Ohio University, Athens Ohio

We’ve been on our first road trip for 9 days. We left Denver on October 4th, drove through Nebraska and almost got blown off the highway like Dorothy did on her search of Oz. When it says “high wind warning” on your travel app, go through Kansas.

I didn’t know where we would stop since we had never driven through the NE wind tunnel before, so I thought, let’s wing it! After hours of checking in with dreary hotels along the route, and trying to sleep a few hours in a Walmart parking lot, we caved in at 3:30 am and paid $150 for 5 hours of sleep in the middle of a corn field somewhere.

Hannibal Missouri

We drove through Hannibal, Missouri, the next morning and finally arrived in Jacksonville, Illinois, where we met my cousin-who feels like my sister, Sharon for lunch. We ordered a pork tenderloin sandwich and it was the size of a turkey platter. Add a few pounds to the scale.

Park Hill Cemetary, Bloomington Illinois

We drove to Bloomington/Normal, Illinois the next day, where I buried my mom’s ashes next to my dad and grandma. This small Cemetary wanted $2K to bury her urn and I decided I would keep it and sprinkle some everywhere she loved. So I literally buried the ashes with a spade, sprinkled some around the graves of my family, placed two mums on the ground, cried a few tears, played “At Last” by Etta James, and smiled.

I finally had brought my mom back home, to her home town of Normal, where she, my grandma Cleo and great grandma Zoe had been born. Cleo and Zoe were strong women who had raised kids with no man around. It’s also where my mom and dad met, where they remodeled Grandma’s bungalow into a California style house, and where I lived until the age of 13.

That crazy looking house still looks out of place next to the old bungalows, but I am proud my folks did what they wanted to do, and said to hell with the old sad looking neighborhood! They had lived in California for the first two years of their marriage and where I was born in Newport Beach. They couldn’t afford to stay in CA very long and moved back to Normal. They had always dreamed of returning to California “someday.” So they planted lots of roses and other California vegetation around their imaginary California home, and settled in until my dad was transferred by GE to Carbondale, Illinois.

The story isn’t over. I have lots of funny and sad things to share with you. So subscribe to this blog to learn more about Crazy Times on the Road!

PS- Want to know how to find the nicest “motor lodge”? Look for bales of hay, pumpkins and mums out front. I swear it works!

Motor Lodge in Who Knows Where We Are