Question: how long does it take to drive from Valentine to North Platte???
Answer: Five hours, if you get lost in the Sand Hills.
I’m going to bed now.
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Fourth of July
Banjo Man
Glen the Banjo Man
day 3: update from nebraska
We’re in Valentine, Nebraska tonight instead of with Glen’s sister and brother-in-law in North Platte.
We woke up early, were on the road at 8 am or so, drove 150 miles to Rapid City, South Dakota. How did we know we were in South Dakota?
South Dakota loves big, decorative animals, especially in front of gas stations.
By noon we were in Perkins again and eating breakfast. Banjo Man was all excited about the statues of the presidents in downtown Rapid City, plus he wanted to do some shopping. Something about an Indian photographer. But his store was closed.
We weren’t going to drive 30 miles into the Black Hills to meet Bill at the gift shop, so we walked through the historic district of Rapid City and, yes, did a little shopping. Christmas shopping, to be specific. And then we were back on the road for the rest of the afternoon/evening. We stopped for a quick sandwich in Valentine, Nebraska, and when we left to drive the final 120 miles to North Platte it was sunset. On a two-lane road. Through the middle of the Sand Hills. Where the deer and the antelope play.
In other words, it was going to be a long 120 miles hoping that Bambi didn’t feel suicidal.
We turned around and drove 10 dark miles back to Valentine, and got the last room in the only motel in town (if there is another one I sure didn’t see it). We are so happy. The next full day of driving won’t be until Tuesday and this year we’re determined to take it easy and get off the road early each night.
Tomorrow morning we’ll be in North Platte, and it’s the opening Saturday of College Football!!!! Nebraska plays at 2:30, but I don’t think the game is televised. We’ll have to listen to it via internet streaming. Which is just fine. Hopefully we’ll play some Mexican Train dominoes, too.
GO BIG RED!!!
day 2: butte to gillette
Montana to Wyoming. Always beautiful, especially in September.
I finally remembered to take a picture.
We ate breakfast at our hotel (a Best Western Plus we pulled into late the night before–in fact, we were so tired that when I dragged myself out of the car to see if they had a room available when others we tried were full, Glen spoke four words I haven’t heard him say in our entire 41 years together: “Money is no object.”).
Revelation: I will never be able to make a waffle. I may as well just give up, having spent more than 2/3 of my life trying.
We stopped in Big Timber for lunch at the Grand Hotel, a restaurant Tom Brokaw is known to frequent. He wasn’t there, but a lot of local folk dressed in jeans and jackets were. Montana was cold! We ate the smallest, driest, plainest buffalo burgers in the West and then got back on the road.
Mile 200: I drove. Glen slept.
Mile 330: I saw a cowboy riding a horse. Be still my heart. I have to start writing about cowboys again.
Mile 400: I saw two cowboys (spurs and all!) in McDonalds in Buffalo, Wyoming.
We vowed to get off the road early and checked into another Best Western in Gillette. It wasn’t nearly as nice as the one the night before, but we just stopped at the first hotel we saw and didn’t really care. Then we found a Perkins and ate dinner with a lot of other old people. And went to bed early.
Total miles: 468.
Best songs on the radio: “Knocked Out Rhythm” and “Got A Lot of Rhythm in my Soul” (Patsy Cline) on a Western Swing radio station.
These are the other two pictures I took. And I don’t even know why. I think I had eaten too many potato chips and the grease affected my brain.
I think we were in Wyoming. Banjo Man doesn’t understand why I think taking pictures of him is so funny.
But it is. Wait til you see the ones from Rapid City.
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bedtime in butte
Well, we’re back on the road. It was hard leaving the lake this morning. We managed to head out before 11 AM, and even then we dragged our feet by stopping in Clark Fork for ice cream and a huckleberry muffin.
The ice cream eased the pain a bit. We saved the muffin for tonight. Banjo Man was hungry again in Thompson Falls, so we stopped at the grocery store and he bought a salad. Then I drove.
Driving out of Idaho is always painful, but the worst time for me is in Ravalli, at the four-way stop sign where the signs point to “90-East Missoula” and “90-West Coeur d’Alene”.
Turn left and drive east for 3000 miles. Or turn right and go back to Idaho.
This time I swung into a Travel Center/Casino/Gift Shop before going east. Banjo Man woke up and wanted to know what was happening.
“I want a Montana sweatshirt.”
I tried on 9 of them. Dawdled in the souvenir aisles. Talked Banjo Man into trying on hats. Used the restroom. Picked the blue sweatshirt instead of the green. Spent some time deciding which plastic horse I would buy if I was 9 years old again. Didn’t buy huckleberry lip balm. Did buy a cute bib for my grandson. Tried on the green sweatshirt again.
Banjo Man patiently tolerated all this for as long as he could stand, then he led me to the car, put me behind the wheel and went back to sleep. My cursing didn’t faze him–he only snored louder.
