A Weekend Trip to Oklahoma

Jay, the grandson of our good friends, Jim and Sandy, is a senior in high school and plays on his school's football team. The team played in the Class 5A Oklahoma state championship football game on December 1st, and we felt that milestone accomplishment was worthy of our support.

So we made the trip to Oklahoma for the game. Initially, we were going to ride with Jim and Sandy; but the two couples ultimately decided to drive separately. Part of the reason for that was concerns over having enough space in one vehicle for all of us to take everything we wanted to take. Another concern was, for lack of a better term, scheduling conflicts.

Jim and Sandy are early risers. We're not. Not by a long shot. They were planning to leave at 6 AM on Friday and drive straight through to Tulsa, where Jay and his family live. Doug and I opted to leave on Thursday afternoon. We drove 240 miles and stayed overnight in Effingham, Illinois, knowing full well that Jim and Sandy would probably pass us the next day.

We called them when we got on the road Friday morning, and they were only an hour behind us.

Crazy people.

We kept looking over our shoulder as we drove that day, expecting our friends to pass us at any moment. They didn't pass us, but they did arrive in Tulsa ahead of us. I know you're wondering how that happened.

Well, I had our GPS set to avoid toll roads. It's not that we mind paying tolls...well, we do; but that's not the main reason. We find toll roads stressful and dangerous, unless you have the pass that lets you shoot through the toll plazas. And we don't. So we just try to avoid them. Anyway, Oklahoma must be the Toll Road Capital of the world. The most direct route to our destination was a toll road; but our GPS, following the instructions we had programmed into it, took us on a roundabout route to avoid the toll road. As a result, Jim and Sandy beat us to Tulsa by about a half-hour.

But we enjoyed our little detour, and we did arrive in time to go out for supper with them and Jay's dad.

Here are some pictures from the trip:

Can you see a smoking pipe in this cloud formation? It was more defined when I first saw it but had changed some before I could get the camera out.

This is the sunset as we were entering Tulsa on Friday night.

We had time to kill on Saturday, before the football game that night. My dad's dad had lived in Bristow, Oklahoma, not far from Tulsa, and was buried in the Bristow City Cemetery. He had died before I was born. I had never seen his grave and wanted to find it since we were so close. It's a big cemetery, but I had done a little research ahead of time, and we were able to find the grave without too much trouble.

Entrance to the Bristow City Cemetery

The weather couldn't have been better for the football game. The temperatures on Saturday were in the mid-seventies. At the game that night, it was definitely cooler than that; but I don't think it went below the mid-fifties.

Here are a few pictures from game night.

The contenders

The location

The watchers

The players (Jay is number 56 in the black shirt.)

I have to confess here that I know virtually nothing about football. I'm totally lost without the television commentators telling me what's happening on the field. It looks to me like somebody yells "hut" and chaos ensues. Above is one of the chaos pictures.

Jay's team was ahead 8 to 7, going into the fourth quarter. Unfortunately, the the other team won with a score of 24 to 8. Let's just say they were busy in that fourth quarter.

We stayed in Tulsa the next morning, long enough to have brunch with Jay and the rest of the Tulsa family. We wanted to make sure Jay knew we were proud of him and the way he had played, even though his team hadn't come away with the state championship.

We left Tulsa a few minutes ahead of Jim and Sandy, and they breezed by us within an hour. Both couples stayed at the same hotel in Effingham that night, but we didn't make connections. They had arrived about an hour ahead of us, and they left about an hour earlier than we did the next morning.

It was a long trip for a short visit. But it was fun.

Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite

Did your mom ever tuck you in at night with that little phrase, "Good night. Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite."? I grew up thinking that was just a little saying that adults said to children, never even considering that such things as bedbugs actually existed.

Then, a few years ago, bedbugs became headline news when bedbug outbreaks began occurring in public places such as hotels, movie theaters, clothing stores, and public transportation. The enlarged pictures of the tiny little nasties, featured on television news reports, were fuel for nightmares.

As much as Doug and I stay in hotels and motels on our travels, that news caused us some concern. We always comforted ourselves with the knowledge that we generally stay in nicer places. We learned long ago the importance of a clean, quiet room with a comfortable bed for getting a good night's rest. So we are willing to pay a little extra for that. We don't look for the really fancy places, just clean, quiet, and comfortable.

When choosing lodging, I usually start with the American Automobile Association (known as "Triple A" or "AAA"). I find hotels on their site that are within our price range. Then I go to TripAdvisor.com and read reviews of those hotels before choosing one. So I'm careful.

But it happened to us. We were staying in a hotel that is part of a nationally recognized chain of hotels. It appeared very clean and well furnished. We had both showered and gotten ready for bed and then settled down to read for awhile. A movement on the bed caught Doug's eye. When he looked up, he saw a tiny bug crawling on the bed. He got up and killed it, then sat back down to read again. Soon, he saw another tiny bug on the bed. He killed that one, too, and put both of the little carcasses in a tissue before calling me over to look at them.

I got my camera and took a photograph so that I could enlarge it and get a better view of them.

There was no doubt in my mind what they were. They looked just like the nightmarish pictures I remembered from those television news stories. And then, to make matters worse, we saw two more crawling on the wall. And, when Doug pinched a miniscule spot off his tee shirt, he had blood on his fingers. It apparently was yet another bedbug, and this one must have bitten Doug before he killed it.

