Sunday…May 6
What a ride! We left Lenexa in a blinding rain storm and continued to “enjoy” that storm’s company for over a hundred miles! It was so bad at times that Jim couldn’t even see the white stripes on the highway. And, when a truck going a zillion miles an hour passed, his back spray meant that there was 0 visibility!
Eventually got out of the storms and I was able to drive some for him. Pulled into St. Louis right around 5:00 and connected with the Buttram’s. Once we checked in to the hotel and had some time to gather our wits, we headed over to see Sam, Susan, John (former Odyssey member), and Mary.
John, who is a senior, made the Missouri Top 100 senior list! Wow! That’s impressive. He also has been accepted to the University of Virginia as a Rodman Scholar. He’ll be taking honors engineering classes…his description of one course sounds like a sophisticated Odyssey of the Mind program!
When we wrote about our visit last fall, we mentioned that this is one of those friendships where people can go for months (or years) without seeing each other, but still are able to pick up a thread of conversation and go on as if it was an everyday visit. That was the case again as we sat down with this delightful family to rehash old adventures and find out what is new in each other’s lives.
Sam grilled hamburgers and Susan prepared the other parts of the meal as we visited with John and Mary. After supper, John treated us to a slideshow of pictures taken at his school’s prom the night before. A couple of our favorites have been included…
Susan told us it was a family tradition to take guests out to a local ice cream place, so we loaded up in their car and made a short trip to Silky Custard, where we enjoyed ‘concretes,” the local equivalent of DQ Blizzards.
What a ride! We left Lenexa in a blinding rain storm and continued to “enjoy” that storm’s company for over a hundred miles! It was so bad at times that Jim couldn’t even see the white stripes on the highway. And, when a truck going a zillion miles an hour passed, his back spray meant that there was 0 visibility!
Eventually got out of the storms and I was able to drive some for him. Pulled into St. Louis right around 5:00 and connected with the Buttram’s. Once we checked in to the hotel and had some time to gather our wits, we headed over to see Sam, Susan, John (former Odyssey member), and Mary.John, who is a senior, made the Missouri Top 100 senior list! Wow! That’s impressive. He also has been accepted to the University of Virginia as a Rodman Scholar. He’ll be taking honors engineering classes…his description of one course sounds like a sophisticated Odyssey of the Mind program!
When we wrote about our visit last fall, we mentioned that this is one of those friendships where people can go for months (or years) without seeing each other, but still are able to pick up a thread of conversation and go on as if it was an everyday visit. That was the case again as we sat down with this delightful family to rehash old adventures and find out what is new in each other’s lives.
Sam grilled hamburgers and Susan prepared the other parts of the meal as we visited with John and Mary. After supper, John treated us to a slideshow of pictures taken at his school’s prom the night before. A couple of our favorites have been included…
Susan told us it was a family tradition to take guests out to a local ice cream place, so we loaded up in their car and made a short trip to Silky Custard, where we enjoyed ‘concretes,” the local equivalent of DQ Blizzards.
All too soon it was time to call it a night and head back to our hotel to get some rest before heading out on the next leg of the journey, but not before we faced the camera ourselves with John.
Monday, May 7
There’s not much to be said about a travel day, and that’s just what this was. We got a little later start than we had planned, which meant we would have to drive longer in the evening to make the number of miles we wanted to put behind us. At least the weather cooperated and the traffic wasn’t too bad as we headed into St. Louis on I-64, past Busch Stadium, and over the Mississippi River.
Our travels took us through the final 19 miles of Missouri and across Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and into West Virginia before we finally called it a l-o-n-g day, stopping in Charleston, WV for the night.
One point of interest that we found along the way, but didn’t have a chance to explore, was the Abraham Lincoln Boyhood Home Memorial in Dale, Indiana. Not being great history buffs, we didn’t realize that Lincoln’s family lived in Indiana from the time he was 8 until he was 21. We plan to stop and visit the memorial the next time we pass through the area.
Tuesday, May 8
The day started out bright and shiny…lots of sun, but cool temperatures as we continued our drive through the Allegheny Mountains on I-64.
We made a brief stop at the Virginia Welcome Station just a couple of miles inside the state line and then headed on toward Lexington and then Staunton before crossing the Blue Ridge Mountains on our way east to Richmond.
Finally…around 3:00 pm we arrived at our Holiday Inn home in Richmond. We called Mike to let him know where we were, and he said he’d be over as soon as he finished his workout. Sure enough, he got to our room around 4:30 and we had a nice visit until he had to leave and go with Kelly to work with their Sunday school class on a project. Meanwhile, we managed to get a couple of loads of laundry done during our visit.
About 8:30 Mike and Kelly returned to the hotel and we ordered pizza…then sat around and visited for a while before Kelly had to leave and get ready for work the next day. Mike visited with us until around 10:00 when we all agreed that it had been a long day and we needed to get our beauty rest if we were going to do everything we had planned on Wednesday.
Wednesday, May 9
What a fun day! Mike came over about 10:00 and picked us up for the day’s activities. First, we went to Einstein Brothers for bagels and coffee (diet coke for Barbara), and then headed downtown where Mike showed us the buildings for
the Southern Baptist Convention International Missions Board (where Kelly works and Mike will work beginning May 21).From there we traveled to Maymont Park, a place we had written about extensively when we were in Richmond in September. Unfortunately, we forgot to take the camera that time, so all we were able to provide were word pictures. This time, Barbara made sure we had the camera!
After entering the park, we found a quiet little gazebo in the Italian Gardens section of the park where we sat down and ate our breakfast and
just visited. When we were finished there, Mike and I started a walking tour of the park while Barbara took pictures of the different areas. We spent a very pleasant two and a half hours just ambling around the park, admiring the gardens, fountains, ponds, and the animals that inhabit the area.Mike and I were excited to see the black bears back in action. They had evidently been taken out of the park when we were here before, but we got to see them up close and personal this time.
