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φI'VE CONCLUDED THAT WORKING WITH ANTENNAS ON φROOFTOPS IS NOT MY FAVORITE WINTERTIME ACTIVITY. φ φ φWE'RE ALMOST BACK UP AND RUNNING. I'VE GOT SOME φCONFIGURATION ISSUES TO LOOK INTO.
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The boys and I finished pruning all the fruit trees, and since planting season is still a few weeks off, we decided to take a road trip.
We've been working our way eastward on I-80 for the last few days, and we're currently stopped at a truck stop in Cozad, Nebraska. This is the first time we've been able to connect to the Internet since leaving home. We'll be heading out again in about an hour.
We're towing a fifth-wheel trailer behind the duallie, and it has been quite comfortable. It's a pain though when it comes to squeezing through traffic pileups.
We saw a strange one yesterday, coming out of Cheyenne. A crater in the middle of the eastbound lanes had swallowed a couple of tractor trailer rigs. It was a pretty good-sized hole...not a sink hole, but one that might be created by a meteorite. It had a rise around the edge, like those pictures you see of moon craters. We stopped to look in the hole to see if we could see a meteorite or something, but there was too much twisted truck metal in there.
Speaking of meteorites, we've seen a lot of them streaking across the night sky out here on the open road. In Salt Lake and in Paris, the inversion was so strong and the fog so thick that you couldn't see the sky at all.
We do quite a bit of driving at night. It's dangerous because of all the junk on the highway, but it's our best chance of spotting places that still have power: the lights are still on.
I've been letting Charles do some of the driving during daylight hours. I want him to have practice towing a trailer because I've got a scheme to haul some stuff in a convoy when we head back home. Pix's post about repopulating the earth has me thinking about gathering up a few things.
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The interstate was underwater just east of Des Moines. It was scary driving at night and having the road just disappear like that. We'll head south to Kansas City and then try working our way east again on I-70.
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The power keeps going out here. I really need to work on a more stable means of generation. Maybe something that doesn't involve a bicycle chain...
We've planted some green beans and bell peppers (I love bell peppers). We also raided a nursery. In a few years we'll have olives! (that don't come from a jar!) which also means olive oil, thanks to the how to books we took from the library.
You guys should find a place to settle. I'm sure driving around is fun and all, but remember the story of the grasshopper and the ants.
(edit: Would someone besides skillery and me play? =P )
Glad to hear you're still doing well. My boys were excited to hear about your teenagers. They were afraid they were all alone in the world. Maybe we'll have to head out to the coast and have a survivors party.
We've encountered what appears to be a new lake in the middle of the country. We headed south out of Des Moines on I-35 and lost the road underwater again just south of Bethany, Missouri. I'm wondering, since this area is crisscrossed by big rivers, if perhaps one of the dams has malfunctioned and backed up. Still, that's a lot of water, and it's too early for it to be Spring runoff. Looking across the water toward the east, I can't even see a shoreline. Maybe we'll borrow a motorboat and go for a ride.
Out of curiosity, did we have any Jatraqueros living along the Mississippi River, maybe in Memphis or St. Louis or Davenport?
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We found a nice boat in Bethany, but I can see that I'm scaring the boys with my idea of taking them out on the big water. They've never been on a boat or in an airplane. They've never been this far from home either. I can see now that I've been asking a lot of them.
Kevin, the youngest made a discovery: the water in our new lake is brackish.
We'll abandon the boating idea for now and take a nap here in Bethany before heading north to Minnesota...pay a visit to Betty Crocker maybe.
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We drove by an LDS meetinghouse in Des Moines today and saw cars in the parking lot. With today being Sunday, we thought for a moment that maybe somebody had actually shown up for church. We even pulled into the parking lot and started to get out of the truck. Then the realization came that there can be cars parked at LDS meetinghouses on any given day of the week, and that these cars had been sitting there for nearly three weeks.
Kevin said that he missed his Primary teacher.
The boys wanted to use the restroom and get a drink of water, but I wouldn't let them go in until I had checked the halls. We've seen dead people everywhere we've gone, but I didn't want them to see dead people in the church. I pulled the door to the clerk's office closed. It seems that there is always somebody in the clerk's office, doing reports or printing out attendance rolls.
Being in an empty church on Sunday was finally too much for me, and I broke down and sobbed. It took me several minutes to compose myself before I was able to go back out to the boys. They must have seen something in my face, because they no longer felt the need to go inside.
We're heading home. I'm done adventuring. Pix was right. All I've got in this world are these boys. Nothing else matters. I've always wanted to be a Primary teacher.
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The boys and I will probably start doing some schooling when we get home.
Any ideas on what kind of curriculum we should pursue? Reading is probably at the top of the list; we don't need a library card anymore, and we'll never be charged for an overdue book.
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