YCGL - Tuesday, April 2, 2024 - Day3, Eads to Amarillo, TX - Start Your Day Out with a Bang - 265 miles
No, It's not what you are thinking. That bus left a long couple of days ago.
Maybe more like a Boom than a bang. A Blam. A Crash. A sound of many decibels encompassing a very wide, random timbral range.
I worked on the blog last night until 2:45 or so. Got to bed around 3:30. An early evening by any means. Blessedly, I was only up once around 6:30 and I had my alarm set for 9:00, 9:10 and 9:15, i.e., a good night's sleep.
(Think of lambs gamboling in a meadow to the sounds of Springtime from the William Tell Overture.)
"When what do my wondering ears do I hear?"
At 7:30am, in the morning. Slam, Crash on the roof over my head.
There was a crash over my head like a sonic boom. I was bolt upright in the bed like I almost hit my head on the cabinet above me, "Excuse me, please, who or what is making this unpleasant noise???" It sounded like a big dog or a coyote jumped up and scratched on the roof. I got out of bed and opened the dining room window. I really didn't want to open the door and walk out if that Hound of the Baskervilles was still on the roof. And the only wild creatures I saw were.....a flock of doves, ten or so, flying around the yard and onto building roofs like kamikaze pilots. Or being April, like teenage birds dancing to the Rite of Spring. And landing on my roof.
Needless to say, I couldn't get back to sleep. So, had breakfast, did a crossword, Sudoku, and KenKen from the newspaper for June 21, 2023, and took off around 10:00. The GPS predicted a 5-hour drive, and assuming an hour for lunch and diesel filling, that would get me to Debbie and Bob's at 4:00, a good time. Except, I forgot about the time change from Mountain time to Central time, so I got here right at 5:00.
Debbie is my dad's half-brother's middle daughter. This is Debbie's fifth birthday and she's standing between her older sister Cindy and her younger sister Caroline. I'm standing with my cousin David Edgar. 
We are at the farm in southern Minnesota that belonged to my grandmother and then passed on to the girl's dad, Ray Kyllo. I "worked" on the farm for a couple of weeks for two summers when I was 12 and 13 or so, worked? Ha! My greatest accomplishment was painting the stomach of a t-shirt red while two of my other cousins and I painted the barn. I was scared ,,,,greatly....while I was on the ladder and I'm sure I got more paint on me than on the barn. There is also a cute picture of me somewhere bathing in the barnyard stock tank trying in vain to wash the red off my stomach. However, I'm not looking for that picture, ever. The whole experience was only a little humiliating.😑
In a little more recent picture, Debbie is on the left with Caroline in the middle and Cindy on the right. I'm sitting with their parents Ray and Darlene Kyllo this past summer at a family reunion. 
Ray and his twin brother Ralph are 90 this year. I'll take some better pictures of Debbie and Bob tomorrow morning.
We had a fun evening (with me hogging about 80% of the conversation) talking about our families, my travels with and without Sally, my history of teaching, our church experiences, Bob's trucking companies, Debbie's work as a dentist's assistant, i.e., catching up after only seeing each other once in the past 30+, almost 40 years.
It's good to be with family. And with friends,
and best to be with family who are friends.
I've been blessed.
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