Journal: Hither and Yon, and the Nebraska State Fair

Last Monday, the tech at the Bernina Store called.  He’d finally gotten to Hannah’s and my sewing machines – only 12 days after I took them there.  They’d said 11 days... so their guess was close.  They’re backed up, partly because the Bernina Store in Lincoln closed.  Hannah’s machine wouldn’t stitch fancy stitches for her – but the tech couldn’t get it to replicate the problem.  It worked perfectly for him. The man wanted to know if Hannah was using a surge protector when she plugged her machine in.  He said surge protectors can go bad, or just get old – and then make power levels fluctuate (precisely what they are supposed to prevent), which can be bad for precision electronics.  He’d run it through its paces, and all the decorative stitches were going along perfectly.

Hannah hadn’t used one; she’d plugged it straight into the wall.  “This is like my vehicles always working perfectly for Daddy,” she said, meaning, the vehicles she’d been having problems with.  “I have a bad influence on machines.” 

“Maybe the ride to Omaha jarred its brains into the right ionic framework,” I suggested.

Tuesday, I looked online for results from the Nebraska State Fair.  It looked like 9 of my 12 things placed, according to pdf files I found.  I got 5^th place on one thing... 2^nd place on 2 or 3 things... and 1^st place on 5 or 6 things.  Item names were not listed, only the categories.  As I had several things in similar categories, I wasn’t totally sure what won.  I did see that the Mosaic Sailboat quilt I made for Bobby got first place.  There are 8,550 half-inch squares in that quilt.

Downtown Columbus

However, as it turned out, the Mosaic Sailboat quilt didn’t get first place after all, but second place.  The pdf file was wrong.

The Bernina tech called about noon to tell me that the machines were done.  He’d made a few minor repairs, and they both seemed to be in good shape.  So, I filled my coffee mug and the Thermos, grabbed purse and tablet, and, after a quick trip to the bank, headed off to Omaha, 90 miles to the southeast.

I hadn’t quite left Columbus when Victoria called – she was at my house, having come to visit.  Since no one was there, she visited with the cats instead, fed little Tabby his soft food, and talked to me on the phone for a little while.  “I needed something to do!” she told me, so I said, “Well, you can vacuum, dust, and wash my dishes!”  Then, “I’m kidding.  Don’t do any of those things.”  She laughed.

At the Bernina Store, I collected our machines and came straight back home again.  My machine didn’t have anything really wrong with it; it was just long overdue for a tune-up – cleaning and oiling the areas I can’t get to in this computerized machine.  The tech put a new needle threader on it, a new spring on the pressurized presser foot, and installed some sort of thing called a hook gib.  He put a new bulb in Hannah’s, and a new screw into the thingama-rolph-gidget (technical term for those of you who don’t sew).  Let’s hope it works for her!

Bernina tune-ups are pricey.

I got back to Columbus, hit the western edge – and received a text from Victoria telling me she’d seen me as I went past Earl May’s.  Her text jarred my brain from its doldrums, and it occurred to me, Oh!!  Hannah’s machine!  I need to take it to her.

So I executed a U-turn and went back to Hannah’s house.  The children were playing outside, and saw me coming.  Joanna came quickly to show me a young praying mantis she’d found on a stick:

Eventually home again, I came in the house... spotted a big knife on the table... cutting board on the sink... wondered about it... hunted for my coffee mug – and found a large serving spoon in it.  Huh?  These were all Victoria’s tell-tale trails, but what had she been doing?

Finally, finally, I noticed, right smack-dab beside me, about to bite me on the elbow (and in fact warming up said elbow), was our big crockpot, chock full of good-smelling stuff:  chicken, peas, onions, some kind of soup filler, and potatoes.  The dear girl made supper for us!  She did it with my own supplies, but, still, she spent time and effort making it (and leaving her tell-tale trails behind). 

She made enough that we had plenty for Wednesday night, too – and there was even a little of the vegetables and broth left over for Thursday.  Since the chicken was gone, I fixed cheese sandwiches to go with it.  I don’t make supper before our Wednesday evening service, because Larry never gets home from work in time to eat before church anyway.  This time, all I had to do was put the dish back in the warmer, turn on the crockpot before we left, and supper was ready and waiting when we got home from church.

Upon finding it Tuesday evening, I called Victoria to thank her, and told her that if it tasted anything like it smelled, it would be absolutely, totally scrumptious.

And it was.

Victoria told me that our crockpot cooks much better than hers does; it’s a better quality cooker.  So now I know what to get her and Kurt for Christmas.  She loves making crockpot meals.

When Larry got home, he carried my Bernina downstairs to my sewing room.  It’s heavy, and the stairs are narrow, and I’ve become a wimp in my dodderage.  After supper, I pieced together some big pieces of batting for my customer’s quilts (after inquiring into whether she’d like me to do so, thus saving the cost of a new piece of batting) and then loaded the next quilt on the frame.  The largest quilt would have taken a king-sized batting – and that’s $27 after they ring up the 40%-off coupon at Hobby Lobby.  So piecing the batting saved the lady quite a bit.

