Mississippi Bound - Day 3

Whenever I leave on one of these tours, friends say, "Have a good trip."  I say, "I hope not. If nothing goes wrong, I don't have anything to write about."

Today seemed like a normal day, and I wondered what I would write about. We visited Aunt Shirley who is making the staff of the nursing home miserable with her antics. .  

A nurse came to tell her they would be coming to take her to lunch. She is not supposed to go anywhere without assistance since she has seizures.  As soon as the nurse was out of the room, she got up, walked over to her walker, grabbed it and went out the door directly to the lunch room, grinning at the nurse as she passed, with me following. I was grinning, too. She is a Harms and that means stubborn resistance to any rules.  I live with Gary so I know all about that.

Later, we went for a walk through the farm fields.  The sun was shining on a warm winter day. We walked down cow lanes worn deep by a hundred years of cattle going to and from the barn.  We went into a gully and noticed the coyote tracks.  A flock of robins flew over.  It sure felt like spring was on its way. Then I took a tumble while crawling under a barbed wire fence.  No damage but later I found out I had lost my sunglasses and a pair of readers.  They are not worth going back for, I bought them at a dollar store.

Gary's niece Amanda and her husband Craig were in Dixon for a couple of days to visit Shirley. They came out to the farm to look at old family photos.  

It was simply a pleasant day and then we heard the weather forecast.  Tomorrow, starting early, there will be freezing rain,an ice storm so severe that power outages are expected.  Craig and Amanda cancelled their motel stay and headed back to Wisconsin.  

Gary said that power outages often affect this old farm house, so off we went to Sterling to get his propane tank filled so that we would have emergency heat. We can always cook on my little camping stove.Then we went to the grocery store to get what he considered needed supplies:  carrots, broccoli, chocolate chip cookies and rocky road ice cream.  He says that rocky road ice cream is perfect because it contains nuts which are good for us plus if we lose heat, we won't have to worry about the ice cream defrosting. He said we could always burn the chocolate chip cookies, then admitted he was thinking about buffalo chips. 

Gary says we could go into business thinking up rational excuses that would allow people to do whatever they wanted to do anyhow. We are both good at that.

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My latest short story is at Black Coffee Fiction http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com
I'll write more about that tomorrow.....if we have electricity.