In the mood

 I’m in a classic rock mood today. 

Meandering Monday

Fall has arrived. According to the forecast temps won’t reach seventy again until late in the week. It’s Okay.

I mowed the lawn yesterday. It won’t be the last time, but maybe not every week going forward. 

I made my most favorite meal for dinner yesterday: beef and noodles and yes, I’m a Hoosier so we had mashed potatoes  with them. There are leftovers for lunch. 

I have to pay the price for a week of vacation. My work email in box is filled to electronic overflowing. I have a conference call mid-morning and another this afternoon.

I did read some of the emails during the week and answered a few. 

The bottom line I enjoyed my time off. So the inundation of work is worth it. 

I sure said “I” a lot in this post. You would thing this thing was all about me. 

Go forth and have a great Monday. 

Rocky Mountain High

 

Last vacation picture. I promise 

The Front Range anyway. 

It was a great fall afternoon yesterday. I thought I’d enjoy a bit of time on the patio with a nice cigar. After some time I glanced to my right and there lay a dead squirrel. 

I enjoy my backyard squirrel. He amused me. Now it looks like he has gone to squirrel heaven. I hope it is filled with nuts and good stuff. And yes, I’m a bit sad to find one of God’s creatures has met his end. 

Dispatch from the Smokey Hill

My great great grandfather enlisted in the 7th Iowa Cavalry during the Civil Wsr. Instead of heading east to fight the Rebels, he was ordered west to guard the western travel routes against the godless heathen red-skinned devils. According to the regimental history his company patrolled along the Smoky Hill River across Kansas and up into Nebraska and Eastern Colorado. He was finally discharged in 1866 as a corporal. His pension records say he was wounded in the arm at some point. 

I have no idea what he thought of the Great Plains. Did he love or loathe the windswept prairie? He did not stay in the west after the war. For an unknown reason he made his way east, settling in central Indiana, an area equally as flat, if not more so, than west Kansas. 

Perhaps it is a passed on gene from my distant grandfather, but I love the Great Plains. For me there is hidden beauty in the open vistas and distant horizon. Maybe it is my youth spent reading Louis L’Amour westerns that inspires my admiration. Perhaps it is the histories of the plains wars and Native American biographies I devoured that inspires my admiration of the prairie? Can I blame Laura Ingalls Wilder? The names of forgotten cow towns and army posts ring nostalgic in my soul: Forts Riley, Lawrence, and Hays. The cow towns of Abilene, Wichita, and Dodge conjure dusty trails and smokey saloons I never knew. 

I guess I’m a romantic at heart. 

80 mph view from my car window

But why in the heck did my great great grandpa go from Ohio to western Missouri to Iowa and then end up in Indiana? That is opposite the migration after the war. 

Rambling’ Man

I am late to the blog this morning, I slept in. It is OK, I’m on vacation. I have been all week. 

We left last Friday evening and road tripped out to Colorado visit my son. After an all night drive we arrived in time for lunch. We had a wonderful time. It was great to spend time with my oldest boy/middle child. We had not seen him for nearly a year. 

We climbed back into the Grand Cherokee Wednesday afternoon and arrived back home yesterday morning. 

I love road trips. I’ve been doing them for work and fun for most of my life. The wife and I travel well together. I do not recover from driving all night as quick as I used to. Fifteen or sixteen hours in the car makes my body hurt. Add this trip only days after my visit to China and my body is just worn out. 

I’ve done four all-nighters in less than 2 weeks. 

The wife wants to go to Ohio today. 

I think we all know what I’ll be doing in a few hours. 

My butt hurts already. 

What he said

 

A bit west of Mudsock

 

More stuff I’ve seen