That evening, Dorcas sent pictures of little Trevor.  He’s 18 months now, and at his recent checkup, he weighed in at 24 pounds, and was 32 inches tall.  He’s always been little, but now he’s about average for his age.  He always looks like such a happy little tyke.  Dorcas wrote, “He is a little piggy and eats almost everything but green beans and beets.  His favorite things are cars and trucks and airplanes and helicopters, and Thomas the Tank.  For sure all boy!  His doctor asked him how he was talking so much already.”

Such fun, when little ones really start to talk.  Dorcas was not quite two when she pointed at some bratty neighbor kids across the street who were arguing and screeching at each other, and said, “I don’t cweam wike dat!”

Wednesday morning a friend, upon reading last week’s journal regarding the skunks, opossums, bats, and mice, remarked, “You need a little less wildlife, I think!” 

I clicked ‘Reply’, started to answer in the affirmative – and the cat threw up.

What I need is less animals, wild or otherwise!  Ah, well.  Poor kitty.  Siggghhhh...

That day, I watched a video on youtube that showed a better way of attaching quilts to the take-up bar on the quilting frame.  I set out to give it a try.  Hopefully, it will eliminate my problem of trying to keep tucks out of the top edge of the quilt.  It certainly made matters easier, using the Red Snappers to attach the backing to the take-up leader, then stitching first batting and then the top onto the backing, as opposed to pinning backing, batting, and top to the leader, all in one fell swoop, like I was originally told to do.  Ugh!  That method made it difficult to quilt neatly to the top edge.

I got another of my customer’s quilts loaded on the quilting frame, and a pantograph ready to affix to my quilting table.  Then it was time for church... and I didn’t do any quilting after we got home, despite intentions to do just that.

After church, I gave Lydia her ‘new’ doll, amidst all her “Oh, you shouldn’t have done that!” protests.  Hmmm... did I tell you about this? 

Quite a few years ago, when Lydia was a young teenager, my sister Lura Kay gave her the cutest ceramic crawling doll by Yolanda Bello, called ‘Miracle of Life’ and manufactured by the Ashton Drake Company.  Lydia left it and a few other dolls here when she married, not really having a good place to keep them.  It stayed on a shelf in our big bookcase for a few years, then on one of my dressers for a few more years.

In February when I cleaned all the upstairs, plus all the bookcases and a few other spots besides, I thought maybe Lydia was ready to have her ‘Miracle of Life’ doll back again.  I carried it out of my room, set it carefully on the table, turned around – and hit it with my elbow and knocked it off the table. 

The ceramic ‘collar’ on the doll’s stuffed body broke.

I tried to fix it, but didn’t have the right kind of glue, and couldn’t get all the pieces in place and hold them until the Superglue-That-Wasn’t dried.  So... I hunted for one on eBay – and found one in pristine condition, still in the box, still with the original packing around it... in the United Kingdom.  It was fairly cheap, and the person didn’t charge an outlandish amount for shipping, either.  When the doll arrived safely, and I saw that it looked brand-spankin'-new, I shipped off the broken doll to a friend who repairs dolls, telling her she could keep it if she wished.

Thursday, I set about packing suitcases, because Larry and I were going to make a little jaunt into Missouri to pick up some things he had purchased online.  Depending on when he got off work that night, and when the man with the scissor lift needed him to pick it up, we would either leave that night or early Friday morning.  We planned to be gone Friday and Saturday.

I always worry about little Tabby the Almost-Toothless when we go somewhere.  He’s the 20-year-old kitty who had gum disease several years ago and now needs soft food, as the vet had to remove several teeth.  He does eat dry food (I get Iams, with the little pieces of cat food, because he usually swallows them whole), but he doesn’t get enough nutrients without the soft food. 

I did a bit of housecleaning, and then I headed downstairs to the quilting machine.  I got about half of my customer’s Log Cabin Heart quilt done.  More photos:  Log Cabin Heart Quilt

I got Red Snapper plastic clamps to attach quilts to leaders five years ago in December.  Mine show no signs of wear and still work perfectly.  Perhaps the clamps got a little more pliable and easy to use, but they never pop loose when I don’t want them to.  I love when I’m done with a quilt, and ... zzzzwwwwip, zzzwwwoooey (those should be words, and would be words, had Noah Webster ever seen me remove my Red Snappers) ----- off come the Red Snappers and the quilt, in about two seconds flat.

Some ladies have a hard time putting the Snappers on the quilt and rods, because they have arthritis in their hands.  Well, I have arthritis in my hands, ... but I watched a tutorial where the lady – who also had arthritis – showed how to place the fabric over the rod (which is inserted into a casing in the quilt frame leader), all of which is lying on the quilting frame table... and then the clamp is placed over the top of the fabric, and, using the heel of her hand, she just pressed it down until it snapped into place.  Much better than trying to squeeze the thing shut whilst holding it in hand, making a fist and squeezing with the fingers.  I can’t do that.

