BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

As many of you already know, I recently had the opportunity to take a vacation with my wife and daughter. This was the first vacation The Evil Redhead and I had taken since before the O-spring was born, meaning it had been more than 10 years since our last excursion. However, since the economy hasn’t been the greatest, the land of mouse ears wasn’t in the cards. Instead, we elected to explore nature in southern Missouri and the Ozark Scenic Riverways.

Of course, since we have these high-maintenance, geriatric, special-needs felines roaming the house this meant we needed someone to keep an eye on them. Enter our good friends Anastasia and Mike. While gone, in order to keep these two brave souls up to date on the progress of our vacation I embarked upon an adventure in text messaging.

Since many have been asking “how was your vacation?” I thought I’d post a bit of a travelogue in that same sort of format.

What follows here are not the actual text messages I sent.

Why?

Because I couldn’t tell the real story in 160 characters or less.  Of course, if you ask my wife she’ll just call it revisionist history, but then Evil Redheads are like that…

* * * * * * * * * *

Day 1: Woke up. Packed van. Drove.  Actually, rode. E K won’t let me drive. Ate fried chicken. Drove (rode) more. Checked into motel. E K immediately declared war on flies (again).

Night 1: Toured downtown Eminence, Missouri for 3 minutes 27 seconds. Saw everything twice. Asked business hours @ local eatery. Question seemed to confuse hostess who proceeded to vapor lock. Decided it might be better to eat somewhere else. Went next door. Had steak. Returned to motel and went to bed at 8.

Day 2: Woke up. Drank really bad coffee obtained from nearby gas station after standing in line for 20 minutes to pay for it. Only one person ahead of me but she wasn’t the sharpest crayon in the box.  Went to Two Rivers.  Dude in van took us up river and kicked us out at the bridge. Paddled canoe. Ate lunch. Paddled canoe more. Arrived back at Two Rivers.

Night 2: Ate bratwurst. Played Uno with O-spring and E K. The Evil Redhead cheated. Not sure where she is hiding the cards. Looked at news. Saint Louis reported a full 24 hours without anything evil happening. Attributed the outbreak of goodness and niceness to E K being out of town.

Night 2 (continued): Went to Bed. An hour later woke up gasping. E K had shut off power to my CPAP and was watching from the doorway. Reconnected power to CPAP and Evil Redhead wandered off, grumbling to herself as she reworked her sinister plan.

Day 3: Woke up. Drank more bad coffee made with overly-chlorinated tap water. Intestines officially sanitized. Went hiking. E K pushed me down a hill. In order to make her stop grinding her foot on the back of my head I had to remind her that we canceled my life insurance.

Day 3 (continued): E K not happy that her plan to do me in was thwarted. Made me wash up at the outhouse nearby, then told anyone who asked about my scrapes and bruises that I am clumsy and fell down. Talked me into taking cave tour. Attempted to lose me in caverns, but was unsuccessful due to my clever use of breadcrumbs, glow in the dark twine, and a Coleman electric lantern.

Day 3 (continued): Once back out in the open I offered a lady park ranger ten bucks and a beer in exchange for Federal Protection from the redhead. Ranger declined, patted me on the head and then high-fived E K. It was then I realized that I was on my own and may not survive the vacation.

Night 3: Ate grilled chicken, Played Uno again. The Evil Redhead cheated again. Still can’t figure out where she is hiding the cards. Watched rain outside window. Went to bed. Laid awake listening to young couple next door “mucking like finks”.

Day 4: Woke up. Drove to Alley Springs. E K attempted to lose me on hiking trail. Reminded her that I had her car keys in my pocket. Evil Redhead grumbled quite a bit, then tripped on the trail and blamed me. Visited the Mill at the spring. E K attempted to push me into grain chute but I wouldn’t fit. Redhead grumbled some more. Vacation obviously not going as she had planned.

Night 4: BBQ’ed a pork tenderloin. Tish’s Hair helped. Fixed some truly amazing brown & wild rice faux risotto. Made note of recipe. Ate supper. Drank beer to stop the voices in my head. Went to bed.

Day 5: Woke up. Drove to Big Springs. E K still couldn’t lose me on trail so she used her evil powers to make gnats swarm my head. Then she made me buy her ice cream at The Jolly Cone in Van Buren. After finishing ice cream she threatened me with a spork. I promised to be good.

Night 5: Ate supper. Went to bed. Listened to different crew next door. This time no mucking, but much loud laughing and talking.

Day 6: Packed van for trip to Arcadia Valley and next to last day of vacation. E K frightened the 3 guys next door who had been loud all night. They apologized profusely and then cowered on the corner of the porch. Not sure if it was the red hair, the bullwhip, or a combination thereof. As soon as she turned her back they jumped into their cars and left.

Day 6 (continued): Visited Johnson’s Shut Ins. Watched from observation deck while E K and O-spring played on rocks. Didn’t join them as there appeared to be too many places where E K could hide my body.

Night 6: Checked into Fort Davidson Motel. Visited Fort Davidson across the street. E K attempted to do me in with a civil war cannon, but discovered it was non-functional. Redhead not happy. Ate BBQ at Baylee Jo’s which meant I didn’t have to cook. Yay! Finally vacation time for me! Went to bed early.

