Nuts and Bolts

           We took a trip.

          “Where did you go?” I know you wanna know.

          We went to Missouri to see the kids, then on to Kansas to visit cousin Suzy and brother Cork, then farther on up into Kansas to visit my sister Diane. We were gone eleven days.

          “Did you take any pictures?” you ask.

          Did I take any pictures?! Boy, did I! I took over 6,000 pictures and it might’ve been closer to seven if I hadn’t let the batteries on both my cameras die on the last day.

          As you may well imagine, sorting through more than 6,000 pictures is a daunting task, one that even I was not anxious to undertake. So much so, in fact, that I wanted to cancel this whole weekend. It’s too many pictures, too many decisions to make on what to show you. It makes my head hurt.

          After letting it rattle around in my mind for a few days, here’s what I decided. I decided I’m going to give you the nuts and bolts of the trip, then sprinkle in road pictures from now until eternity ends. Just kidding. Eternity, by definition, never ends. At some point I know I’ll get through them, especially if you give me feedback on what you like to see and what you don’t!

          We left as it was getting light out and the sun was coming over the horizon.

          Mike and I are experienced long-trip travelers. We never turn the radio on, or maybe I should say we rarely turn the radio on. I think one trip we did turn it on at one point to listen for the weather updates or maybe it was traffic info. We keep ourselves entertained by chatting, or pointing out interesting things we see along the way. 

          Things like this camper.

          Or trying to figure out license plates.

Or reading the billboards to each other.

    

          “How do you use the cruise on this thing?” Mike asked.

          “You watch the road and I’ll look at the buttons,” bossy me says. I looked, but I couldn’t figure it out either. “I’ll Google it.”

          I found a video to show me how to turn on the adaptive cruise control as well as the lane guidance. It’s not a lane departure warning, this thing actually steers the car for you — as long as there’s a line on both sides of the road.

          “It drove itself the whole way across the country,” Mike likes to say. “Even through the cities!”

It’s not quite a self-driving car but it’s pretty good. By the way, you’ll get a warning beep if your hands are off the steering wheel for too long. There were times where Mike did have his hand on it but wasn’t making enough contact and it would beep.

We were worried about taking the dogs on this trip. For the first year or so, Raini would get car sick. She got over that but then, whenever she was in the car, she would whine for most of the trip. We discovered, quite accidentally, that Raini didn’t whine so much when we put Bondi in the back seat with her. Before that, Bondi had a car seat that sat on the center console between the front seats, then she got too big for it. Regardless of car sickness or whining, we decided we’d deal with whatever we had to deal with because Raini did not do well in the kennel.

Surprise! And a pleasant one at that — we hardly knew the dogs were with us! They slept almost the whole trip. We stopped fairly often, both to stretch our legs, and to let the dogs do their business. Well, guess what? The dogs would not eat or drink or pee for the entire thirteen hours that we were on the road.

          I guess there’s no assigned seating because every time they got back into the car, they’d sit in a different bed. Sometimes the big dog was in the big bed and the little dog was in the little bed and sometimes it was the other way around.

          Raini would jump out of the car as soon as I opened the back door. I never lost her, she stayed right with me, but I was afraid I would lose her. After a few times of that I kept their leashes on them while they were in the backseat. It didn’t seem to bother them any.

          Our second worry with the dogs was they might have an accident. It’s not that they’re not housebroken; they are. But here at our mountain home they have the freedom to come in and go out at will. Would they know how to tell me when they needed to go out? We prepared and took puppy pads, paper towels, and cleaning solution with us.

          The first night in a hotel, I took the dogs out four times before they would pee.

“How often do they have to pee?” a man sitting on the curb, smoking, outside the motel asked. I guess he must’ve seen me bring them out before.

“We’ve been in the car thirteen hours and they haven’t peed yet,” I told him.

Just then another hotel guest brought her dog out. We saw each other and went in opposite directions. I really don’t know how Raini would do with other dogs and I wasn’t going to find out. Once she’d taken her dog back in, I took Bondi and Raini to the area where she’d been. It worked! They found where the other dog had peed and they both peed on top of it! Yay! I was worried about them.

We arrived at Lake Ozark, Missouri in the early afternoon of our second day, just in time to line up for the Homecoming Parade. Andrew, our grandson, would be with his football team in the parade.

While we waited for the parade to start, Mike found a bench and an interesting person to talk to. He spent the whole parade time there, chatting.

The combined seventh and eighth grade teams were riding on the same float and they were almost the last float in the parade. Andrew’s aunt, his mom’s twin, called to him. I don’t know what Chi-chi was doing because I had my eye glued to the viewfinder, but whatever it was I could hear Andrew say, with a laugh, “I don’t know you!”

