nutshell

We're home. All weekend we drove and drove and the kids watched so much Curious George on the new DVD player in the backseat (best. invention. ever.) I think I could recite a few of those episodes. Curious George beats the hell out of whining, though.

It's good to be home. A 12-day trip is no small thing, especially with two young children, and they held up admirably. We visited several places and slept in a variety of homes and hotels, encountered a barrage of relatives, all in the miserable summer heat of the lower Midwest, and they took it all in stride. I'm so proud of them. Yes, there will be some serious de-spoiling and de-compressing over the next few days, but I'm okay with that. Our only obligations this week are to get the car's oil changed and have dinner on the table every night.

Still, I have some lingering post-vacation melancholy. This always happens to me. Even though we spent over a week in places where conservative politics reign (not among my family or in-laws, though, thankfully) and temperatures soared well over 100 degrees, I still feel a little homesick for Kansas. For the big, wide sky and long, loooooong straight roads and most of all, the people I know and love there. I have a lot of family and friends in Kansas, and seeing them is like coming home, in a way. (Having said that, I don't miss the heat. Or the wind. Heavens, the wind...)

I don't think I have much to share about our time there that will interest you much. Our trip was certainly much more about the people we visited than the places we were. I have a few pictures (very few), though, to share a glimpse of our experience.

1. Peaches, from a small orchard in Whitewater, KS. Quite a ways off the beaten path (though if I have any KS readers out there who want to know where to find this place, leave a comment and I'll give you directions.) The couple who owns the orchard will invite you in their modest home and tell you stories about their dog's run-in with a skunk, about their conversations with church folk about who will have the fanciest bathroom in heaven, and 45 minutes and $25 later you drive away with a peck of the best peaches you can imagine. Big, sweet, and so juicy you have to eat them over the sink. Chin drippin'.



2. The BBQ place across from the food co-op in Lawrence, KS. Talk about a sign fail. I wonder if it was on purpose.



3. Daniel atop the steps of a tractor hooked up to a combine. We got to ride on that and in a semi truck made for hauling corn. It was pretty neat.



4. The inflatable wading pool we bought in Lawrence after abandoning plans to swim in the public pool with the fecal in it.




That's it in a nutshell, I guess.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Being there was fun. Getting there was not. 1800 miles in 8 days is not my cup of tea. The older I get the more I don't like traveling. But I love being there.

-Opa
Your kids get more adorable every day! I would have loved to have had a DVD player in the backseat when I drove Jamie and myself to Orlando for vacation at Disney World. Jamie was a month shy of his fourth birthday. It was the drive from hell. ;-)
Animal said…
When Miss Tessmacher took her summer teaching job at Unnamed Northern Music Camp, she decided to cave and purchase a portable DVD player for Roz on the long trips back & forth. It's great, but interestingly, the one time *I* used it with her she watched just a little of "Ice Age 3" and then requested to listen to music…then, of course, promptly fell asleep for 2 hours.

"We Rub Our Meat Daily" has to be on purpose. HAS to be.

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