We stopped outside of Missoula to visit some good friends. We ate pumpkin bread. I fell asleep on their couch.
Now we’re in Butte, 323 miles down the road.
Notes from the interstate:
To the Chick Band: Check out “I Smell A Rat”, Patty Griffin.
Drummond, Montana has a “Used Cow Lot”.
What I Learned in a travel mart in Milltown, MT: do not assume that a man wearing khaki pants, a green polo shirt and a tan baseball cap and is studying the display of sunflower seeds is your husband. Do not approach him from behind and announce, “There’s caffeine-free root beer!!!”
You will scare him. He will run away. And the cashiers will glare at you as if you are an old, desperate hooker who needs to stop propositioning the customers.
Good night, my friends. I think I’ll wear my new sweatshirt to bed.
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rub-a-dub-dub
We have a boat. It reminds me of my grandmother’s. She’d take my brother and I out on Hundred Acre pond to pick the wild blueberries that hung over the water. And we’d sneak up on turtles sunning themselves on logs.
I can’t wait to sneak up on a turtle in this boat.
Here’s the maiden voyage a couple of weeks ago, featuring Will and his mariner uncle.
Relaxing on the water is always a good thing.
So is getting away from me and my camera. There they go, off on an adventure. Looking for fish to catch.
Don’t forget to come back for dinner!!!
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retired mountain lady
See how happy Retired Mountain Lady and I are?
It’s because we’re not cooking dinner.
We are at a former restaurant where an old friend is cooking steaks for lots of other old friends and we get to watch.
And drink a little wine. While sitting down.
I met Retired Mountain Lady in 1975. Now today we might look like pleasant, unassuming grandmothers (which we are, of course) but…we once butchered a deer on RML’s kitchen table. We had no idea what we were doing, but we had the knives and a lot of newpaper so we did our best.
It’s one of my all time favorite stories. I shared it at a writers’ conference cocktail party once and the Hollywood-type in the group spit out his martini.
We went to a cattle auction one time, when our husbands were into raising beef. I remember having to pull the car over to the side of the road and threaten my fighting boys with a spanking.
(Yes, we even spanked (swats on the butt to get their attention) our kids. And they turned out to be fine upstanding young men with no discernible facial tics. They had happy childhoods and still love their mothers, so I figure discipliine works. But that’s just me.)
RML’S younger son hated wearing his snowsuit. He’d scream all the way home from town and we’d roll down the windows and finally laugh at the craziness of it. I don’t know why I still think that’s funny. He’s all grown up now and lives in Montana, and I wonder if he ever zips up his down jackets. And if he makes his son wear snowsuits.
One time RML and I actually tended bar at Murphy’s so old Frank Murphy could go to the boxing matches in town with our husbands. The regular patrons were not thrilled with us. Not one bit. We were in our twenties and not as experienced with alcohol as we are now.
(note to self: post the peach margarita recipe)
Here’s Retired Mountain Lady rockin’ her grandson at the keyboard.
And here’s Retired Mountain Lady rockin’ a Willie Nelson song with the Chick Band.
Check out her blog (scroll up to the link in the sidebar under “blog roll”). If you’re especially into flowers and wine-making and mountains, you’ll swoon.
Posted in friends, the band
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hurricane update and an opinion
(photo courtesy of WPRO.com)
Here’s a post-hurricane picture of a beach a few miles from our house. Half of Rhode Island doesn’t have electricity, and many won’t have power again for six or seven days.
My mother is not one of them, thank goodness. NancyK and Mike lost their electricity this morning, but it came back on later in the day. The hurricane was “only” a category 1 storm, but the heavy winds took down a lot of trees all over the state. Many main roads are closed and people have been asked to stay home for another day.
We lucked out. A large tree limb missed hitting the house and my brother reported everything looked fine.
Meanwhile, back at the lake, I baked my tenth peach pie. I must be insane, because I decorated the top with cut-out dough shaped like leaves.
Last week I lost my watch. Last week I went to Walmart and bought a new one. I didn’t realize it had an “extra-large band” (even though the tag said so in big letters), so Saturday I drove back to town to exchange it.
I also needed another bottle of tequila for band practice, but you probably don’t need to know that.
If you’ve ever exchanged anything at Walmart you know that you have to show it to the employee guarding the shopping carts by the store entrance. Which I did. The elderly gentleman stationed there took the watch, scanned it, printed out the yellow sticker and then did a double take when he looked at the receipt.
“You paid thirty dollars for this?” And then he rolled his eyes in disgust, with “there’s a sucker born every minute” look on his face.
“It has a nightlight”, I mumbled. And I hurried away, as if I had something to be ashamed of.
