Random Ronnings

Wow! Whatta weekend! It all started with a fully loaded Honda heading south late Wednesday afternoon. Our final destination was punched into "Wanda", our trusty GPS, sandwiches, candy and drinks were stashed in the back seat cooler and we were off. The plan was to travel as far south as possible Wednesday, find a place for the night and arrive in Mountain Home by eleven a.m.
"Wanda" had different ideas. She took us to and through some interesting but relatively unpopulated portions of Missouri. We passed signs for names of exotic places around the world. This only added to our confusion. (Hopefully that last sign was for St. Paul Missouri not Minnesota and we aren't seven miles from Mexico, the country) We were completely at the mercy of "Wanda" for, as we discovered, we failed to pack a map. We had a corkscrew and stalks of celery but no map. It got later, it got darker and the towns got smaller. Not only was there no "chain" motels, there were no motels period. At one point Rick, my West Coast son, called to say Hi. In short order he had his kids pouring over their Atlas trying to figure out where we were. Ah! Just as suspected, in the middle of nowhere. But, just ahead was Jefferson City, the Missouri capital. One wrong turn and we were back on the edge on nowhere. Westphlia, Freeburg, Vienna, Vichy Nothwye (Vienna being the largest with a population of 611) and finally Rolla and motels. The bad news was, this late at night, only the most expensive motels had vacancies, the good news, we had traveled so far that we only had a two hour drive left the next day.
Thursday morning (Thanksgiving Day) started as Thanksgiving should, eating. The good part of staying at an expensive place, they usually provide a pretty good breakfast. After eating our share of the buffet we hit the road for the final leg of our journey. We passed into Arkansas and, with "Wanda's" assistance, we arrived at the cabin that we had rented for the weekend. Within minutes Jr. and Harrison arrived. Harrison was completely surprised by our presence. The rest of the day was spent the way Thankgiving is meant to be spent, cooking, eating, watching TV, eating, playing board games, eating, snacking anbd eating.
This has the danger of getting awful long so, let's continue the weekend tomorrow.

Jr. and Harrison

The guest of honor.
To think that it traveled all the way
from Wisconsin to end up like this.