Life on the farm

After we said our good-byes to our friends in Michigan, we decided to start the trip back to Iowa. We didn’t really know what the weather was supposed to be like, so we thought we’d be better off  safe than sorry and start out early. If the weather did get bad, we knew that we could always stop and stay for the night. So off we went.

The first thing that we came across was this. Now honestly isn’t this about the funniest thing you’ve ever seen? It was a sign just on the side of the road and Daryl just gives in anymore when I ask him if he’ll stop so I can snap a picture. I’m thinking to myself, now how often had they had prisoners escape that they actually post a sign saying that no one should pick them up if they do? I think this is about the craziest thing ever! I laughed and laughed until my belly hurt. Daryl just kept wondering why I thought this was so funny.. and I guess I really don’t know. But it was! Then back on the highway we went. The roads in Michigan all look pretty much the same. Trees and more trees. I thought that maybe there should be some bears around all these trees, but we only kept seeing deer standing on the side of the road. Thank goodness they stayed on the side of the roads ! But we had a lot of time to just hang out in the car and we even had a little sing a long time with the radio. OK, it was mostly me.. but it did pass the time. And just like that the roads got icy. The windshield of the car started to freeze over and everyone on the Interstate slowed down and took it off cruise control. We weren’t sure how long it was going to last so we found a hotel not too far from where we were at and ended up staying the night. Tonight we checked in way earlier than last night and we ended up walking over to a local Pub and had supper and there was going to be a band later. We also made sure that the hotel had a swimming pool with a hot tub. We didn’t stay up too late and by morning the car was plump full of snow. But the roads were good and as we got closer to home the weather even was kind of nice. I was surprised that only a couple of hours from our farm there was little or now snow. Even the rivers were completely open.

Mississippi River by Le Claire, Ia

We made it back to the car rental and turned in our little SUV for our truck and home we went. We noticed a lot more snow along the roads and also a lot more cars were in the ditch.

All you see is snow and more snow around our farm

We heard later that the weather was pretty nasty again Saturday and Saturday night. When we got home, Kyle was waiting for us and had everything on the farm and house done. It was a good trip and I’m so glad that we took the time to go.  I think there are some things that you know are just the right thing to do and this was one of them.

We had a very good friend of ours die unexpectedly this week and the funeral was going to be in Michigan on Saturday. You know how you think should we or shouldn’t we go? Well for us there was only thing that would determine if we wouldn’t go and that was the weather. Now we were supposed to get a couple of inches of snow, but we were hoping to get in front of the storm and decided to grab our stuff and head out. And since Kyle was still home to help with the chores, we thought it was a perfect time to go. Like I said the funeral was in Michigan and about a 9 to 10 hour drive.

When I got home on Friday after work, I had literally 17 minutes to change clothes and head back out the door. Now I did have everything ready, but after a quick bathroom visit and a change of clothes – out the door I went and into the pickup I sat with even a couple of minutes to spare!  We are also trying to figure out just what our next car is going to be, so we stopped off at the airport and rented a car before we took off. We figured it was the best way to really get a good feel if we like a smaller vehicle or not. Good idea right?

On the way to Michigan our plans were to drive to around 2 hours of where the funeral was going to be and then get up early the next morning and drive to the church. But Daryl was in the groove and said that he wanted to keep driving. I was really glad that he was driving and not me – I was tired! Kyle let us borrow his Garmin and after seeing all the roads in Chicago, we really glad that we ended up taking it along. The next couple of hours went by kind of fast and then around 2:15 in the morning we’re standing at the counter in a hotel trying to make reservations for the night. I was going to do them on line before we got there, but after midnight you can’t make that same days reservations. Now this makes sense, but after being on the road for over 9 hours it was just a little fuzzy at the time. But the worst thing is that we couldn’t find the person behind the counter. After standing around for what seemed like a really long time, Daryl found the hotel number on some cards on the counter and I called the hotel. This one guy answered and I asked if he would come to the check in counter because we were waiting to try to check in. Now that was a first! But he was nice and we got all checked in and pretty much passed out from exhaustion. The next morning we didn’t have any trouble finding the church and it was so nice to see my best friend right away. It was her husband who died just the Monday before and like I said very unexpectedly. But she’s like a rock .. well more like a boulder! She just said that she couldn’t believe that he died and then explained how he died. She wasn’t crying and I was trying my best not to. Because they are so involved with their local school, churches, town, and then he was a part owner of a local business and she worked at the college you can see why the funeral was huge. They even moved it to a different church because they knew that they couldn’t fit everyone in for the service. After the service we all went to a local VFW for the meal. Now I don’t know if all Michigan funerals have this much desserts – but Holy Cow! We had the normal sandwiches, jello stuff, hot potatoes and hot bean dished, but then we took another plate and went to the dessert tables.  My friends had a good friend of theirs own a bakery and brought ‘stuff’. I feel kind of bad talking about the food from today, but man oh man it was a lot! But do you know the coolest part of this whole day? When everyone found a seat in the VFW and before anyone ate, the priest gave a toast for the friend who passed away. Everyone raised their glass in honor of him and said Cheers!  Way cool! It was so good to see our friend this weekend, but it sure would have been better if it was under different circumstances. I know that she’s tough and she’ll be OK, but it just doesn’t seem too fair to me. But like the old saying goes, ‘Life’s not fair’. And today it was a perfect example on how true that saying really is.