2 weeks into Illinois

We've been in Illinois for just over two weeks and have had so many adventures already. This weekend, we're at a car show in Tunica, MS with my family. It's so nice to be able to spend so much time with our friends and family in the midwest.

The following snapshots are in no particular order.

Matt's loaner ride while visiting friends & family in Southern Illinois - pieced together by dad - vintage Schwinn cruiser with red band Bendix kickback 2-speed hub, BFGoodrich Silvertown tires, and rad Monark springer fork. rides like awesome sauce.

After going to the Apple Festival parade, we walked down to the John A. Logan museum. Apparently, it's in the historic district of Murphysboro, and they have a boardwalk!

Matt's been hard at work sending out record promos to radio stations. The basement of Clarke St, is a cardboard mess!

TJ and I worked a tad bit on Brian's truck. I wore silly pants. They make me happy.

TJ takes after her dad when it comes to crafting a car.

I had to get back to work solo.

My favorite creek in my favorite woods is all dried up right now. And, we got tick bombed, which is really crappy. Here is the lovely blog where I just learned the phrase.

Tetra got a new hat from the Mexican store! Isn't she just the cutest?

So Matt got asked to play at the local community radio, and this is a shot of the two women who had a show before the show he was on.

We found a huge fancy keyboard in the Clarke St. house, and despite the look on T's face in this picture, she really enjoyed it.

Most every morning, we've been letting all the pets out while we sit on the porch and ease into the day. Sometimes, we have to discipline Douglas, who thinks she can just go for a walk by herself. Naughty lizard.

Mary and Mark had us at their house for an afternoon of fun and a yummy dinner. The evening was topped off with a Chinese lantern! We had a lot of fun.

Arrival in SoIll

So, you’ll have to excuse me for not posting earlier. We arrived in Murphysboro on Thursday night, and we’ve taken a few days to adjust to the still life.

To reflect on our arrival: When we were about 50 miles from St. Louis, we encountered a very long line of vehicles. At least 10 miles of highway in either direction was backed up for a very, very, very long time. Finally, our lane was the first allowed to pass the wreckage ahead. A big semi had flipped and there was salad everywhere!

After we got past that mess, and after we exited for 127, it started pouring rain, flashing lightning and rumbling thunder. We had to go 35mph at times because it was so hard to see. Had I not been so dang eager to get home, I would have pulled over a few times to let some of the worst downpours pass. It was 11pm when we arrive in Murphysboro - still pouring. I unloaded the necessities while getting a “natural shower” from above. The rain died off by the time Matt was collected and ready to leave the vehicle.



Lucy was so excited when she realized where we were. Jack was timid, but quickly became comfortable in the house. Douglas wandered for days. I eventually convinced her to take baths and sit under the mercury vapor lamp. She is just now getting comfortable. Tetra was pretty keen on the idea of sitting still too, and the next few times we put her in the car seat to go somewhere, she totally freaked out. We don’t know if it was because she didn’t want to travel, or it was a different car, or what. We’ll go shopping for groceries at the co-op tonight, so we’ll see how she does.

While here, we’ve worked, done lots of laundry, visited with Mary, and my family, and gone to the Apple Festival Parade! I love parades with lots of bands. This parade seemed shorter that I remember them in the past, but it was still pretty darn fun. We also went to the John A. Logan museum, which was pretty interesting. Apparently, he used to support slavery, but had a change of heart during the civil war.

We have a couple weeks of downtime, then we’re off to Tunica with the family for a car show. We should (hopefully) have visitors in the beginning of October, then again in mid-October. Then it’s time to hit the road again! I have a feeling time will pass pretty fast, but it sure is nice seeing my mom spend time with little T.

Tetra on the super cute blanket gifted to her from Paisley in CO.

Colorado and Beyond

After Mesa Verde, we started toward Denver. We had a lot of energy after our experience, and even though we left the park around 6pm that night, we decided to drive until we were tired. We made it through Wolf Creek Pass at night without going over the edge, or hitting any animals. At around 9pm, we found ourselves in Monte Vista, where their motto is, “Experience the Full Monte.” Cute. We passed on the full Monte, but stayed overnight wedged between a public golf course and the public schools. It was actually quite lovely. We woke up bright and early and got on the road again.

While we approached Denver, I got a suggestion from my mom via text to visit some relatives in Colorado. We had lunch with Dave, Jacque and Molly. I regret that I didn’t take any photos. It was so nice to see them after so many years.

We then drove up many steep hills to get to my great aunt Phyllis in Evergreen. Again, we failed to take photos, but had a fantastic time.

Our last stop in the area was Kelly Blume’s house, #DeersDoLodge What a great host. She and Paisley cooked quiche, Kelly made a fire, and we enjoyed each other’s company in the back yard. Kelly has 2 dogs and 1 cat. It was nice for Lucy to run around in the fenced yard. She policed the two pups (both under 2.5yrs) when she decided they were getting too rough. Tetra got a kick out of one of the dogs – Chili who was pretty darn cute.

Kelly offered her facilities as well. We enjoyed showers and did two loads of laundry. Did I mention that she was the most awesome host ever?!?!

The next morning, before Kelly was out of her shower, I made a pot of coffee thinking it was the least I could do for all she’s done for us. Alas – she doesn’t drink coffee, and I had to drink it all! Oh, the travesty. After snacking, chatting and meeting her roommate, Emily, we took off once again.