I was halfway to the Returns section (where I would stand in line behind two women and six rambunctious little boys for ten minutes before being told I had to return the watch to the jewelry department) when I was tempted to turn back and tell the nosy old skinflint that it was none of his business if I paid twenty-eight dollars and sixty-six cents for a Timex watch with a stretchable band and an illuminated dial so when I wake up in the middle of the night in motel rooms on road trips I can see what time it is without turning on a light and waking up my husband, who has sleep apnea.
But I didn’t, of course, because I am polite. I am always patient with the very old ladies who block the aisles in the supermarket and the 90-year old men who want to chat about the price of ice cream. I’m never rude, even when they sometimes follow me around the store and wink at me. Okay, I might swear under my breath when I’m putting the groceries in my truck, and that one time an elderly woman backed her car into me (into me, not my car) I yelled and smacked her bumper.
No one has ever scoffed at my extravagant taste in watches until last Saturday (I still believe the illuminated dial was worth the extra $10), but in the past few years I’ve noticed total strangers have all sorts of opinions that they are very anxious to share with me. Even when I’m not talking to them. Or asking their advice. Or even making eye contact.
I don’t know why.
Maybe I look as if I need help.
Ya think?
hurricane watch in rhode island
(photo courtesy of WPRO)
Say a prayer for the East Coast tonight. That’s what we’re doing, 3000 miles away. New Englanders are accustomed to hurricane warnings, storms, storm surges and nor’easters. These Yankees are not easily rattled by weather predictions, aside from stocking up on milk, bread, water and batteries.
But I’ve been streaming a Rhode Island radio station today and this hurricane sounds as if it means business.
Friends and neighbors have been evacuated from their homes. Heavy rains will start Saturday night. Heavy winds begin Sunday morning. And a storm surge is due Sunday afternoon. The bridges will be closed, as 90-100 mph winds are expected.
While I listened to the radio this afternoon, my good friend Ruth called in with advice about pets during emergencies like this. She and others in the state have worked on this issue since Hurricane Katrina stranded so many animals. I got a kick out of hearing her voice.
For those of you who have asked about my family: my mother lives on a hill, safe from flooding. My brother and sister-in-law are with her. I’ll be talking to her in the morning and will let you know what is going on. NancyK has checked our house several times and has taken care of things there. I hope she doesn’t have to work Sunday morning–and so does she.
Things here on the lake are quiet. Everyone I’ve talked to is exhausted from another busy summer with family and friends. We’ve all had tons of company.
I’m going to spend tomorrow cleaning out the freezers and closets while listening to the computer for Hurricane Irene reports. This is the first time in years I’ve missed having a television.
But I won’t be far from the computer this weekend. I hope all the news is good.
Be safe, everyone.
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women’s work is never done
Once upon a time I loved to iron. When I was about nine years old. I think that toy iron actually plugged in to an outlet and heated up. Check out the formica table (child size) in the background of our 1950’s era kitchen.
Today I ironed for Banjo Man. He usually irons for himself, because he is much better at it. And more patient. We have an unspoken agreement about ironing: to each his own, unless one of us is in a hurry and the other isn’t. The harried one will beg and the organized one will graciously agree to help.
This works out to be pretty much a 50/50 arrangement, which happens more and more as we get older and more married. And more harried.
Banjo Man bought new pants yesterday. He is much more fashionable than I am, but I am the minimalist packer who can travel around foreign countries with a bag the size of a plastic grocery sack. Banjo Man has been trying to cut down on what he crams into a giant suitcase, which means he left some of his clothes back in Rhode Island.
We were in the big city yesterday, so we stopped at the big mall off the interstate and went to Macy’s. I think the last time I was in Macy’s was four years ago. We went right to the mens’ department (which took a bit of searching to find) and shopped for slacks. He found the Perfect Pair and I made him buy another pair in a different color, which took a bit of discussion considering Banjo Man’s frugality.
I believe if you find something you like, buy it in other colors. Or buy two or three of the same color. So you don’t have to go shopping again!!
He bought the two pairs. And, because we’ve been married a zillion years, never asked if I wanted to look around Macy’s or shop in the mall. I will admit that the only tempting area was the crystal and china. I love to look at crystal vases, especially for wedding gifts. My “uncle”, a family friend named Chief Fleet (I was a Navy brat), gave me a beautiful vase for my wedding and it remains my favorite possession. No one is allowed to wash it but me.
Anyway, today I ironed a pair of Banjo Man’s new slacks and he rushed out the door shortly afterward.
My work is done for the day. What a relief.
men, trucks, food
Monday there was a lot to discuss. Something to do with concrete, I think. I was too busy peeling peaches (cases 5 and 6) to pay attention.
Leaning on a truck makes any discussion more meaningful.
Conversation flows.
What the heck is in there?
Are you talking to me???
I’m getting sleepy. And hungry. And I don’t want to go to the airport and fly back to Texas and the record-breaking heat wave.
That’s better. Thanks, Mom.
And Dad.
I’ll see everyone again next year. GO BIG RED!!!
[Bye, Will. We miss you already.]
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