Wacky Wednesdays

This is the term younger daughter used to describe our mid-week travel adventures. Now before I go much further - yes - I had to get "permission" to blog about this. When I first decided to venture into the online blogging - I had strict instructions about what the 'editors' in the family would allow.

Anyway, this summer was again a summer of transition. It was more so for our younger daughter. She had returned from her first year in college. She didn't get the opportunity to return to the town in which she grew up in. No, she didn't get to return to that comfort zone to her high school friends and to a summer job that she knew.

No, she had to go to a 'new' town as the parental units had to move. She had to find a summer job in a economy that sucks, in a town that she was not familiar with. If freshman year at college isn't enough of a transition - it was compounded.

However, she found a new job based on her own. Yeah! She has flourished in that job. Yeah! But as the new kid, she didn't get really to choose her days off like the kids that had worked their previously. She did ask to have the same day off as my new schedule had dictated. Hence, the Wednesday.

Now as anyone who has moved knows, it takes some time to get familiar with the new surroundings. The real issue was being the 'new' kid she didn't really have a new group to hang out with. So, she was stuck with me.

Wacky Wednesdays started on a whim. Really, after running errands one day, she and I decided at the spur of the moment, and the fact there was gas in the car, we were just going to pick a direction and see where the road lead to. The nice thing about Falls City is you can go in any of the four cardinal directions. We are within five minutes of Kansas and ten minutes of Missouri and about forty five minutes from Iowa.

We did not have an agenda. We were just going to see what we could see in a couple of hours on the road.

Usually, we are out in about in the Saturn wagon, venturing on the by-ways. I introduced her to pecan logs at Stuckey's in Rock Port, which is a town powered by huge wind turbines. (This was kind of a blast from the past for me - since my folks would stop at Stuckey's in Colorado when we were traveling to Texas back in the day.)

We ventured over to Dawson to see the field where in better days the CHB (Chester-Hubbell-Byron) Bulldogs had battled on the gridiron against the Dawson-Verdon Jets in the early 1990's. We went over the Missouri river four different times in one day and went to three states - just to say we did that. We ventured over to Sidney, Iowa - just to say we drove through town. We drove through Brownville and went down to see the river boats. We went to see Peru State College just to say we had been to Peru. We went through Nebraska City and ate lunch at Arby's and went to the outlet mall. One Wednesday we hopped in the car and went to Kansas City to spend time with with her sister and brother-in-law.

Now, really, not too many teenagers will willing adventure out with their parents anywhere- so believe me - I treasure that about Wednesdays this summer. Truth be told, I do like spending time with my kids. Knowing that life is always changing, I appreciate the fact the younger daughter willing gave her time this summer to have those adventures since college is again beckoning her time and attention. It is going to be a long school year. Sigh....