story. The most excitement we had, Susie and I, was watching a couple struggling to control a sailboat as we went by.

On Friday we had taken picture of the Dubuque courthouse. One of the paddle-wheeler's crew told me that this county courthouse is the only gold-domed government building in Iowa besides the capital building.

Followed our cruise by strolling through a downtown art festival, then I rode the world’s shortest, steepest railway(though this claim is disputed), called the Fourth Street Elevator, also called the Fenelon Place Elevator. It’s 296 feet long with an elevation rise of 189 feet to the top of the bluff overlooking downtown DBQ. This means it has an angle of 41 degrees, pretty steep. Story is that a Dubuque banker didn’t like to use a half hour of his one and a half hour lunch break just getting home. So, he built this funicular in 1882. It’s been burned and replaced a couple of times, but it’s still operating.

On the way into Dubuque the previous day we had come through St. Donatus, a Luxembourger settlement. Two large churches (I dubbed them St. Donations) stood out on opposite hills so we decided to go back for a closer look. They were both open. A nice lady chatted with us in the Lutheran church shown below – she might have been the preacher. Both had elegant sanctuaries. We had thought there might be shops or restaurants displaying the Luxembourg heritage, but there weren’t. After we left Dubuque I found brochure describing some old houses and barns off on a side road from Saint Donatus.

So, that's the Dubuque story. Tomorrow it's on to Ames.

Cheers,

Rob and Susie

SpringTrip07 - Report 12

Report 12.

May 17 continued

Ronald Reagan's hometown, Dixon, IL sits astride the Rock River. We continued a few miles up river to Grand Detour, wondering why they called it that. Turns out that that is anglicized French for "Big Bend." The Rock River makes a sharp U at this point. The Indians said that the river is so beautiful that it just had to turn around to look at itself. Check it out.

Susie says, why are we going here? Because the John Deere Historic Site is here, I say. Susie’s recalling a New Zealand historic site that we were directed to only to find a small sign saying this is a historic site. Her expectations are low. But, this turns out to be quite a find, thanks particularly to Rick the blacksmith.

First of all, John Deere was a person, not just a tractor brand. Rick asks us, If John Deere was alive today, what would he be known for? The tractor, we say. Wrong, says Rick. He’d be known for being over 200 years old! He was born in 1804.

Well, we’ve already seen the introductory video so we know that Deere’s contribution to farming was the “mould board plow.” We just played straightpersons for Rick. When John came to Grand Detour from Vermont in 1837 to set up a blacksmith shop, there was a problem: the cast iron plow that worked well in the sandy soil in the northeast couldn’t handle the Midwest’s thicker, gummier soil. The soil stuck to the blade and balled up and the plow wouldn’t plow. Deere’s solution was a highly polished, carefully curved, steel blade. It was self-cleaning. So, that’s why there are farms, not just prairie, in the Midwest today. The pioneers turned the soil, one furrow at a time, thanks to John Deere’s plow.

I asked about the term mould board. In my youth I had heard my grandpa Bennett and others talk about a mow-board plow. Didn’t know what that was and didn’t want to ask. There’s no good answer, Rick said. Earlier plows had a moulded board to which the cast iron blade was attached, so that seems the logical explanation. Deere replaced that assembly with a single curved steel piece, but didn’t change the name.

Business flourished and about 10 years later, Deere relocated to Moline, IL, on the Mississippi. He had been using a horse on a treadmill to power his shop. He could use river power in Moline (the Rock River wasn’t deep enough for a mill at Grand Detour). Rick told us that Deere created the assembly line long before Henry Ford. There are two of Deere’s original plows in existence: one at the Smithsonian, one at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI.

Rick's story was interesting. He got into blacksmithing years ago because his wife owned horses. He became friends with the local blacksmith and worked with him part time. Then he got divorced and quit blacksmithing. He joined the Air Force and had a 20+ year career. Somehow he happened across the Deere Historical Site and found they were looking for a blacksmith. He took the job. He looks the part -- large guy with bushy beard -- and he puts on a show. After telling us the Deere story he showed us an iron rod and said there was a leaf inside just trying to get out. So, he pumped the bellows, heated the rod, and pounded out a leaf. You can see Rick's picture at the above Deere website.

At the Deere Historic Site, they have excavated and located his blacksmith shop. The house Deere built and lived in with his family is also on the site:

Also, the surrounding residential area in Grand Detour is really beautiful.

After this there was one more county courthouse to see, in Oregon, IL, then back to Amboy for dinner and back to Yogi Bear for the night. This was a day that we need to do more of. Pick a location and spend a day, or more, exploring it in detail. Don’t just pass through on the way to somewhere else.


Next stop: Dubuque, Iowa, just 150 miles up the road. We’ve decided to spend a couple of nights there before proceeding on to Ames on Sunday.

