Midwest Ghosts

We've been driving and driving and driving. Sure we stayed with friends and family along the way, but the point in this post is the driving and more driving and the wrong turns at the end of our journey (I should not ever be leader). It was the wrong roads, the road food, the creepy truck stops, swollen eyes and gypsy lifestyle that had me on edge. What pushed me over was a scene that could be found in Amityville Horror.

A charming farmhouse near Peoria, Illinois, my new home, looked warm and inviting. The spiders also thought so and decided to move from the newly spun webs on the patio to the bathtub and kitchen. Welcome! or not. As I sat on the toilet I couldn't avoid the eye-level hint scrawled into the wall   LEAVE.

Right. Can do. Can't go. Creepy tree shadows everywhere. Spiders falling on my head. Black cats and bats and a witch cackle drifting in the wind. Spooky! 

Snow Snow Go Away!

I get that global warming has the seasons all screwed up, but the key word is WARMing. I thought that meant I'd be pulling out the shorts a few days in December, bundle up for January and February, and back in flip-flops by March.

Not quite. We took a little Meet the Fockers road trip to Denver. (Literally if you know those movies he met the parents, I met the Fockers.) On the way there we had to drive over Vail Pass late into the midnight hour. A huge blunder in the winter but not a definite worry in late May. Whoops. We drove through a spring storm. As Skip cursed our luck I kept thinking my brother Phil would've killed me, and also would have checked the weather.

A few sunny and warm days in Colorado and we were back on the road. We got another late-ish start but figured we'd be fine since Vail would be conquered during the afternoon heat. And we were until the midnight hours in Spanish Fork Canyon. What started as rain left a white blanket covering the flowers.

My motivation for the day died when I woke up this morning knowing that I could not wear shorts and snowboard season ended months ago. Global warming? Not all it's cracked up to be.