Again, our time 
was just too short to see the whole park the way it should be seen, but we had made arrangements with Kelly to pick her up for lunch at a Thai restaurant in Carytown (one of the sections of old Richmond). 
We had had a dinner there on the last trip and enjoyed it so much we decided it was a “must do” again while we were in town. We each ordered a different entrée and rice or pasta dish and then did the sharing bit…don’t remember everything we had, but I ordered a dish with squid and lots of strange vegetables and hot sauce…sure opened up the sinuses!After taking Kelly back to work, Mike, Barbara, and I returned to the hotel for the afternoon. Mike and I tried to get in some pool time, but the water was too cold to be enjoyable. We sat out on the lounge chairs until the sky clouded up and it started sprinkling, and then adjourned to the building, where Mike and I got in some time in the exercise room while Barbara did some reading.
When Kelly got off work we all went out to Short Pump, a relatively new and very upscale
shopping area of the city. 
We wandered through an ultra-modern outdoor mall, just visiting and browsing. We finally settled on Baker’s Crust for our evening meal, with each of us ordering an appetizer dish and sharing it with the others. Barbara found several shop names that she thought were clever, including a restaurant called The Mixing Bowl.
With our meal finished a little after 9:00, we decided that it had been a long enough day for all of us. Mike and Kelly had to do some packing for a trip to Ohio and we were just plumb tuckered out…way too much excitement for us old folks, so Mike took Kelly back to her car and us back to the hotel and we all called it a night.
Well, we thought the excitement was over for the day, but when I checked my email before going to bed, I found a message from the Wheel of Fortune contestant department informing me that I had been selected to attend the final regional audition in El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday, May 23. We immediately began trying to figure out how to make that happen, but couldn’t do much until we cleared some other commitments for that week…will just have to see how it all plays out.
Thursday, May 10
We woke up much earlier than we had planned. Why does that seem to happen on the mornings when a person actually has time to sleep in…one of those great mysteries of life I suppose.
Mike came by at 10:00 and we loaded our car and followed him to Aunt Sarah’s Kitchen for a great breakfast…eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, grits, and lots of good coffee…what a wonderful way to start the new day!
After polishing off all but a couple of bites, it was time to say goodbye to Mike for a while as we headed the Vibe south on I-95 and I-85 toward Oxford, North Carolina, our “home” for the next three days while we join Jean and the Francis family to celebrate Karen’s graduation Sunday at Duke University in Durham.
It was a cloudy, but warm day and we were glad to have a relatively short (2 ½ hours) trip. We arrived at our motel around 1:30, got checked in and all set up, and then just put our lives on slow cruise for the afternoon and evening…did venture out to the local Wal-Mart and Dollar Tree for a bit, just to make it an “official” day.
Did some work on the calendar to see how the Wheel of Fortune audition might work and found that a commitment in Liberal for that date had been changed, so now it looks like it might work out to make a flying trip from Liberal, Kansas, to El Paso a couple of days after the LHS graduation. We’ll keep you posted on how that works out.
Tonight…work on the journal and the blog page and just generally take it easy.
Will “leaf” you with a few more photos from Maymont!
Kicking back in Oxford, North Carolina,
Jim & Barbara
“Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” …Seneca
When Kelly got off work we all went out to Short Pump, a relatively new and very upscale
shopping area of the city. 
We wandered through an ultra-modern outdoor mall, just visiting and browsing. We finally settled on Baker’s Crust for our evening meal, with each of us ordering an appetizer dish and sharing it with the others. Barbara found several shop names that she thought were clever, including a restaurant called The Mixing Bowl.With our meal finished a little after 9:00, we decided that it had been a long enough day for all of us. Mike and Kelly had to do some packing for a trip to Ohio and we were just plumb tuckered out…way too much excitement for us old folks, so Mike took Kelly back to her car and us back to the hotel and we all called it a night.
Well, we thought the excitement was over for the day, but when I checked my email before going to bed, I found a message from the Wheel of Fortune contestant department informing me that I had been selected to attend the final regional audition in El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday, May 23. We immediately began trying to figure out how to make that happen, but couldn’t do much until we cleared some other commitments for that week…will just have to see how it all plays out.
Thursday, May 10
We woke up much earlier than we had planned. Why does that seem to happen on the mornings when a person actually has time to sleep in…one of those great mysteries of life I suppose.
Mike came by at 10:00 and we loaded our car and followed him to Aunt Sarah’s Kitchen for a great breakfast…eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, grits, and lots of good coffee…what a wonderful way to start the new day!
After polishing off all but a couple of bites, it was time to say goodbye to Mike for a while as we headed the Vibe south on I-95 and I-85 toward Oxford, North Carolina, our “home” for the next three days while we join Jean and the Francis family to celebrate Karen’s graduation Sunday at Duke University in Durham.
It was a cloudy, but warm day and we were glad to have a relatively short (2 ½ hours) trip. We arrived at our motel around 1:30, got checked in and all set up, and then just put our lives on slow cruise for the afternoon and evening…did venture out to the local Wal-Mart and Dollar Tree for a bit, just to make it an “official” day.
Did some work on the calendar to see how the Wheel of Fortune audition might work and found that a commitment in Liberal for that date had been changed, so now it looks like it might work out to make a flying trip from Liberal, Kansas, to El Paso a couple of days after the LHS graduation. We’ll keep you posted on how that works out.
Tonight…work on the journal and the blog page and just generally take it easy.Will “leaf” you with a few more photos from Maymont!
Kicking back in Oxford, North Carolina,
Jim & Barbara“Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” …Seneca
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}