Birthdays
Mom and I took a little trip to Cheyenne today. The purpose of the trip was to eat a fancy meal in a fancy restaurant in celebration of the pending birthdays of Mom and Matt. Mom's birthday is Monday, and Matt's is the following Monday.
Mom and I drove the Lincoln over to Cheyenne, following Matt and his family in their Toy-oater.
Now Matt is a rather accomplished fellow, an English professor at Chadron State College and the owner of a Posthole Digger from Arizona State. He does not, however, appear to be an accomplished driver. Not today, anyway.
It was actually kind of goofy to have made arrangements to travel in formation. Cheyenne is a straight shot west from Kimball, a mere 60 miles via I-80. And while Cheyenne is the biggest city in Wyoming, it's really just a medium-sized town. You can't get lost there, and we both knew where we were going, so there was no real need to maintain visual contact during the journey.
Nevertheless, it's the plan we decided on.
From my position in loose trail I noticed that the Perfesser wasn't interested in maintaining a constant speed. The Interstate speed limit in Nebraska is 75, and in Wyoming 80. Traffic on this stretch of interstate is remarkably light compared to just about everywhere else in the world. You can pretty much set the cruise, then set your alarm for 45 minutes and take a nap. Today our formation pretty much constantly changed velocity, moving back and forth between 55 and, oh, something like 76 or 77.
No big deal of course, and I didn't complain or question, but it struck me as a bit curious.
Dinner
Our destination was Old Chicago. You might be wondering how that could be since I said we were looking for a fancy meal in a fancy restaurant. If you lived in Kimball you would understand. Kimball has a cafe, a country club, a pizza hut and subway, and for nine months of the year, a DQ. When you live with that lineup, Sonic qualifies as a fancy restaurant.
Mom and Matt, being the birthday kids, got to select the restaurant. Their choices came down to Old Chicago and Red Lobster. I'm glad the decision came out the way it did, for I don't hold middle-American seafood restaurants in high esteem. As they narrowed their choices I opined that they could be called Red Chicago and Old Lobster.
Anyway, we had a nice meal at Red Chicago.
 |
| My niece Julia, a Junior in High School. |
 |
| L-R, The Prof, nephew Austin, Nephew Jake (a freshman at You-Dub in Laramie), his girlfriend Amy, also a student. |
 |
| Sister-in-law Brenda and Mom working hard to make a beer selection. |
We followed the meal with a little bit of light shopping and headed back to Kimball, as singles this time. All in all it was a nice excursion.
Baseball
When I were a lad I was rather a keen baseball fan. I really liked the Mets, and I have very fond memories of the 1969 season and the World Series. Nolan Ryan was twenty-two years old!
On Wednesday Ryan turned 70. One of my fond memories of his career was the day, back in August, 1993, when the 46 year-old Ryan kicked the shit out of 26 year-old Robin Ventura. As Richard Pryor put it so eloquently, "Old men don't firetruck around when they be fightin'!"
That always puts a big smile on my face. And with spring training starting next week, I'm beginning to feel just a bit springlike.
Dogs
Just before we headed for Cheyenne this morning I noticed my brother's dog Lily doing something a bit curious.
Do you prefer the Blogger video embed (above) or youtube?
Yeah, me too.
And just in the last few minutes I stumbled across a couple of amusing dog pictures on the interweb.
 |
| "Last time I trusted you I woke up with no balls." |
 |
| "I don't always bark in the middle of the night, but when I do it's for no firetrucking reason at all." |
Since I'm posting this at 2340 local, having just finished writing it, it's unlikely that anyone will read it while today is still today. Most likely today will have become yesterday when you read this tomorrow. So the today I'm talking about in this mishmash of nonsense is Saturday, February 4, rather than Sunday, February 5. I apologize for any cornfusion.
Beau knows brawling...
ReplyDeleteFWIW, The WSO was born at F.E.Warren AFB in Cheyenne. Spent a lot of time shopping in the Commissary there while living in Ft Collins, until I did the math and determined that with the three hour trip and the cost in fuel, it was smarter to shop at King Soopers, which was practically next door to our apartment building.
I vote YouTube, I stopped using the Blogger video embed some time ago, after a while the videos don't work anymore, the YouTube videos will stay up as long as they're still up at YouTube.
One of the places we stopped yesterday was King Soopers. It's a neat store, but oh the humanity. We were up against experience combat shoppers and wouldn't have stood a chance were our purchases not few and our checkout not self service.
ReplyDeleteNow every time I'm in Cheyenne I look over toward Warren and think, Naval Greatness Was Born There. :)
I agree on the video platform. Much better quality on youtube also.
Something odd about FE Warren.....Something missing.....Can't put my finger on it......Oh Wait. No Runways. Heck even Your place has a runway. I recommend you apply to have your property called Prairie Adventure Air Force Base. Wouldn't even mind if you called it Joint Base Prairie Adventure, although how you'd pronounce that is beyond me. Got to be some Federal Bucks in that. Heck, you could even volunteer to be the Wing Commander. Yeah, THAT's the ticket.
ReplyDeleteAnother odd thing, Cheyenne Regional Airport has dozens of Hercs and nonstop Hercerations but very little non-military activity. And to top it off, Warren has no fu, er, golf course.
DeleteI've got an odd and disturbing tale regarding the Air Force and KIBM. I'll have to share that, though the thought of doing so is a bit frightening considering the persons involved. No, not the clintons, but every bit as disgusting and unlawful.
NAS KIMBALL would be better.
Delete:) How cool would it be to have some Navy Iron on the ramp!
Delete