We called the front desk and told them about the bugs, inviting them to send someone up to see them for themselves. The manager came himself. He seemed totally shocked at the realization that there were bedbugs in his facility. He offered to help us move our things to another room. But we said we were checking out and moving on.

So, although it was almost midnight, we packed quickly, checking our things as carefully as we could in an attempt to avoid having any little hitchhikers traveling with us, and put about 85 miles between us and that place before stopping for the night at another hotel. This one was a bit on the shabby side, but we saw no vermin and slept well.

As for hitchhikers...so far, we've not seen any sign of them.

A Couple of Pictures from a Road Trip

Doug and I have been traveling again. Last week, we made a quick trip to Missouri. Friends of ours, Randy and Donna, are Christian missionaries in Panama, and they brought a teen orchestra to the States to put on some concerts in the Kansas City area. We wanted to see them, but we weren't too excited about driving the 1,200-mile round trip to Missouri, so soon after our driving trip out West in September. However, we were persuaded by the "please, please, please" e-mail that Randy sent a few days before they were to fly out of Panama.

This post really isn't about Randy and Donna or the concert. It's just to explain why we were traveling again. And to share just two photos from that drive to Missouri.

The above picture isn't very sharp because I was shooting through our windshield and through the rear window of the car in front of us. But, hopefully, you can still see the napping dog in the back seat. It appears to be a Yellow Lab. He has his head tucked between two headrests and is sound
asleep.

This cloud just struck my fancy as it reminded me of the Nike "swoosh," only in reverse.

That's it for today, folks. Nothing profound...just a little whimsy.

I hope all of you here in the U. S. are planning to get out and vote your values today.

Remember...bad politicians are elected by good citizens who don't vote.



Blaney Camp 9

Several years ago, in August of 1990, to be exact, Doug and I were wrapping up a vacation in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. On the day we started for home, we came upon the Seney National Wildlife Refuge and decided to spend some time there. As a result, we didn't get far that day.

By the time we left the Wildlife Refuge, the hour was getting late; and we had no idea where we were going to spend the night. The nearest town of any size was about 45 minutes to an hour in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go.

We were approaching the intersection where we would have to make the decision about whether to continue towards home and possibly have to drive hours before we found a motel or to turn in the other direction and, hopefully, find something within an hour or so.

Just then, we saw a sign that said "Blaney Camp 9," advertising nightly rates of $35. Even 20 years ago, that was a pretty attractive rate. 

We decided it wouldn't hurt anything to at least stop and look at the place.

The "office" was actually the home of the proprietor. The "rooms" were separate little cottages. As we learned later, this had been the site of an old lumber camp. The man who now owned it had turned it into a bed and breakfast of sorts. I think he was sizing us up as much as we were sizing him up during our initial meeting. We must have passed his inspection, though, because he took us to a unit to let us see it.

We were charmed.

The cottage was tiny, but immaculate. The furnishings included a very inviting queen bed, a chest of drawers, a comfortable chair, and a television.

The bathroom, though also tiny, was equipped with all the usual necessities. In short, it was perfect. It looked like a little honeymoon cottage; and, as it happened, that night just happened to be our third wedding anniversary. We couldn't have found a more charming place in which to spend it.

We marveled, as we often do, at God's gracious provision.

Our host can be seen here, making his breakfast deliveries.

The next morning, our host delivered to our cottage door muffins fresh out of the oven, freshly squeezed orange juice, coffee, and a copy of the Detroit newspaper. (Thus earning the "bed and breakfast" designation of his little enterprise.)

For several years afterward, our host sent us a Christmas newsletter, as if we were old friends. Then, eventually, the newsletters stopped coming.

Five years ago, 15 years to the day after our first visit and during another anniversary trip to the Upper Peninsula, we drove by Blaney Camp 9 to see how it was faring. Sadly, it appeared abandoned and neglected.

It was disheartening to see the place in such a state of neglect, but we will always remember fondly the charming place it was when we stumbled onto it the night of our third anniversary.

 

I wonder what has become of our host of that day. I hope he's happy.

Waterfalls

Doug and I have a fascination with waterfalls and seek them out whenever we have the opportunity. Here are a few that we have enjoyed.

Place of a Thousand Drips - Smoky Mountains

Indian Flats Falls-Smoky Mountains

Abrams Falls-Smoky Mountains

Laurel Falls - Smoky Mountains

Grotto Falls - Smoky Mountains

North Clear Creek Falls - On the "Silver Thread" scenic byway from Alamosa, Colorado to Montrose, Colorado

New York in October, 2009

In October of 2009, Doug and I attended a Bible conference at the Word of Life Conference Center in Schroon Lake, New York, with two other couples from our area. Here are a few photos from that trip.

The six of us playing dominoes during a break in the conference. And let me say that the dominoes with numbers, instead of dots, are much easier to work with. I highly recommend them. And be prepared to play by the rules of the person with the strongest personality because it just seems that no two people understand the rules in the same way. I'm just sayin'...

The six of us all had plans for something we wanted to do after the conference, so the three couples had each driven separately. Since Doug and I had never been to New York before, we wanted to see a little more of the area before heading for home. So we took a drive up to Lake Placid, which had been the site of the Winter Olympic games in 1932 and again in 1980. It's a gorgeous area.

On the drive up to Lake Placid

Another scene on the drive to Lake Placid

A ski slope in Lake Placid

Fungus on a log

How many beaver lodges have you seen with a satellite dish?