“Mimi’s here!” Kandyce, his mom called, and this is the moment he saw me.

          This handsome guy is Briar, Chi-chi’s son.

          Girlfriends!

          And there’s my handsome grandson.

          Something else we worried about was how Raini and Bondi would react to strangers. They are both very protective when we’re in the car. If a stranger approaches, they go nuts and act like they’re going to rip someone’s face right off. I was worried enough that I took Raini’s muzzle with us.

          But, alas, it was another thing I need not have worried about.

          Once out of the car, Raini is a big chicken, and wants nothing more than to get right back in the car, and heaven forbid if someone tries to talk to her! She’d rip my arm off trying to get away. So much for being a guard dog, eh?

          Even when we were in Kevin and Kandyce’s house, the dogs were very shy and wanted to go back out and get in the car again. There were a few times, when it wasn’t too hot, that we did let them stay in the car.

          Our time in Missouri was much, much too short. But, boy-oh-boy, did I enjoy every minute of it!  

          The Krafts have a whole cupboard full of games. “We try to have a family game night every week,” Kandyce said as she held the door open for me.

Andrew taught me how to play Nertz.

He used his spiffy card-shuffling machine to shuffle the cards.

“You have to do it three times for luck,” he told me.

I won. Beginners luck?

          And we played Mexican Train Dominos.

          I don’t remember who won but I do remember how much fun we had.

       

Something else I remember is the evil-genius laugh of Andrew’s when he goes out and leaves us with a rack full of points!

          Andrew’s German shepherd has to be kenneled when anyone she doesn’t know comes into the house. Lulu’s known Chi-chi since she was a pup and when she saw Chi-chi she picked up her ball and barked.

          “I’ve never seen a dog bark with a ball in its mouth,” I said, but apparently they do.

          This cutie-patootie is Archie, and belongs to Pat, Kandyce’s mom, who lives with them. He was allowed to be out with us.

          We took our kennels with us and Bondi and Raini were kenneled on the other side of the room. Don’t feel bad for them, though, they don’t feel like they’re being punished, which they weren’t. The kennels are “safe” places for them and they sleep in them even here at home.

          Mike’s brother Cork taught me to play Phase 10 and I showed the kids how to play.

          “We have to get this one!” Andrew told his parents.

It takes a minute to play Phase 10 when you have four players, and Andrew broke out the snacks. Something else I’ve never seen is these Game Finger Chopsticks.

“It keeps his fingers clean when he’s gaming,” Kandyce said.

Andrew certainly used them with the ease and dexterity of a pro.

Speaking of pro, I asked Andrew, “Are you going to college?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“What for?”

“It depends. If I get in for basketball, my number one choice is Mizzou, my second choice is Duke. If I get in for football, my number one choice is Mizzou and my second choice is the Texas Longhorns. My third choice on both of those is LSU.”

I’m thinking, to myself of course, that’s great! But most people can’t make a career out of sports, even someone as talented and handsome as my grandson.

“What do you want to do after college?” I asked.

Very simply, and without hesitation, he said. “Go pro.”

I am not going to be the one to quash his dreams of being a professional athlete. He CAN become one if he works hard enough and if he is good enough and a dose of God’s blessings mixed in couldn’t hurt either.

It sounded to me like Andrew had his life all mapped out. Then I wondered, “Are you going to get married?”

Andrew was quiet for a thoughtful moment. “It’s too early to talk about that.”

I love that kid. At twelve going on thirteen, he’s so kind and so smart and so funny; he’s just such a joy to have a conversation with.

A couple of days after we left, my handsome son sent me this picture. Andrew is teaching his cousin Carter to play Phase 10.

We stayed at a motel at the top of the Strip in Lake Ozark. We paid a little more than we would have if we’d’ve stayed someplace else, but I wanted to relive some of my happy memories: walking Itsy and Ginger down Valley Road and taking some beautiful photos on those daily walks.

A pipe dream?

And so it was.

It’s been nine years since we left and things don’t stay the same. Some of the changes were apparent.

Like the fencing and razor wire added to the dam.

 And a construction project. We found out later it’s to be a five-story resort complex with a bar and restaurant on the first floor.

 

All of Two-bit town except for a couple of log cabins is gone.

 

The twenty-foot-tall Indian has been restored and is there, albeit with a cage around him now. And the buildings for the Rebel Arcade are still there behind him.

Andrew and I walked the Strip many times when he was a baby and someplace I have a photo of him sitting on the Indian’s foot. I couldn’t find that one but I found this one.

 

Half-wit also had a facelift and he’s still there on the Strip, in a different spot and in his own cage too.