Driving through Kansas mid-day was HOT! Tetra stayed cool with a fan and an orange slice.

We made it out of there by 9:30, and made some great time down I-70 through Kansas. Matt got us out of Denver while I did a bit of work, then I drove through the first half of Kansas. When we stopped in Salina, we saw we were loosing air in one of our rear tires. We hung out at a truck stop, ate some lousy food, and waited for our tire repair. Around the back of the building, where the tire center was, we chatted with a truck driver from Indiana. He was kind. He hates the medical industry and medication, so we had that to talk about. He gave us some driving advice, including where to get the cheapest gas!

Matt hadn’t driven most of the day and was willing to drive a few more hours. We made it to Topeka by midnight. He found an awesome RV site by a beautiful lake. We all slept well, and had a nice respite.

Notice how we are the only folks there? $20/night at this freakishly awesome place.

I had to lure Matt out of this site as well. He really did like it. Like myself, Matt will blabber on for a half hour or more when he’s real happy. This happened while leaving the site. It made for a nice exit.

Some other activities we enjoyed that morning:

Tetra reaches for Douglas for the first time in her life.

This "palapa," the humidity and the breeze reminded us of Honey Camp.

Toots gets her toots wet.

"the biggest fairy ring Matt's ever seen!" we made sure that we didn't step in the center. we don't want poor T to be a slave to the fairies for the rest of her life.

This was pretty much the best playground structure I have ever seen. There was even rock climbing on it.

It wasn’t much further the next day to Kansas City. Matt was finally able to get rid of one of his records at a record store. The sales guy just bought it outright for himself. He said he couldn’t do consignment, but at least he got another copy out there. I thought it was a success. Next we went to eat at some place that had “Jazz” in the title. It looked good online, but once we sat and got our menus we discovered that it’s not at all a local hub of Cajun goodness, but just one of 6 in a chain of Cajun goodness. It was good!

A little water to wash down that horrid sweet tea!
 

the bathroom artists draw a connection between kitties and aliens

Now, we’ve begun our ascent to Southern Illinois via Missouri. Estimated arrival in about 5 hours.

BTW – pets are great. Tetra’s great. Nothing very exciting to report, except TJ likes chewing on oranges! We give them to her when she starts to get a little fussy.

Mesa Verde

The shady side of a repair shop was our home for the next 7.5 hours. We pulled (almost) the whole family out, so they guys could drive Bessie around, put her on the lift and tinker around. We met a sweet man named George, and a lovely pisces named Mary. They were there separately - Mary with her husband. We had some nice conversations. George was just enamored with Tetra, so much so that I insisted he hold her. Mary was more into dogs. We heard all about how she saved her dog with a prayer line, and then we talked about astrology - specifically Aries.

By the end of the day, we came to a solution with the Chinook. Bessie lost her “old fat cow” status thanks to Pat and his team. A lot of credit is also due to Mark and my dad who brainstormed with us through the process, and to Matt who kept our repair requests on track. When we left Moab, we took that 6% grade like a charm. It was magical.

We headed to Mesa Verde. The drive was nice. We saw a few tin houses sparsely located through the route. As we got closer, and through most of our Colorado journey, we saw quanset hut after quanset hut. For those of you who may not know, I am in love with the idea of living in a quanset hut. I will live in one, or have one for a shop - one day. It will happen.

We reached Mesa Verde about 7pm. We climbed the green table as the sun was setting, and the landscape was breathtaking. We secured a lovely campsite without hookups at the National Park, and Matt mentioned right away that he’d be happy here for a few days.

I was pleased. I went to Mesa Verde with my parents and brother when I was about 10. I don’t remember every detail, but I do remember really enjoying it. I wanted to revisit it to see why I loved it, and I wanted to share it with Matt.

After a night filled with marshmallow madness, we cursed the bottom sheet and cozied up in the Chinook. —So bottom sheets are a pain in the ass anyway, but putting them on a bed when you have no standing access to any of the corners is dumb.—— We will be buying another top sheet soon to replace the bottom sheet with.

The next morning, I was feeling poopy. Matt was full of energy though, and took care of everything that we would normally share responsibility for. By the time he and TJ were ready for a nap, I was feeling better and was able to pack up and clean up so we could leave the site. It was such a nice site. It was hard to leave.

After a stroll through an archaic museum, and a yummy lunch under the shade of a juniper tree, we were ready for our tour of Cliff Palace.

The picnic table for our site was not very accessible.

The 45 minute tour of Cliff Palace was fun. It only cost $4/person. Our ranger said that Cliff Palace was probably a religious site, but Matt and I have decided that it was probably a learning site. The reason it’s regarded as a significant gathering place is because the room to kiva ratio is way off the norm. There a huge number of kivas, and they have strong theories to suggest that kivas were used as a gathering place for ceremony, learning, and other group activities. I think they said that descendants of the cliff dwellers still use kivas today. Another new bit of knowledge is that they no longer call the cliff dwellers “Anasazi.” It was just a word some visitors chose to call them. The cliff dwellers were ancestors of the pueblo people, so signage everywhere says, “Puebloean.” There is a lot to see and do at Mesa Verde, and on the way out, we agreed that we could easily stay a week here. We will be back, with an older TJ some day.

climbing up on cliff palace tour

the Far View sites were those of a farming village

we found a magical spiral carved in the stone!

TJ slept through the tour.

My favorite spot was at the beginning of the tour. We got to sit under a little overhang in the cliff.

Panorama from our picnic site.