by jphilo | Apr 16, 2015 | Out and About, Three Thoughts for Thursday
At this very moment, I am up, up, and on my way to McLean, Virginia for the Accessibility Summit. So no wonder today’s thoughts are all travel-related.
- This was my first time ever using an electronic boarding pass. I don’t think anyone could tell I was a novice, not even the attendant who said, “Well, look at you being hip.”
- The TSA pre-check notice on my electronic boarding pass? A gift from God.
- Here’s hoping the rocket-whistling-through air sound from farther back in the cabin is coming from someone’s video game and not from one of the engines.
What thoughts run through your head when you’re traveling? Leave a comment.
by jphilo | Mar 24, 2015 | Out and About, Top Ten Tuesday
Last week’s top ten list was all about what drives me crazy about air travel. But now that I’m home after a wonderful trip, here are then things I love about traveling.
10. When your top-heavy suitcase tips over and bends the handle so badly it won’t slide into place anymore, nice strangers might do what’s necessary to force the handle into it’s slot.
9. The nice strangers might also say that under no circumstances should you try to pull the handle out again. Which means someone has a good reason to get new luggage!
8. When you travel to a conference, chances are good you’ll meet walking buddies willing to get up early for a tromp by the ocean to watch a magnificent sunrise.
7. Discovering that for some mysterious reason, you’ve been TSA approved for the entire trip. No long lines. No taking out the zipper bag of liquids and gels. No removing shoes. No strip search.
6. Which means there’s plenty of time to get some really good coffee, sit down, and enjoy it.
5. Discovering that for some mysterious reason, you get to board in Zone 1 or Zone 2 for the entire trip. (I wonder if the stink made after last springs highly unsatisfactory USA Airways experience landed me on their don’t-mess-with-her-she’s-crazy-so-give-her-preferential-treatment list.)
4. Boarding the plane and finding that, for some mysterious reason, (See #6 for possible explanation) your seat is right behind first class, which means you get extra leg room even though you didn’t play extra for it.
3. Feeling smug sitting right behind first class, because even though you only get to smell the food served to first class customers, you realize your closest exit is the one in front, which means that if there’s an emergency you’ll get to crash the first class party. Free. Of. Charge.
2. Seeing an inch or two of new snow on the ground in Philadelphia during a lay over and not having to go outside.
1. Discovering that for some mysterious reason (see #6 for possible explanation), though the flight crew said the plane was completely full, the only empty seat on the plane is next to you. Right behind first class. With extra leg room already. With N-A-P written all over the entire 3 hour trip. Ahhh!
What makes you love to travel? Leave your comment in the box.
by jphilo | Mar 6, 2015 | Out and About
This week’s Fantastic Friday post was requested by a rellie. As you will see, the post explains very well why the Man of Steel felt like we lived on the edge of the world during our seven years in northwest South Dakota. BTW Gary, this is one of my favorite posts ever!
A recent entry at Justin Taylor’s blog Between Two Worlds almost blew my socks off. He quoted from a blog entry by Stephen Von Worley. Von Worley was contemplating the McDonaldization of America and decided to locate the farthest point from an Mc Donalds in the contiguous United States. Here’s what he found:
As expected, McDonald’s cluster at the population centers and hug the highway grid. East of the Mississippi, there’s wall-to-wall coverage, except for a handful of meager gaps centered on the Adirondacks, inland Maine, the Everglades, and outlying West Virginia.
For maximum McSparseness, we look westward, towards the deepest, darkest holes in our map: the barren deserts of central Nevada, the arid hills of southeastern Oregon, the rugged wilderness of Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains, and the conspicuous well of blackness on the high plains of northwestern South Dakota. There, in a patch of rolling grassland, loosely hemmed in by Bismarck, Dickinson, Pierre, and the greater Rapid City-Spearfish-Sturgis metropolitan area, we find our answer.Between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley lies the McFarthest Spot: 107 miles distant from the nearest McDonald’s, as the crow flies, and 145 miles by car! Suffer a Big Mac Attack out there, and you’re hurtin’ for certain! For a coupla hours, at least, unless graced by the tender blessings of “manna from heaven” – that is, a fast food air drop from the Medi-Copter.