When clamping fabric to the rod on the front bars, I pull the leader up and over both bars so that the Red Snapper rod (in the leader casing) is lying atop a rod – and there again, I can just press the clamp down with the heel of my hand.  Very satisfactory.  The lady in this video loads her backing in 4 ½ minutes flat – even while explaining for the camera what she is doing!

Attaching Red Snappers

Do you ever watch a video or tutorial about something that you think you know perfectly well how to do – and learn something brand new that makes the job a whole lot easier?  I do!  Every now and then, it’s worth my time to do that. 

That evening, Larry decided we would leave early in the morning.  I had everything packed that I could pack until we were ready to leave.  The laundry was all washed and dried... the floor swept and mopped... and I even scrubbed down the refrigerator.  The large water dispenser was filled for the cats...  

I asked Victoria if she would feel like caring for the cats, and she said she would.  “If not, I’ll tell one of the girls that there are starving animals at your house.”  😃

We knew that any moment she was going to have her own little bundle to take care of.  I sure hoped Baby didn’t decide to make her appearance while we were gone.

 “How can Victoria be ready to have a baby?” asked a friend.  “Didn’t she just graduate last week?!”

“And the week before that,” I responded, “she was bouncing out the door heading to kindergarten, ponytail swinging!”

We left before sunrise Friday morning, heading to Grain Valley, Missouri, to pick up a scissor lift and a hydraulic tailgate.  I think.  Mechanized machinery.  Large hunks of motorized metal.

At about 7:30 a.m., we met my brother-in-law, John H., on his way back toward Columbus in his dry cement powder truck – he’d already been to Omaha for a load. 

By the time we got to Omaha, the sun had come up and was trying to shine through the haze, and it was rush hour.  At least, in Omaha, people really do rush through rush hour!  It didn’t take much longer to get through the city than when it’s not rush hour, though it was a tad more hair-raising, what with everybody and their dog doing all that rushing.  As we traveled, I edited pictures and uploaded them to my blog:  Trip to Grand Island and Omaha, Eurasian Collared Dove, Eclipse Day, and Teensy at My Feet.

So there we were, driving along as fast as the speed limit would allow, needing to get to Grain Valley before noon, when the man with the scissor lift said he would be leaving his place.  We exited the Interstate to make a quick pit stop – and discovered that the on-ramp was under construction, requiring us to take a detour of unknown distance to get back on the Interstate.  The detour went over hill and dale – pretty hill and dale, and I usually prefer those types of roads to the Interstate – but we had a deadline!  To make matters worse, Farmer Brown (or McDonald, I could not tell) pulled out in front of us in a ratty old pickup, obviously going home with the egg money.

‘Going home with the egg money.’  My father used to say that, and I recall protesting, “But, Daddy!  You should say, he’s going to town with the eggs, because that’s when he’d be going slowly, since that’s when he’d be afraid they’d break!”

Daddy replied without cracking a smile, totally deadpan, “He’s afraid he’ll break a dollar.” 

Finally we came to another on-ramp, and were able to get back on the Interstate.

We made it to Grain Valley at about 11:30 a.m., and Larry and the owner of the business loaded the scissor lift.  It wasn’t an easy job, since the lift’s batteries were kaput, and they had to use a couple of forklifts, one humongous and one smaller, to get it on our trailer.  That thing weighs over 19,000 pounds!  I never, ever like to watch men loading heavy equipment.

The man’s blue heeler kept me company.  He tried to show his appreciation for the fact that I like animals by licking and chewing (gently) on my arm.  “Ick!” I protested, and pushed him away, which made him bark, not in a menacing way, though he was probably testing to see if he might be able to startle me.  Dogs like to do that.  I laughed at him.  His ears flew up, and he considered this momentarily, then wagged, and trotted off on other doggy business, which mostly entailed extracting large sticks from the brush and chewing on them.

Eventually, the lift was loaded, and chained and strapped down.  We headed off – and soon discovered that the trailer brakes were not working.  Trying to stop on a steep hill with cars stopped at the light at the bottom, while we’re skidding the pickup’s front tires – brand spankin’ new they were, too – is scary.  Good thing no one was in the lane next to us.  The smell of burned rubber and hot brakes infiltrated the pickup.  Ugh.  That one-ton dually extended-cab Dodge pickup wasn’t heavy enough for the job, if the trailer brakes weren’t assisting in stopping.  Scary.

We drove gingerly for 60 miles from Grain Valley, Missouri, west to a farm near McLouth, Kansas, to pick up a hydraulic tailgate. 

Somewhere during all this, in approximately the middle south of Kansas City, Victoria texted me, “Well, I’m admitted to the hospital, and we’re gonna have a baby!  😊  I have high blood pressure so they don’t want us to wait any longer.”

I promptly responded, “!  You just did that so you wouldn’t have to take care of the cats!”