Day 7: Woke up. Ate breakfast at motel restaurant. Yay! More vacation time for me. Wondering if E K has finally resigned herself to keeping me around, or if she has hatched a foolproof plan and I am a dead man walking. Packed van for trip home. Visited Elephant Rocks State Park as a last hurrah. Remained wary of redhead.

Day 7 (continued): Evil Redhead looking exceptionally hot today in shorts and figure hugging top. Local Mennonite group arrives at park for picnic. I watch with great amusement as a trio of hormonal, adolescent boys from the congregation spy E K climbing around on a large boulder and are instantly transfixed.

Day 7 (continued): The trio of sexually repressed, pubescent males can’t stop staring and soon proceed to pop tents and snap suspenders. Although I can empathize, I laugh so hard that I almost fall off rock.  Eventually leave park and drive home, taking long, scenic route. Remain wary of redhead during frequent stops at landmarks along the way.

Night 7: Vacation complete. Saint Louis news reports that hiatus is over and evil has returned to the city.

And there you have it.

More to come…

Murv

There is a stretch of highway in Saint Louis county known as I-170. Sometimes it is called the “Innerbelt”, although these days that term is not as prevalent as it was once upon a time. A time, incidentally, that I am actually old enough to remember.

You see, way back when, in the days of dinosaurs and mammoths, I-170 was designated as 725. These days I-170 stretches from the Highway 40 interchange in the southern portion of the county, up to the I-270 interchange in the north. But, back when it was called 725 – or, as we teens at the time called it, Seven And A Quarter – the Innerbelt ran from Eager Road in the south and unceremoniously ended with a barricade and a single must take exit at Page Avenue, smack in the middle of Northwest County. Back then it was the quickest way – and ostensibly, still is – to get to Clayton. You may have heard of Clayton – and no, I’m not talking about Clayton Moore aka The Lone Ranger. Clayton, Missouri is where you find the county courthouse.

But, as usual, I’m not actually writing this blog to talk about Clayton. I’m writing it to talk about construction.

Road construction to be precise.

Many years ago, as the dinosaurs were dying out and mammals were becoming the dominant species (i.e. my early, early 20’s) our short little stretch of tarmac, so lovingly known as Seven And A Quarter became I-170 and was expanded, lengthened, what have you. Well, as urban sprawl continues to… well… sprawl, traffic changes and what seemed like a good idea at the time no longer meets the needs of the unforeseen future. So, things get torn up, rebuilt, expanded, stretched, widened, and otherwise completely re-invented.

Such was the case with I-170. At some point during my late, late 30’s the powers that be realized that the person who had originally designed the interchange at I-170 and I-270 had probably been smoking crack while drawing up the plans. It was probably one of the wort, most congested, and literally dangerous interchanges known to man. So, in a bid to correct the mistake, they redesigned it, tore it all up, and made a bigger and better interchange between the thoroughfares.

Then, traffic increased on I-170 because the I-270 terminus was no longer a clusterf*ck. What did that mean? Well, simple. It made the rest of I-170 a cluster. What was once a lonely stretch of road connecting two parts of the county was becoming a parking lot every morning and evening throughout the week. So, what did the powers that be do? Well, the only thing they could. They found someone else who wasn’t on crack, redesigned the Innerbelt, tore it up, and made it better than it was.

Better, stronger, faster…

Let me tell you, it cost more than 6 million bucks too. It even cost more than 7 million (the pricetag on the Bionic Woman… ya’know, inflation and all…)

But, in the end, congestion was alleviated and I-170, while not returned to its original quietude as 725, became much easier and faster to travel. In many ways this is good. In others, maybe not so much. You see, living where we do, I-170 is pretty much a main thoroughfare for us. It is  close by, easily accessible, and an artery that will take us most anywhere we need or want to go – even if it is simply getting us to a different highway in order to reach our final destination. Therefore, E K and I travel it often.

Such was the case just the other day.

As we cruised along in the northbound lanes, wind whistling past the Evil-Mobile, (at the time the cloaking device was on and switched to Soccer Mom Van mode), and traveling somewhere near 987 miles per hour, (E K may be a petite bundle of mean, but her foot weighs 12 metric tonnes whenever it comes into contact with a gas pedal), we were watching the landscape flashing in the windows. Bare patches of flattened land were evident where grassy berms and stands of trees once lined the thoroughfare. Nearing our exit I happened to glance to the left and noticed the carcass of a rather large groundhog, sprawled lifeless in the center emergency lane against the better than 3 foot high concrete dividers.

I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the creature, and vocalized my theory about its demise.

“Poor bastard was probably just trying to cross the road and got stuck there because of the dividers and traffic,” I lamented.

EK  clucked her tongue and said, “Maybe it ran into traffic on purpose.”

I furrowed my brow and grunted, “Whaddaya mean?”

“I mean maybe it finally had enough of us tearing up its home and it just ran into traffic to commit suicide.”

You know, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if E K was right about that. And, what’s worse – If I were a groundhog trying to escape the utter insanity of human urban sprawl, I might just do the same…

More to come…

Murv