It's a famous old saying: you can't go home again. However, in the last week I have traveled from Texas into Oklahoma and Kansas and visited places I once lived and where I spent my childhood. So much of the scenery is as I remembered it, and so are some of those familiar faces!
I started out in celebrating my Mother's 75th birthday in Dallas. It was just like when we were young and it was just my sisters and parents, except we were missing my youngest sister who was in the middle of a move far away in California! We went with my other sister, brother-in-law, and my parents at a really nice restaurant in Dallas, Truluck's, before heading to Fair Park for the show "Wicked." They treated my mom to a fancy birthday dessert after a fabulous meal. We really enjoyed it! The show was superb! It was entertaining and enjoyable. I am familiar with the Wizard of Oz, and this is like a "prequel" to the story, but it was nothing that I had expected. The effects, lighting, music, and acting were really good. I highly recommend this to anyone who has a chance to go see it!
It was a really fun family evening--who says you can't go back home?
The next day I got in my car and traveled up to Oklahoma for a visit to Don's parents. I spent a lot of time helping them get set up on a new iPad. Here we are in their office working hard on getting them caught up--technologically speaking!
Another benefit of having free time away from home was getting to have coffee with "the girls" in my mother-in-law's weekly coffee group! We enjoyed good coffee, great conversation, some prayer time and just all around good fun. Some of these ladies I have known for a long time, some were new to me. A few have children my age that I went to school and church with when I was a teenager. It's really neat to see a group of friends having fun together and enjoying retirement!
I don't have pictures of it, but Jerry, my mother-in-law, and I had our obligatory and, as always, enjoyable shopping trip. We shopped most of a day away. Jerry is known as the Meemaw with the shopping gene!
After all the computing and shopping I could take, I traveled on up to Kansas to visit my second son, Rusty. I was born in Kansas, and traveling up through the countryside brought back many childhood memories. Every part of the world has beauty in its own way, and Kansas is no exception. Kansas was part of what the early settlers called the Great American Desert, but instead of sand it was prairie grasses with few, if any, trees. The interstate highway to Lawrence took me through the Flint Hills of Kansas. The Flint Hills is the largest continuous area of tallgrass prairie left in the world. The flint, also called chert, is a hard rock that the Native American Indians used for making arrowheads, spears, and other cutting tools. Buffalo once roamed the entire area. It was not farmed because the rocky flint made it impossible to plow for farming, hence it remains to this day. The skies are big in Kansas, as the flat land makes it appear that you can see forever. I stopped to take a few pictures from the roadside. It was a cloudy, dreary day, so these pictures are not as bright, but it does give you an idea of the vastness of the plains. Can't you just see Indians and buffalo roaming the countryside?
As I traveled farther north, there were fields of these beautiful purple blossoms--I think they were alfalfa plants just beginning to grow and bloom. It was a dreary, rainy, and cold day, but I really enjoyed this shot of purple on the landscape!
I am an antique buff, and personally own some antiques from old Kansas farmsteads, some of the family pieces that came across the prairie by covered wagon over one hundred years ago. Here's a picture of an old abandoned farmstead house that I passed as I was nearing Lawrence. While I was definitely not born to be a pioneer, I come from strong pioneer stock, and love the idea of farm life--with modern conveniences, of course!
I started out in celebrating my Mother's 75th birthday in Dallas. It was just like when we were young and it was just my sisters and parents, except we were missing my youngest sister who was in the middle of a move far away in California! We went with my other sister, brother-in-law, and my parents at a really nice restaurant in Dallas, Truluck's, before heading to Fair Park for the show "Wicked." They treated my mom to a fancy birthday dessert after a fabulous meal. We really enjoyed it! The show was superb! It was entertaining and enjoyable. I am familiar with the Wizard of Oz, and this is like a "prequel" to the story, but it was nothing that I had expected. The effects, lighting, music, and acting were really good. I highly recommend this to anyone who has a chance to go see it!
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| My mom |
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| Chocolate bread pudding with cherry sauce--yummmm! |
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| Enjoying the evening! |
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| Outside Fair Park--the trees were all lit up! |
It was a really fun family evening--who says you can't go back home?
The next day I got in my car and traveled up to Oklahoma for a visit to Don's parents. I spent a lot of time helping them get set up on a new iPad. Here we are in their office working hard on getting them caught up--technologically speaking!
Another benefit of having free time away from home was getting to have coffee with "the girls" in my mother-in-law's weekly coffee group! We enjoyed good coffee, great conversation, some prayer time and just all around good fun. Some of these ladies I have known for a long time, some were new to me. A few have children my age that I went to school and church with when I was a teenager. It's really neat to see a group of friends having fun together and enjoying retirement!
I don't have pictures of it, but Jerry, my mother-in-law, and I had our obligatory and, as always, enjoyable shopping trip. We shopped most of a day away. Jerry is known as the Meemaw with the shopping gene!
After all the computing and shopping I could take, I traveled on up to Kansas to visit my second son, Rusty. I was born in Kansas, and traveling up through the countryside brought back many childhood memories. Every part of the world has beauty in its own way, and Kansas is no exception. Kansas was part of what the early settlers called the Great American Desert, but instead of sand it was prairie grasses with few, if any, trees. The interstate highway to Lawrence took me through the Flint Hills of Kansas. The Flint Hills is the largest continuous area of tallgrass prairie left in the world. The flint, also called chert, is a hard rock that the Native American Indians used for making arrowheads, spears, and other cutting tools. Buffalo once roamed the entire area. It was not farmed because the rocky flint made it impossible to plow for farming, hence it remains to this day. The skies are big in Kansas, as the flat land makes it appear that you can see forever. I stopped to take a few pictures from the roadside. It was a cloudy, dreary day, so these pictures are not as bright, but it does give you an idea of the vastness of the plains. Can't you just see Indians and buffalo roaming the countryside?
As I traveled farther north, there were fields of these beautiful purple blossoms--I think they were alfalfa plants just beginning to grow and bloom. It was a dreary, rainy, and cold day, but I really enjoyed this shot of purple on the landscape!
I am an antique buff, and personally own some antiques from old Kansas farmsteads, some of the family pieces that came across the prairie by covered wagon over one hundred years ago. Here's a picture of an old abandoned farmstead house that I passed as I was nearing Lawrence. While I was definitely not born to be a pioneer, I come from strong pioneer stock, and love the idea of farm life--with modern conveniences, of course!
After journeying across the countryside, I made it to Lawrence, where my son is attending the University of Kansas' Law School. It was a short weekend, but we had fun eating out in Kansas City and spending a little time together.
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| My son Rusty and I |
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| My cousin Mark--who's a ham, in case you can't tell from this picture!--joined Rusty and I at a mongolian bbq place in Kansas City. I smashed my finger on the restaurant's broken chair, so we got our entire meal comped, which was a plus for Rusty and Mark! They went hog-wild over the free desserts! |
More on going back home on Part II!
I loved Wicked! Have seen it three times. I hope your finger is okay!
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