Then I wrote to Hannah, Hester, and Lydia, “Which one of you could give Tabby his soft food this evening, and tomorrow morning or early afternoon?  We’re in Kansas City, heading west toward McLouth.  Victoria was going to, but had the noive to check into the hospital for some reason!  Dunno if I’z spozeta tell you, but she never keeps secrets herself, so...”

One after another, they each responded that they could do it.  I told them to check with each other, and then I quit worrying about the cats and went back to worrying about brakes and Victoria, not always in that order.

McLouth being only a small town with a population of 847, we proceeded on to Leavenworth, about 22 miles northeast, to look for a brake controller, since Larry thought that was what was causing the problem.  Why is it, when you’re having trouble stopping, lights always turn red immediately before you get to them, and slowpokes always pull out in front of you?? 

Have I ever mentioned that I don’t like towing heavy loads like this??  Neither do I like watching heavy loads such as this getting loaded or unloaded.  It can be dangerous business.

When we got to Leavenworth, after a scary drive on the main drag through town where, as usual, every light was at the bottom of a hill and turned red as we approached, we decided it was high time to check into a motel.  I chose America’s Best Value Inn from Google maps, as it looked all right, had a decent price, and offered free breakfast.  One of these days, I’m going to learn to look at reviews.  I would notice later that this one didn’t even make it to 1.9 on a scale of 1 to 5.  79% of the reviewers voted it ‘Terrible’.

We pulled into the lot – and didn’t like what we saw.  According to everything I could find online, it was supposed to be open, but it certainly didn’t look open.  They were repainting it – well, maybe.  Actually, it looked more like someone had randomly thrown buckets of paint at the walls.  Some of the windows were wide open, with curtains blowing outside.  The whole place was dark; we didn’t see a single light anywhere.  There were no cars in the entire parking lot.

Our next choice was the Hampton Inn.  It was twice the price of America’s Best, and, even worse, it was back up the same bad road we’d just traversed, some two or three miles. 

We made it.  Hair on end, we made it. 

We carried things into our room, found it very nice indeed (it even sported a pulsating showerhead!), and decided we deserved it after the long, tiring day and the fright of the drive.  Then Larry went off to unhitch pickup from trailer and find a brake controller, and I decided to eat the rest of the salad I’d gotten earlier from Subway.  Larry had eaten a foot-long Italian meatball sandwich with everything on it, so he wasn’t the slightest bit hungry.  I, on the other hand, was now starved.

I pulled the salad out of the refrigerator where Larry had stowed it, and scarfed it down.

Bad idea. 

It had evidently been left out too long.  It tasted good, but I’d barely finished the last bite before I got quite sick.  And then just as quickly as I’d gotten sick, I got over it.

Meanwhile, Larry bought a brake controller, installed it, and made sure it was working properly (or so he thought).  He also added Freon and AC Super-Duper StopLeak (that might be my own version of whatever-the-stuff-is) to the cooling system, and then the air conditioner was back in good working order.  At least, for a while, it was.

I told our saga to several of the kids, and Lydia wrote back, “Thankfully he knows how to fix anything!! 🤓😎🤠” – referring to what she herself said at age 2 when we were stranded atop MacDonald Pass just east of Elliston, Montana, with yet another broken engine belt:  “My Daddy can fix anything,” stated in a heartfelt voice while she calmly played with her toys.

While Larry worked on the truck, I uploaded pictures from my trip to Omaha Tuesday to pick up Hannah’s and my machines:  Trip to Omaha (Again).  And I went on expecting a call from either Kurt or Victoria, and worried when I didn’t get one.

I discovered there was still some yummy Blueberry coffee in the Thermos; I hadn’t drunk it all yet.  (Larry’s pretty sure that’s the wrong word, ‘drunk’, and he invariably hiccups loudly when I say it.  Well, it’s the right word.  In fact, it’s the past participle, used in the perfect and pluperfect tenses of the verb.  So there.)

A friend wrote, “I think the word you might be looking for is ‘drank’.”

Not with the word ‘have’ in front of it!  😃  It goes like this:

I drink.  I drank.  I have drunk.

(And Larry throws in, “I are drunk!”)  ha!  We don’t drink.  (Well, coffee, we do.)  heh

Another friend then proceeded to send me a couple of links to websites that supposedly refuted this bit of grammar theory, as she, too, evidently says “I have (or had) drank.”

Just listen to the ‘proper’ examples from one of these websites:  “The tourists had drank their fill of the scenery.”  And “The sexton had rang the bell.”  Aaauuuggghhh, that’s awful!  And the other website, in an attempt to show ‘proper’ usage of the word ‘drank’, penned this:  “I drank two glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice this morning.”

He ‘drank two glass’, eh?

Ironically, the title of one of those websites is ‘common grammar mistakes’.  All through their site, they not only make many common (and numerous uncommon) grammar mistakes, they also make spelling errors by the boatload.

The ‘grammarist’ from the other website is often wrong, too – about more than just drink-drank-drunk.  Whoever writes that website doesn’t do nearly enough research, and often even their explanatory sentences are fraught with bad grammar.

It’s never ‘had drank’ or ‘have drank’, and always ‘had drunk’ and ‘have drunk’. 

