Odds and Ends

In a trip that lets us spend time with people who we know and love, there are bound to be a few bright spots. 

While we were in Amarillo, Nick and Christina suggested breakfast at Poblando, a Mexican restaurant with an unusually nautical decor

and excellent non-nautical food, like stuffed avocado with rice and beans. This was delicious.

We got to visit with Tina and her beautiful daughter Erica. And Lenora was there, with her four grown-up sons who tower over her, and her youngest son, who probably will, too, someday. 

We spent a couple of days with Randy's brother Tim. We went to visit Sharon, and later drove out to Swan Lake, where their parents are buried. We drove our jeep and Tim followed in his truck. He's a professional truck driver, but mercy, he drives slow! 

For lunch we went  to Emo's, aka "The Clown", where they've been serving good chili dogs since we were all kids. 

On May 4th, whoever was manning the highway signs got creative:

When we drove through the Alton area, Aaron offered us his house for a night. He has three well-mannered dogs who didn't know what to make of our little ruffians. They accepted Randy, though; Strider didn't want to get off his lap.

Meanwhile Shorty followed his usual pattern of collecting and hoarding all their toys. When little Julienne wanted to play with one, she had to try to sneak it away from him.

During those long drives, Shorty suffered. He's naturally feisty and full of energy so spending hours ever day in a car drove him nuts. He insisted on being out of the kennel, which made sense, but then he had nothing to do and nowhere to go. Sometimes he sat on Randy's lap, and sometime he just sat.

He usually ended up in the back seat, wedged in somewhere, waiting for it to end. 

Since they spent so much time in the car, we let them sleep on the bed every night. Hotel beds vary in quality, but he made do.