Road trip recap

Last week, while you were enjoying the Dougintology rejects, I drove back to Kansas with Yummy. She was kinda freaking out before the trip but she did well and had a good time.

Typically the trip takes 21 hours. But I'm getting old and my eyes aren't what they used to be. She was to take the daylight hours and I the night. But around midnight (hour 14) my eyes started to rebel. I wasn't tired exactly. My eyes had just had all the stress they could take. I asked if we could swap back for an hour and she gave me an hour and a half. We swapped back and forth several more times but on the other side of Kansas City (3 hours to home) we both gave out. But this allowed us to drive through the Flint Hills in the morning light. The total trip out came to about 26 hours.

It was 11° outside when we got to my parent's place, up from 6° when we entered Kansas.

Over the next week I proceeded to drag Yummy all over creation and introduce her to everyone in the general area of creation. We toured the farm in 17° weather. She killed the battery pretty quick which ensures that she must stick with me at least long enough for another photo safari to Kansas.

Yummy got to find out just how good her new winter gear really is. She got to understand why I want to put some coveralls in her trunk.

I took her to have lunch with Grandma. I took her to take Grammie from the nursing home for ice cream with Oreos at Wendy's. I took her to meet some friends who were in from Texas. We drank wine and played 4 hours of "Eurorails" with my brother before realizing that we were still 2 hours away from an end to the game. She survived Dougmas with the majority of the Wise clan (21 people in Mom and Dad's place). She was made balloon animals by another friend in town from Oklahoma. I took her to have lunch with the ex-girlfriend who she really got along with and did no eye scratching with. The ex-gf's awesome new house helped the conversation along. It really is awesome. We ended the trip by crashing with some friends up in Kansas City who through a little "Ibid's in Town" party.

Her first night with the family Yummy got a lesson in how grain elevators tend to explode from time to time. Specifically she learned about this one.

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We tore around the pasture on a 4-wheeler where we stirred up several deer, two quite close, saw an owl in flight, walked on a frozen pond, and nearly ran over a jackrabbit who was a bit too good at standing still. One of the farm dogs rode on the back of the 4-wheeler huddled up next to Yummy.

We took an axe to the ~6" of ice covering the horse tank. There's no horses out, but the goldfish in the tank needed air.

On that night in Kansas City Yummy learned what happens when it's 70° in December in Kansas. Power was lost and some rather tornado like sounds were made outside. Yummy didn't wake to the thunder and wind. She woke when the ceiling fan shut off.

Then we drove back. Coyotes waited in a field in Missouri to finish off the midwest's showing off.

We had a 3 hour lead since we left from Kansas City. Even so, there came a point where Yummy no longer felt confident with me driving and we found a nice parking lot to nap in. Two weather fronts collided over us and moved with us as we made our way east. Eventually, she got us ahead of the storm and it chased us the rest of the way back.

For Yummy's account of the trip go to http://green-canary.blogspot.com/2008/12/more-than-flying-monkeys.html


I'm home with a cold today. I assure you, when I can get these pictures off my camera I'll let you know how I made out for Dougmas. Let me just say that Yummy loves her some gift giving and she's very good at it.