Really, truly!  🙂

I wish the Google crawl didn’t put grammarist.com and CommonGrammarMistakes.com so far up on the search list!  Oh, haha, look at the comment someone left under the article:

“I wanna thanks to a great extent for providing such informative and qualitative material therefore often.”

Hee hee  Okay, one more, and then I’ll cease and desist.  Maybe.

“Starting to improve your grammar from the very start level as to learn up to deal with different forms of verbs and also to learn about the correct spellings will be so good element of it.”

And these people even have normal, everyday, English names, too.  Reckon they’re teachers at a Middle School somewhere?

Saturday morning, Larry did a little more work on the pickup, and then we went to the motel’s eating area for our free breakfast.  Everything was delicious, and there was a very large variety:  scrambled eggs, Belgian waffles, yogurt, fresh sliced fruit, juices, oranges, bananas, dry cereal, oatmeal, toast, bagels, English muffins, nut-bread or fruit-bread muffins, hard-boiled eggs... and more.

We loaded our suitcases into the pickup and headed north. 

We hadn’t gone far before it was apparent that the new brake controller was not doing the trick.  So when we got to Atchison, we drove onto River Road, found a pretty place to park alongside the Missouri River, and Larry set about taking apart the brake assemblies of all six trailer wheels – the trailer is a triple-axle.

And there he discovered the problem:  two of the brake assemblies were totally shot, and the others were in serious need of adjustment.  In working on this, he learned that the man from whom he purchased the trailer had not been honest when he told him that the trailer had been equipped with new axles and various other ‘new’ things.  Nothing was new, not by any stretch of the imagination.

While Larry worked, I sat on a big boulder alongside the river and sent a few emails, then hiked the pretty walkway along the bank.  Several kayaks went by, then a motorboat or two, and a couple of canoes.  Traffic went over a big arched bridge to the south.  There were maples and oaks and linden trees everywhere, and the linden trees smelled so good.  A monarch flitted by, and I could hear warblers, chipping sparrows, cardinals, and other birds in the high branches overhead.  I walked to a Veterans’ Memorial near the bridge, and read the historical plaques.  On the front of a stone bench is the verse, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  - John 15:13

And then my phone rang at 20 minutes after 12, and it was Hannah to tell me that the baby had arrived, just an hour before!  A 9 lb., 5 oz. little girl.  Victoria had to have a C-section.  I was afraid of that, when it was taking so long, and we had received no word.  Victoria was still in recovery, and Hannah told me, “You’ll have to act surprised when they call!” – but a cousin of Kurt’s had told her, so news was already getting around.

I’m sorry about the C-section, but I’m thankful this is the year 2017 and not 1817 or thereabouts, when the outcome would not be so good.

Half an hour later, Kurt called Larry and gave him the vital statistics:  The baby’s name is Carolyn Ruth.  She weighed 9 lbs. 5 oz., and is 21” long.  It had been a siege, but all went well in the end.

Victoria is going to be very glad she took the time to make extras of many of their suppers for the last couple of months and freeze the excess for future meals.  They have a freezer full of already-made, homecooked meals!

I went and sat in the grass on the banks of the river, dangled my legs over the edge, and wished we’d have brought chairs.  They were even on my list, for pity’s sake, but I crossed then off, thinking we didn’t need them, and probably didn’t have room for them.  All the benches nearby were in the sun.  It was quite comfortable in the shade, though (other than the lack of a chair).  There was even a post with outlets, so I plugged in my laptop and did a bit of emailing, journaling, photo editing (no color or lighting changes when out in the sunlight, though), and looking hopefully at Instagram to see if any photos of the new baby were forthcoming.

By 2:30 p.m., Larry had everything apart that needed to come apart so he could take said parts and go to the parts houses in search of replacements.  We traveled about (sans trailer) from part house to parts house... but they didn’t have what we needed in that smallish town (population 10,680), so we headed back to Leavenworth, where they did have what we needed, and were holding the parts for us.

By this time, we were really thirsty – we’d run out of coffee long before, and had nothing else to drink.  Larry came out of O’Reilly’s with a bottle of coke. 

“Only one?!” I exclaimed.

“They were two bucks!” he told me.  “Besides, it helps us get along, when we share things.”

“It DOES?!!!” I asked incredulously.

He laughed.

We bought the parts we needed – a couple of complete brake assemblies:  backing plate, brake shoes, magnet...  Larry said ‘all’ he needed to do was to unbolt the old one, put on the new one, hook up the wires, put the hub on, pack some more grease in it... 

Meanwhile, I went for another hike, this time to the north after previously heading south along the Missouri.  There were Sweet Autumn clematis vines growing all over the trees in the woods along the bluffs, making the air sweet with their fragrance.  By the time I retraced my steps, the sun was sinking behind the tall trees, and a nearby picnic table was finally in the shade.  I took my laptop, camera, and big lens, and sat down.  It was 84° and there was a nice breeze, so it wasn’t too uncomfortable – except for poor Larry, who donned coveralls (lightweight ones) so as not to dirty his good clothes.  I informed him that he would be cooler if he took his others off first.  (He rolled his eyes.)

