Comfort Food in the Cold.

Another cold and boring day here at the stix and brix.  I went outside for a brief moment, and decided that it was too cold at about 26 degrees to do anything productive outside. 

Returning to the easy chair and the laptop computer, I have spent the day web browsing.  Tough life but someone has to keep up on all this stuff. 

By mid afternoon, I went over to Wal Mart, which is only about a mile away, and besides it was almost up to freezing by that time, and bought enough stuff to make Linda Payne's Baked Spaghetti Amour.  I don't follow her recipe verbatim but it is mostly the same.  I add extra tomato sauce and two kinds of cheese.

I used fresh garlic and onions.  That has way more flavor than the powder stuff.  So we ate well tonight.

I also made a sugar free pumpkin pie with sugar free cool whip as the desert.  Using bagged splenda, you are hard pressed to tell the difference from real sugar.  At least I thought it was darned good.

Tonight we used the D Star radio system to connect back up to the Des Moines area and three of us hams spent a good while talking technical stuff and adjusting the repeater out in Western Iowa.

Just like that its after midnight, so time to pack it in!

Retired Rod

A change of decor!

Decorations?  What decorations, oh you mean that pumpkin stuff?  I hadn't noticed.  Put it away, what's wrong with it?

It's Christmas now!  Oh ya, that's right, it's cold outside.  So that's how the conversation went this morning.

Loyce was hard at packing up all the Halloween stuff and we are bare of decor tonight.  That won't last long as we will be in full dress with Santa and the tree and so forth.

I will get pushed to bring up the tree tomorrow, before the day is out.  I'll try to ignore it for part of the day, but it won't do any good. LOL.

Our neighbors have their outdoor lights put up by commercial companies that custom make the light strings to exact lengths.  This is costly, in the multiple hundreds of dollars.  A waste of diesel fuel budget, so I refuse to participate.

The housing sub division requires that all lights be down by the first week of January, but by then I hope to be back in Arizona.  We'll have to enjoy the neighbors lights.

I had a down day which is normal after large travel days.  I started the pickup truck and drove it over into Missouri.  Drove past my barber's shop but the place was swamped.  I deciced not to stop, perhaps tomorrow.

Otherwise I went thru a months mail and paid a few bills.  Normal stuff for returning home.

The temperature on the weather station here at our house is reporting 30 right now!  A loss of 9 degrees since last night.  I have on a knit long sleeve shirt and a sweat shirt.

My blood is still thin from being in the warm climate of the West!  Perhaps I will get more used to it by the weekend.

Retired Rod

Back at the shack

Sitting in my easy chair in Kansas City, reflecting on the 1170 mile trip over the last two days.

I never plugged in the GPS for any directions or information.  We were never lost or headed in the wrong direction.  The weather was never a problem, although I was concerned when we went over the mountain in Arizona.

The breakfast in Tucumcari at the EconoLodge left something to be desired this morning.  When we had the doggie pal we had to stay at the Motel 6.  They didn't have any breakfast.  The lodge was about $12 more, and not so spartan.  But the cold cereal and toast seemed bleak.  I guess we had coffee and juice too.  Not much different than at home. LOL.

We drove hard all day, stopping in Liberal, KS for a subway sandwich.  Then all afternoon across Kansas to Wichita.  Arrived exactly at 5 PM for their rush hour.  Nice!

Loyce drove to Emporia, as I had a power nap.  $4 toll on the turnpike, but she had the needle burried while I slept. 

After a Hardee burger at an Emporia interchange, I drove on to KC.  Arriving about 8:30 tonight. 

Just a stroll in the park!  I think I am beyond tired, but too wound up to go to bed.

The heat was set at 50, when we arrived, but I switched on the emergency side which is natural gas.  It is after midnight, and the unit has never shut off.  If I had left it on the heat pump, we would have never made the mid 60's before morning.  The outside temp is 39.  That won't improve much in the weeks to come!

Retired Rod

Half Way!

Hello from Tucumcari, New Mexico.  It is quite a drive to get here from Mesa, Arizona.  We left after 9 A M and headed right out of town on the highway to Payson.  We had just made this trip last week, so we knew the way.

In Payson, Loyce announced that we had to stop at the quilt store.  Surprise surprise.  She had ordered something, and needed to pick it up.  I dropped her off and headed to Wal Mart.  I just needed some toiletries, but that was better than sitting in the car.

We headed out over the mountains to the North, and promptly ran into fog and snow flurries.  The stuff was melting on the road, so it never got slick, but the windshield was collecting the mess.  I was glad to see the top, as once over the mountain, the snow stopped.

We drove thru several places that had snow on Sunday, with the most accumulation East of Albuquerque.  Glad we didn't head out in that.

Tonight we are in a motel, which is quite a shock to our system.  We never like motels.  The last motel was back in Wisconsin when we went to our niece's wedding.  Spoiled aren't we?

Only 600 miles to KC!  We should be home by tomorrow night.

Retired Rod