Adventure

This is what my road looked like last Sept. I couldn't go to work that day so I went around and took a lot of pictures.
The reason I posted this picture is to show you how it must have looked Friday while I was at work. When I come home from work I come in on the other side and at 1am I came home and found two big "Road Closed" signs covering the road. I knew that the road was clear by then because the rain had stopped hours before this but I couldn't get around the signs. I parked my car facing the road and walked around the signs to make sure the road wasn't flooded but I was on a hill and it was pitch black once I got out of my cars head lights so I chickened out, turned around and went back to the car. Since I had forgotten to fill my gas tank before leaving town I only had a quarter of a tank and we don't have many gas stations near that are open in the middle of the night. I decided I would sleep in my car and when daylight woke me up I would be able to get through. It wasn't cold and I had a jacket so everything should be good. Trying to sleep in the front seat wasn't good so I decided to try the back seat. I remembered I had a blanket in the trunk so I got that to use as a pillow. Turned out it smelled slightly of gasoline from when I got gas for the lawnmower. I still used it. It wasn't strong enough to give me a headache and I was so darn tired. Still it was very hard to get to sleep and then the wind kicked up and that didn't help me sleep at all. Finally I think I did sleep for about an hour. I woke up at around 3am and I was cold and I had to pee. I went back to the front seat and turned the car on and the heater. Now, what am I going to do? I am not going to pee at the side of the road. For one thing it was cold now and another thing I would probably end up rolling down the hill backwards, knocking myself out or something and being there with my pants down when people started driving around. I'd be the laughing stock of the county. Nope not going to do that.

So, I had to figure out where I could get gas and what direction I could go after that to get home. I had two options. North or South. Either way will take me at least 2 hours to get home. Mind you, I'm only 5 minutes from home where I am parked right now but I'm afraid to try to move the road signs. They look heavy and there are big sand bags on them to hold them down.

I decide to go South back to the town I work in to get gas at the 24 hour station. I drive about 20 miles and find that the road is closed because of something to do with a couple of BIG trucks. The cop tells me I have to go North. He also said he didn't have a problem with me making a U turn in the middle of the highway. Thank you very much. So I make the U and drive about 15 miles to the only 24 hour gas station on the way home in that direction. The price of gas was 10 cents a gallon more than at the town I wanted to get gas at!! That is a BIG difference! Before I got gas I went running in to the station to use the restroom. The women's door was shut so I knocked on it and a lady said she'd be out in a minute. Then I heard a lot of toilet paper rolling. And then a lot more. I realized that I really didn't want to follow her. I asked the guy working there if I could use the men's room and he said sure but there shouldn't be anyone in the women's and I told him there was and he looked at me really funny. I used the men's room and when I got done I saw she was still in there. I never did see her come out but I wasn't waiting around. I'm just glad that I didn't wait for her.

I got gas and drove off and made it home at around 5am. My best friend told me she passed me on the road and thought it was me. She thought I must have spent the night at a friends house. Nope. Stupid me just drove all night long. I got into bed at around 5:30 and got up at 9am to go back to work. I was surprised at how well I did at work with so little sleep. When people at work asked me how I got home I just told them I went the long way. I didn't tell them the whole story.

So, next time what will I do? Will I just go ahead and drive the long way or will I try to move the signs? I don't know. I really am a big chicken.

Sunday Dinner (Pioneer Style)

I was just reading Robynn's Ravings where she was telling about how easy it was for her mom to kill farm animals. It made me think of a story my Mom told me about when she was a young or pre-teen living in rural South Dakota.

She told me that every Sunday her Mom would kill a couple chickens and fix a big Sunday dinner after Church. She said that there was a space in the back porch steps that her Mom would slip the head of the chicken in and then hold onto the legs so that the chicken was upside down. She would then give a good yank on it and that would kill the chicken. Easy peasy.

One Sunday my Mom decided that she didn’t want to go to Church and Grandma tried to make her go but she refused. When Grandma decided she couldn’t force her to come without dragging her she told Mom “Ok, you can stay home but you will have to kill the chickens and fix the dinner. Have it fixed by the time we get home” and then the rest of the family left for Church. I am sure that Grandma and Grandpa got quite a chuckle thinking about what was going on at home.

Mom said that she chased and chased the first darn chicken all over the yard. She slipped and fell and was all skinned up but she wouldn’t give up. She got it in a corner and thought she had it but it let out a squawk and flew out over her head and the chase was on again. She was running bent over at the waist with her arms spread out trying to catch the darn thing and she ran head first into the wooden fence of the cow pen and fell backwards onto her rear. The cows were watching her with what looked like to her…with amusement. Her dog was following her and barking and adding to the chaos and not being much of a help. She got herself up and dusted off, rubbed her forehead, wiped her tears and got more determined. Finally the dog scared the chicken and it flew into the air and Mom was able to catch it by a leg as it flew past.

She then had to fight with the chicken to keep it from pecking her as she put the head in the space in the porch steps and yanked. Nothing happened. The chicken lived. She kept trying and it just wouldn’t die. She really wasn’t someone that could just kill an animal and this was very hard on her to keep trying to kill this poor chicken. After several attempts Mom gave up and put the chicken in a cage for Grandma to deal with and went inside. There was no thought of going after a second chicken.

She cleaned herself up and fixed the big dinner minus the chicken.

She was the first one out the door to go to Church the next Sunday.