An elderly woman with a small yippy-yappy dog came walking along.  She stopped and inquired into Larry’s operations, and he, always sociable, told her that he used to own an auto repair shop, and he just doesn’t seem to be able to get away from it.

The phrase evidently stuck in the lady’s head.

She proceeded on down the walk, or, rather, she let herself be tugged on down the walk by Sir Yippy-Yappy, and came alongside me at the picnic table, typing away on my laptop.  She stopped while YipYap researched previous four-legged passersby at an old-fashioned lamppost, and then shook her head in mournful mien at me.  “You just can’t get away from it, can you?”

I, supposing she meant all that brake repair over yonder, since, after all, that was what I would like to get away from, laughed and shook my head.  “No, something always seems to go wrong!  But at least my husband knows how to fix things.”

The lady looked a bit affronted at having been misunderstood.  “No, no, I mean all that techology [that’s how she said it, ‘techology’] stuff!”  She stabbed a disapproving finger in the direction of my laptop.

“Oh!” I said.  “Well, I haven’t been trying to get away from my laptop, at all,” I told her, grinning.  “In fact, any minute now I’m hoping someone will post a picture of my brand-new baby granddaughter that we’re trying to get home to see!”

She sniffed, then relented, “Well, I guess that would be something useful.”

(I don’t suppose it would be polite to bang li’l ol’ busybody ladies over the head with one’s laptop?)  (Might hurt the laptop, too.  Sure wouldn’t want that.)

About 5:00, Hannah sent a picture of Aaron driving his ‘new’ vehicle home from Omaha.  He managed to save up enough money this summer to get it, even though he missed several weeks after he broke his pelvis.  It’s a 2005 Ford Escape (small SUV) with (I think) about 90,000 miles on it.  Larry drove it a couple of days earlier, and reported that it drives and runs well.

I told Hannah, “Tell Aaron Grandma said not to do anything she wouldn’t do!”

And then more pictures started showing up – pictures of Baby Carolyn Ruth!  I went to clicking Download and Save as fast as ever I could.  😍😍😍

By 7:00, we were on the jouncy, bouncy Rte. 59 heading into St. Joseph, Missouri.  Larry was talking to his brother Kenny on the phone, asking him if he wanted a Cessna we’d just seen.  “It doesn’t have any wings,” said Larry, “so it would fit right in your garage!”

We ate at the Cracker Barrel in St. Joe, using a gift card Keith gave us for our anniversary.  We got lemon-grilled rainbow trout.  I also got coleslaw, steamed broccoli, cornbread, and strawberries and fresh pineapple, and we both had a yogurt parfait (with strawberries and granola) for dessert.  Larry got mashed potatoes and gravy, steamed broccoli, biscuits, and cornbread.

I couldn’t eat all my food, and had to ask for carry-out cartons, as usual.

After leaving Cracker Barrel, we got on I29 and were soon going fast enough that my hair was up on end, literally and figuratively both.  (The windows were down; we weren’t using the air conditioner, in order to get a little better mileage.)  I do not like driving fast on Interstates whilst towing trailers that are carrying big, heavy, scary loads.  But at least the brakes were working. 

Larry wanted to drive on home, but I convinced him that we needed to stop in Council Bluffs and stay overnight.  It was getting foggy, and we were really too tired to keep driving.  We kept hitting bad bumps and dips in the road, and that makes the hair on the back of my neck fuzzy, wondering what bad things are happening to the trailer and its load.  In the daylight, we are better able to see big bumps up ahead, and can slow down before we hit them.

(Larry doesn’t seem to worry, so I have to do double duty.)

We got to Council Bluffs after midnight, and, upon trying to check into one motel after another and finding no vacancy, learned that there were a bunch of Wingdings (i.e., ‘Unknown Shindigs’) in Council Bluffs, and all the motels were full.

I found some with available rooms in Omaha.  That’s so close to home, Larry wanted to just press on.  I didn’t think that would be wise.  He was too tired, has trouble falling asleep when he drives, and it was too dark on too narrow and rough of roads with that heavy trailer load.  Besides, I’d done just about as much vehicle riding as I could cope with for the day.

I chose the Relax Inn.  Just what we needed, right?

And then we heard more news from home! — our niece Katie [Jackson] Brinkman, who is married to Kurt’s uncle, had her baby that night!  Two Brinkman baby girls on the same night.  Katie’s was an emergency C-section, and she was on oxygen, but expected to be all right soon.  The baby was a little early, but 6 lbs., 5 oz. and doing well.  She is their fourth child.

You know, I wrote ‘two Brinkman babies in one day’, and then it occurred to me, it’s two Brinkman/Jackson babies in one day!  Katie and Victoria are Jackson cousins, both married to Brinkmans. 