My first trip walking the dogs down Valley Road dashed my dreams on the rocks of reality.

It wasn’t the same.

It had all new blacktop, totally destroying the charm and character of the old road. When they did the blacktop, they trampled the wildflowers and vegatation that grew beside the road and left in its place clumps and chunks of rocks and tar and blacktop detritus.

I didn’t take water with me. I never thought about it. In the old days there was always running water in the little creek that ran near the road and I’d let Itsy and Ginger drink from it if they needed to. But now it was mostly dried up.

I’ll take them to the campground and let them drink from the pond, I thought.

We get down there and there’s old tires and trash and a traffic cone in the shallows of the scum-covered pond. No way was I going to let the girls drink from that.

We turned around and headed for home.

I was so disheartened. I didn’t want to walk the whole way back and Mike was napping. I didn’t want to bother him. I trudged on. I didn’t go much farther before I broke down and called him.

Mike is a good husband and without so much as a single rebuke, he came and picked us up. I didn’t walk that route again.

The next time I took the girls for a walk, we walked the Strip. It was still dark out and the Strip was quiet. Our old place still bears our name.

By the time we reached the dam, the sun was coming up. We turned around and went back to our room.

I only walked the Strip one more time after that and it was later in the morning when we left.

When we got down to the dam, I wanted to go down to where the Celebration charter boat was docked. The boards on the ramp creaked and it freaked Bondi out. No way, no how was she taking one step onto those boards! I tried to pull her along but soon realized she could back out of her collar. I stopped and pushed the collar back down over her ear and carried her down. At the bottom I set her down and went to look at the shark.

Bondi decided she’d wait right there for me. She’s too heavy to carry for long so I tied her leash while Raini and I explored the various photo ops the owners had set up for the tourists.

Back up on street level, going past the construction site, I found a spot to stand and watch for a few minutes. The noise bothered Bondi and she balked. She wasn’t going any closer. I knew I couldn’t pull her so I just let her stand there at the end of her stretched out leash.

They were lifting a machine out of the construction zone and I wondered what it was.

 Just about that time a worker man came up the access road below where I was standing.

“What is that thing?” I called.

“It’s a compacter,” he called back. “It makes the ground hard...”

That’s all I heard because I felt three shakes come from Bondi’s leash then it went slack. I turned to see her little ass prancing away, her collar lying empty on the ground. 

I picked it up as I ran after her.

“BONDI! STOP!” I yelled.

Did she listen?

NO!

I called in every tone of voice I could think of, mad, excited, pleading, but she only stopped long enough to look back at me. The second I started after her, she’d turn and trot up the street.

She’s probably going back to the room, I thought.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to catch her and if I’d chase her she’d just run. I had to make her come to me before she ran into the street and got hit by a car. Luckily, that early in the morning, traffic was light.

The only thing I could think to do was to pull one of Mike’s tricks. I ducked into a doorway of the Cuddy Cabin, bent down, and in a loud voice (without looking at Bondi) I said, “Aww! What’s that?! What is it?!” and pointed to a place in the corner.

It worked! Thank you, God! Bondi came to see and I got her collar back on her.

“Peg! Make her collar smaller!” you say.

I know, right! I tried but it’s as small as it’ll go. I’ll just have to be more careful, not pull her, and not let her back out of it.

There’s an access road down behind the businesses on the Strip, a road I’ve walked often. I detoured us down that road and walked past the place where I saw, for the first time, Trumpet Honeysuckle, gooseberries, and morel mushrooms.

I didn’t see anything this time except neglect.

This is where there used to be a handsome marina.

We flushed out a deer.

And this is where little Andrew decided he didn’t want to walk anymore. He turned around and was going home.

“Andrew!” I called after him. “It’s shorter to go home this way!” And he came back to me.

I love this photo of that day.

And this hill?

This hill had a smattering of loose gravel on it back in the day. I was careful with my foot placement because I knew the rocks would roll and I could fall. And that’s what happened to Andrew. He’d put his foot down on a rock, it would roll, and he’d fall down. It happened two or three times before he allowed me to hold his hand. I saved him from falling a couple more times before we were off the hill.

 

Mike and I are sad that some of our old friends have left this world before we had a chance to see them one more time. But we did catch up with a couple of other old friends. 

This is my best girl, Linda. She also had a business on the Strip, plus we were both coaches at Curves.

Linda picked me up so I could go to church with her on Sunday. Monday we had lunch together then we took the dogs for a walk down School Road and just enjoyed chatting and being together again.

I took some pictures along our walk, and we’ll pick up the story there next time.

Until then, know that you are all in my heart.

Let’s call this one done!