So what’s the big deal? Those “tiny hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley” were part of our old South Dakota stomping grounds. Our personal hamlet, Camp Crook, was about 75 miles straight west of Meadow, much tinier than the McFarthest spot, and didn’t have nearly as many paved roads.
What were we doing for the first three precarious years of Allen’s life, living so far from civilization? Answer: We didn’t know how bad we had it. Like Stephen Von Worley, we thought the most isolated part of the United States was far, far away in the rugged west, not in our back yard.
If we had known the truth, would we have skedaddled sooner than we did? Maybe, but as Hiram said when he read the report, “There we were on the edge of nowhere and look at the support we received from the people.” Maybe they supported us because they weren’t distracted by civilization – McDonalds and movies and shopping malls and inconsequentials – and had time to prop up two bewildered young parents day after difficult day.
Whatever the reasons, when I think of our seven years near the McFarthest Spot and the way the far flung community rallied round us, the truth is evident. During those years we didn’t leave civilization. We found it.
If you have a favorite post you’d like to see featured on Fantastic Friday, leave a comment in the box below.
by jphilo | Feb 20, 2015 | Out and About
Fantastic Friday is here again, so it’s time to feature another Gravel Road post from the past. This one first appeared just a year ago, and it was an immediate favorite with readers. Since this week began with President’s Day, it’s a logical and hilarious choice for today. This post first appeared here on February 21, 2014.
Broccoli Obama and Other Presidential Trivia
Last Sunday, I created a lesson for an evening activity for kids at our church. The task unleashed my latent school teacher. By the time the kids arrived, I was armed and dangerous. I had a plethora of Presidents’ Day trivia about Washington and Lincoln as well as coloring sheets, and word searches. Little did I know how much the children would add to that great body of knowledge.
The first group of kids were first through third graders who knew Monday was Presidents’ Day. They thought the holiday had something to do with birthdays, but needed some pretty broad hints before they landed on George and Abe.
“But they’re both dead,” one child announced. “When is our real president’s birthday?”
“Oh yeah,” a girl chimed in. “He has a funny name. It’s hard to remember.” The entire group agreed with her. They hemmed and hawed, trying to remember the real president’s name.
“His name reminds me of that one vegetable.” She thought for a moment, and her face lit up. “Broccoli!” she exclaimed. “His name sounds like broccoli.”
“Oh yeah!” everyone chorused. “Broccoli Obama!”
Giggle.
The next group of kids were four and five-year-olds. Amazingly, they named Broccoli Barack Obama without batting an eye.
When asked what the president does, one little boy answered confidently. “He rides around in a car and kills bad guys.”
“No,” another boy disagreed. “President Obama is a good leader.”
Unfortunately, good leadership didn’t have the same allure as a sound bite about riding around in a car killing bad guys. Most of the kids bought into the car theory and stuck with it, even while they colored pictures of Abe Lincoln’s log cabin and the young George Washington working as a surveyor.
“See this?” A sandy-haired boy pointed to some orange lines he’d drawn on the log cabin’s doorway. “That’s a booby trap so bad guys can’t get in.”
“See this?” A little blond guy pointed to George’s surveying equipment. “That bottom part turns into the gun for killing bad guys.”
Sigh.
The final group were fourth and fifth graders. They breezed through the President’s Day trivia, and were surprised to hear that George and Martha never lived there. They even knew the first White House burned down and had to be rebuilt.
“Yeah,” a serious boy said. “That kind of thing still happens. My mom told me that some tourists ran a train into the Octagon, too.”
I thought for a moment. “Do you mean Pentagon?”
“Yeah! That’s it. The Pentagon!”
The boy beside him added to the confusion. “And some other tourists ran a plane into a tall building in New York City.”
“The Twin Towers,” I explained. “They were terrorists, not tourists. That happened in 2001.”
“2001?” The Octagon tourist reporter did some figuring in his head. “That was two years before I was born.”