After a good night’s sleep, I talked to Victoria on the phone Sunday morning, and assured her we’d be back in town in a couple of hours, and would stop and see the new baby and her daddy and mama before going on home.  Victoria said she was ‘as well as could be expected, plus a little bit better.’  It seemed the trauma and excitement hadn’t changed her general way of looking at things.  😉

As I curled my hair, we listened to our church service online.  A visiting pastor from Oklahoma was preaching.  Larry went to the breakfast nook and got us some muffins, a brownie, and some coffee.  Then we packed everything up, climbed into the pickup, and started up the steep lane to the road.

The pickup didn’t want to go.

The motor roared nicely... but all that thunder didn’t translate into forward motion.

Larry backed the rig back down the hill... got a run at it... made it up on the road... went around the corner... and coasted with one last gasp into the parking lot of the nearest convenience store.  He popped the hood and checked the transmission fluid.

It was low.

He went into the store, bought some fluid and a funnel, came back out – and discovered an ever-widening puddle of transmission fluid under the pickup. 

Hoping a line had just popped loose, he redonned his coveralls and slid underneath to check it out. 

No such luck.  The line was broken.  Good thing we didn’t try going on home the previous night! – we might have wound up stranded on a little two-lane road with no shoulder, way out in the boonies!

The convenience store where we were stalled out was called the QuickTrip.  We stall in places of Cruel Irony.  So much for being back in Columbus in a couple of hours.  We were a mile from O’Reilly’s, and Larry hadn’t brought his bike. Maybe they deliver?  He called and asked.

Yes, they delivered – but it would be a couple of hours before they got to him.  He said he could walk there and back by then.

First, he had to take things apart to see what he required – and he didn’t have the crescent wrench he needed to get it apart.

But he grabbed what wrench he did have, slid underneath, worked at it – and soon, with a loud POP, the line came off, crescent wrench or not.

He drained the line, and headed toward O’Reilly’s.  I started off with him, but fizzled out.  It was hot and hilly, Larry was in a hurry, and I couldn’t keep up.  So Larry traded his smart-phone for my dumb one and sent me into a Village Inn, where I sat meseff down and guzzled a glass of orange juice and two glasses of iced tea with lemon.  The young and pretty waitress kept stopping to inquire, “Honey, are you all right?”  I think my face was red, and my arms were sunburned, too.  I smiled at her and assured her I was fine (which I was).  Just hot and thirsty.

After finishing the second glass of iced tea, I went back to the pickup, and sat down on a nearby curb in the shade.  I must’ve looked quite woebegone, because along came a Mexican man to inquire into my state (as did a couple of other kind souls).  I told him my Tale of Woe, and he immediately informed me he himself was heading toward O’Reilly’s, and he would find Larry and give him a ride and let him use his tools, as he had a diesel repair shop just half a block behind the convenience store. 

I thanked him with heartfelt profusion, and said, “He’ll be the one with the transmission line in one hand!”  He laughed, and away he went, and was back shortly, Larry with him, and he had his creeper and some tools.  “I find heem!” he told me with a triumphant grin, and then it was my turn to laugh.

The man welded the transmission line (there were none to be found that fit the truck at any parts house – Larry had walked to several)... and he did a good job, too.  He helped put it on – and wouldn’t take a thing for his time and efforts, though Larry asked three times what he owed him.  The man’s son then drove Larry back to O’Reilly’s for transmission fluid so he wouldn’t have to pay the high price QuickTrip charges for the stuff.

We have many a time been thankful for good Samaritans!  We pass the favors forward whenever we can.  Loren said this was Larry’s payment for helping him fix his refrigerator Thursday morning and not taking anything for it.  ☺

Shortly before 4:00 p.m., we were finally on the road again.  Larry even took the time to put more Freon in the air conditioner, and it was soon cool in the cab.  This time, I think the Super-Duper Seal-It Gunk worked; it stayed cold the rest of the day.  The roads are awful – don’t road construction persons have the slightest idea how to connect bridges to roads smoothly?!  It frightens me when we hit hard bumps, and things just don’t feel right on that trailer back there.  😬😟😱

We filled up in Fremont, bought something to eat, and continued on our way.  It was slow going; there was a lot of traffic, and the roads were so bad, we couldn’t go fast.  I never noticed a thing wrong with those same roads, on my jaunt to Omaha earlier in the week; but boy, oh boy, were they ever nasty underneath that truck, trailer, and big scissor lift!

So much for getting back in time for the evening church service.

I fielded text after text from our children and Larry’s mother, plus a phone call from my brother, wondering if we were all right, and if they needed to come help us.  Everyone loves us!

We stopped at Sapp Bros. on the eastern edge of Columbus to find out how much our entire rig weighed:   30,080 lbs.

My first car was a Renault Le Car.  It weighed 1,865 lbs.

I preferred the Le Car to the Dodge dually extended cab plus flatbed loaded with scissor lift.  😝 

We stopped at the hospital on the west side of town to see Kurt, Victoria, and Baby Carolyn before going home.  We reckoned the hospital parking lot was big enough to hold a big pickup and a long trailer with a scissor lift on it, never mind the fact that it might make people stare. 