Cheers,

Rob and Susie

SpringTrip07 - Report 11

Thursday, May 17, we spend the day exploring nearby towns and villages. Tampico is where Ronald Reagan was born; Dixon is what he considered his home town and where he graduated from HS. Grand Detour is home to John Deere’s home and museum. There are also county courthouses to see and beautiful residential areas with large, old homes with wrap-around screened porches, set on spacious tree-shaded properties. Everything is fresh and green now, not wilted by summer, and lots of May flowers. There are museums in most towns, but we didn’t have time for any of these besides the Reagan and Deere sites. The countryside is sprinkled with proud, sturdy farms and barns sitting on the prairie that was turned into productive farmland (thanks to John Deere). Susie says it just makes her feel good to see the farmers working their land. Gives me a charge, too. And another thing that makes you feel really good are the volunteer workers in the museums. They know and love their subject and they’re eager to tell you about it and grateful that you came to see them. Dedicated, gracious people, usually seasoned citizens. Is this a great country, or what?

Ronald Reagan was born in an apartment over a bakery in downtown Tampico (pronounced with emphasis on the first syllable). His father, Jack, worked in a dry goods store across the street. When Ronald was born (1909), weighing 10 lbs., Jack said, He looks like a fat Dutchman. Hence the nickname, Dutch. Previously his brother Neil was dubbed Moon, because Jack said he looked like Moon Mullins. Good thing there wasn’t a girl in the family.

The apartment was spacious – three good-sized bedrooms – not what you might expect for turn of the last century small-town living quarters. (One thing we learned is that residences of the time tended not to have closets. If the tax assessor could walk into an enclosure, he counted it as a room and taxes were based on the number of rooms a home had.) The apartment is furnished with period pieces – Reagan moved his parents to California after he became successful in Hollywood and the possessions they left in storage burned. When the restoration was done many years later, Dutch and Moon went through old Montgomery Wards and Sears catalogs picking out furniture that looked familiar.

The lady who showed us through the museum and apartment set the tone for the day – a very gracious, knowledgeable person; wish I’d gotten her name. The little museum has lots of photos and memorabilia, including something like 35 original movie posters from Reagan’s 59 movies. Ronald and Nancy were in only one movie together – Hellcats of the Navy. The Tampico website has a large collection of photos.

Reagan visited the Tampico museum while president – an imprint on the carpet says “Ronald Reagan stept here.” When his body was flown from Washington to California three years ago, Air Force One flew low over Tampico. Everybody was out in main street. A great thrill for the town. Now there’s a beauty shop in town named Hair Force One.

The museum has some playbills for a Tampico theater group, listing Mrs. Reagan, Nelle, as a performer. She gave dramatic readings and taught elocution. Also took in sewing to help support the family. Guides at both Tampico and Dixon told us that she was a strong, practicing Christian. In Dixon, she provided newly released prisoners room and board to help them back into society. It’s clear she had a strong influence on Ronald. I need to read his autobiography to get a fuller feel for this. I did read a good book recently, “The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister” by John O’Sullivan. That book emphasizes Reagan’s spirituality as a contributor to these three remarkable leaders’ efforts to free Eastern Europe from Russian control.

It’s theologically interesting: Jack and Neil were Catholics; Nelle and Ronald were members of the Church of Christ in Tampico, the Christian Church in Dixon. Must have been some sort of family deal.

The Reagan family lived in various Illinois towns after Tampico and settled in Dixon in 1920 where Jack ran a shoe store.. Their Dixon home was restored in 1984 and the Reagans were there to celebrate the restoration and his birthday. One of his comments on video: “How did they shrink it?” The house was smaller than he remembered it and indeed is more cramped than the Tampico apartment. Nelle kept one bedroom for guests and the two boys shared a small bedroom.

The Dixon museum plays a video of Reagan reminiscing (the guide, who must have heard the video hundreds of times, said hearing his voice makes it seem like he’s still alive). Did he ever get in trouble? Well, he did get caught setting off illegal fireworks and his dad had to bail him out of jail. He was band drum major and one time in a parade he noticed the sound of the band was fading, turned around and realized he was off the parade route; the band had followed the route, not him. Susie, a HS drum major, identifies with this. One time she strutted her stuff onto the football field and at about the 50 yard line realized that she had not signaled the band to follow – they were still waiting in the end zone! She recovered nicely and the show went on.

Five of us were in our tour group. After the tour a man in the group went to his car and brought back a picture of himself with the Reagans, inscribed with a note from Ronald, thanking him for keeping him supplied with beef jerky. As a teenager, this fellow had participated in the 1980 campaign – said he was with Reagan for the whole campaign, the youngest member of the staff (unpaid, but the experience of a lifetime, obviously). He lives in Colorado and I think the story was that he was moving his son’s belongings home from college, stopped here, and remembered that the picture was in his stuff.

There are also some Abraham Lincoln connections to Dixon. He served in the army there as a young man during the Black Hawk Indian War. Here is a commemorative statue – said to be the only statue of Lincoln in uniform. Later a Lincoln-Douglas debate was held in Dixon and the hotel where he slept still exists.

May 17 story to be continued. Next up: John Deere.

Let us hear from you.

Cheers,

Rob and Susie