The boy beside him pointed at the coloring pictures. “Can we do those?” They colored industriously, sure as only children can be, that their parents and their country’s president, Broccoli Obama, will kill the bad guys and keep them safe from tourists attacking the Octagon.
Pray.
Readers, if you have a favorite past post you’d like me to republish some Fantastic Friday, just leave a note in the comment box. I’ll do my best to make it happen.
by jphilo | Aug 19, 2014 | Out and About
The man of steel and I are back from a weekend at our rellies’ cabin on Spirit Lake. Here are the top ten delights we enjoyed, not counting the weather, which was perfect.
10. Reading a book on the porch while the water lapped on the shoreline.
9. Watching a young woman named Abby sing with the worship team during church on Sunday. She worships with her whole heart and makes me long to be more like her.
8. Lounging around with no make up, bare feet, and a swim suit augmented with a pair of my cousin’s shorts all weekend.
7. Paddling a kayak with a paddle so light my muscles didn’t ache after our ride.
6. A boat ride on a smooth-as-glass lake while the sun streamed down.
5. Eating hobo pies cooked over the fire. Why don’t hamburger and veggies taste this good at home?
4. Watching the sun set the waves to sparkling.
3. No internet access means a real vacation…except when three people over the age of 50 can’t remember a few cribbage rules and wish they could look them up.
2. Time spent catching up with delightful people we’ve known for decades.
1. An Iowa lakeside view out one side of the cabin and an Iowa cornfield view out the other.
What do you like best about lake weekends? Leave a comment!
by jphilo | Jun 20, 2014 | Family, Out and About
Frugality Thriftiness Penny-pinching Never-spend-a-nickel-if you-can-keep-it-in-your-pocket is a defining trait of my mother’s branch of the family. The trait once again came into sharp focus when Mom, the man of steel and I spent the night with Mom’s sister and husband on the way to a reunion for their side of the fam.
One of their daughters, my cousin, also spent the night. Her father reminded us there would be a $5 charge per car to get into Split Rock State Park where the reunion would be held.
“But, Uncle Jim,” I teased, “isn’t there a plan in place for all of us to meet outside the gate, have one vehicle get the sticker, and then use that vehicle to ferry everyone into the park carload by carload?”
His daughter chimed in, “That’s what you would have done when we were kids.”
Uncle Jim looked like he was considering the idea, and Aunt Donna said, “We could fit quite a few people in the back of the truck.”
Their daughter and I chuckled at this proof that the frugality thriftiness penny-pinching never-spend-a-nickel-if you-can-keep-it-in-your-pocket behavior we had observed throughout our childhoods remains strong.
The next morning, I went downstairs to shower. In the basement bathroom, that shower stood as a silent and colorful witness of our parents’ frugality thriftiness penny-pinching never-spend-a-nickel-if you-can-keep-it-in-your-pocket lifestyles.
Our mothers purchased the ceramic tiles during Crazy Daze in the 1960s for a ridiculously low price. The two women spent the better part of a morning digging through boxes of tile remnants, snatching every complete sheet, then selecting incomplete sheets until they thought they had enough to tile their entire basement showers. Once home, they arranged and rearranged the tiled sheets until they were satisfied with the crazy quilt patterns they’d devised.
After my shower, I went upstairs and grabbed my camera. “For some pictures of the shower tiles,” I explained to my cousin who’s four years my junior. “I want to record this evidence of frugality thriftiness penny-pinching never-spend-a-nickel-if you-can-keep-it-in-your-pocket. Do you remember when our moms bought those tiles?”
She nodded. “Remember how they spent what seemed like hours digging through the boxes at the store and arranging patterns when they got home?”
We grinned at one another full of the memory of our mothers, younger than we are now, stretching their hard earned money to cover their concrete block basement showers with colorful tiles while we smirked and rolled our eyes.
Her father interrupted our conversation. “Ready to go?”
My rellies climbed into their truck. The man of steel, Mom, and I got into our car. “We’ll meet you when we get there,” I said. “We need to get gas along the way. Where’s the cheapest place?”
“Rock Rapids.” My aunt responded in the blink of an eye.
She was right, of course.