And then, finally, I was holding a precious, sweet, beautiful, new little granddaughter!

She’s a precious little bundle.

We saw Caleb and Maria heading into the hospital parking lot as we were heading out, going to visit Kurt and Victoria and baby Carolyn.  Caleb spotted us before he turned into the entrance – so instead of taking the right side of the median, he took the left – our side.  Crazy kid!  (Don’t worry; there wasn’t another car in sight, neither on the road nor in the parking lot, and both entrance and exit had room enough for two vehicles abreast.) 

By 8:00 or so, we were home.  I was so thankful to be home – but now I will worry about Larry getting that scissor lift off his trailer.  Eek.  (It’s still there.)

The cats were glad to see us, and purred around our ankles while we carried stuff in and put things away. 

Teddy stopped by after church to give us Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Blizzards from Dairy Queen. 

I posted photos from Friday, the first day of our trip:

Drive to Grain Valley, Missouri

Monday morning, Larry mowed the yard while I got ready to go to Grand Island to the State Fair.  We left at about 1:30 p.m.  What a pleasure it was to travel in a good-riding vehicle that doesn’t require mountain-climbing skills to get into!  My laptop can ride on my lap without fear of damage to the lid. 

We walked around the Fair looking at old tractors, cattle, goats, sheep, quilts, 4H entries, model trains, and so forth. 

When the sun went down, it was all pinkish and hazy, on account of the wildfires out west.  Hannah has been having trouble breathing on account of the smoke.

Then we found a vendor selling funnel cakes, and I chose one in carrot cake flavor.  I knew I’d probably like the original flavor better, but I like carrot cake, and just had to try it.  I wanted a cream cheese glaze, but they were out, so I had powdered sugar.  waa waa

As expected, I like the original best.  But carrot cake flavor was still good.

Larry got a caramel apple funnel cake – the batter was flavored with apple, and they drizzled caramel over it.  Larry then drizzled it down his pantleg, but we won’t talk about that, and you mustn’t tell him I told.  😉

I tasted his, and it was scrumptious.  They give each person a dinner-plate-sized paper plate filled sky-high with funnel cake.  I was full before I’d had a third of it.  You know, it’s not global warming melting the icecaps that’s making the oceans rise; it’s all the large economy-sized people making the land sink into the sea, thereby raising the level of the water!  Everywhere you look, helpings are enormous.  We should’ve gotten only one plate of funnel cake and split it.  Larry, not wanting to waste our funnel cakes, ate his (after letting me have a few bites), then tried to eat mine, too – but got way too full and finally gave up on the endeavor.

At 8:00 p.m., we could collect our quilts and textile arts, supposedly.  They’re in two separate buildings, some distance apart.  We started with the Quilt Expo building, and wound up standing in line for nearly an hour.  There must not have been enough people taking the quilts down and sorting them.

It was a bit of an ordeal trying to carry my things from the Textile Arts building, along with the two quilts, all the way through the grounds to the Jeep, way off in a far parking lot.

By the time we left the fairgrounds, I was hungry again, since I hadn’t eaten much all day, and hadn’t had supper.  We stopped at Amigos, and I got a BLT.  Larry, feeling the need for something good for him even though he wasn’t yet hungry, had chicken tacos. 

By the time we got to Genoa, about 25 miles from home, Larry was trying to drive whilst looking through drooping eyelids, so I drove the rest of the way home.

We came in the house through the back garage door --------- and I suddenly noticed that the bag of ice-melt sitting on the back porch had a puddle around it.

What in the world.

Sooo... those three times I thought one of the cats – generally blaming poor ol’ Tiger – had made a puddle in the back hallway beside the bag of ice-melt... it wasn’t a cat at all, but was the ice-melt itself???  That would explain why it never smelled like anything but water.

I looked it up online:  Yep, ice-melt works like a dehumidifier, absorbing moisture.  But when it gets completely waterlogged, it proceeds to start letting loose all that it has absorbed.  It also becomes rock solid.  And it will ruin the wooden steps.  I informed Larry of this matter, and he went and put the offending stuff into a plastic bucket.  Done larnt me sumpthang new!

* Tonight they are talking about Hurricane Irma on the news.  I just looked at the latest update, and I see that it has strengthened to a Category 4 --- and then, just since it got into Cat 4 status, the winds increased another 10 miles per hour.  The announcer got so excited, he exclaimed, “There have only been a handfew ! ...”  (quick pause while he considered whether or not he’d said the right word) “... of storms this strong through the Lesser Antilles since radar hurricane tracking began.”

Time for bed!

,,,>^..^<,,,        Sarah Lynn        ,,,>^..^<,,,

*  As I post this letter, Hurricane Irma is a terribly strong Category 5 hurricane, strongest ever in the Atlantic basin, with sustained winds at 185 mph and higher.  Several are confirmed dead, and Barbuda is ‘rubble’, and the pictures confirm just that.  The hurricane is coming towards Florida, with predicted landfall this weekend.