Harold and I recently took a road trip to Springfield. For the first time in a few years, we took a trip where the destination wasn’t a doctor’s office.
Well, we weren’t going on a random trip—we did have a few goals in mind. At the top of the list was a butcher block top for the Big Green Egg cabinet that Harold designed and had built. The cabinet was originally going to have a granite top, but they weren’t going to be able to cut it for several weeks. After giving it some thought, I suggested that we get our deposit back from the granite and use a butcher block countertop instead. We could pick up what we wanted at Grizzly in Springfield.
We also needed to get new turn signal/brake lights for the Cargo Master trailer. That wasn’t as simple as we first thought. Those lights come in a hundred different shapes, and none of them matched what we had. Once Harold located a close match at Lowe’s none of the local stores had them in stock and the online order form wouldn’t work correctly. Finally, Harold located the lights at the Lowe’s in Springfield. That worked out well since we were going there anyway.
Next on the list was to go to a grill shop and pick up a few “essentials” for using the Big Green Egg. Finally, we wanted to go to Sam’s to get a few items that do not ship well in August heat.
As we headed down the road to Springfield, it reminded me of the road trips Jim and I took to Branson. Jim loved traveling, but as his dementia worsened, we couldn’t make the annual trips to Colorado anymore, so we substituted shorter trips to Branson. We usually stayed in a cabin near the lake. We were a short drive away from the Branson Belle and Silver Dollar City. We always took in a couple of country music shows, which always included Tom Brumley’s show. Jim was always happy on those trips.
On the trip to Springfield last week, I drove our Silverado Pickup while Harold was able to notice all the changes that had taken place over the years. Part of the trip was on divided highway and part on two lanes. After being behind a slow-moving truck, I was happy when we reached the divided highway. “Finally!” I said. “Now I can pass that truck.” I turned on my blinker, checked the mirrors, and saw the pickup pulling a trailer whip into the passing lane. “I guess he’s in a bigger hurry than I am.” I said.
I turned off my blinker and checked the mirror again. “Where did he go?” I asked.
Then, I saw the truck driving into the median with the trailer at an odd angle to the truck. To my surprise, he drove back up the grade and onto the highway. “I bet that scared the crap out of him,” I said.
Harold mapped out our route so that we wouldn’t have to backtrack. After we picked up our orders at Lowe’s and Grizzly, we went down Sunshine Street to finish our day. We stopped by the grill shop and onto Sam’s.
While we were at Sam’s we noticed the gas was about forty cents cheaper per gallon than the best price in Sedalia. So we queued up behind one of the many lines of vehicles. An employee waved us over to a shorter line. “We have pump extenders so you can use this line.” Sure enough, cars were pulling the nozzle over to the other side of their cars to gas up.
Although, I was a little skeptical, I pulled the nozzle across the bed of the truck and started fueling. This is really cool, I thought, until I went to take it out. It seemed to be stuck. Harold was working his way around the truck to help me when I thought to give a tug on the hose. Well, duh, that worked.
On the way home, we stopped at Dairy Queen for ice cream to go with the churros I had purchased at Sam’s. After eating our cones, as we waited to pull out onto the highway I noticed a motorbike with a minuscule sidecar. As it passed by, I noticed that a dog was in the sidecar.
At the traffic light, we got a better look at the dog in his customized mini rocket. He turned toward us, as if mildly curious about the car a few feet from him, and I noticed he was wearing goggles. Harold and I both grinned and simultaneously remarked about how cute the dog was.
We enjoyed driving on Sunshine on a sunshiny day and vowed not to wait so long for our next road trip.
Copyright © August 2022 by L.S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com
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