If I can wake up earlier than the rest of the house every day and find a comfortable chair, I will be able to keep up with this reporting. So far, each of the houses we have visited has ample options for lounging and I am discovering all sorts of furniture that I would love to have myself. Right now I am in the best chair ever at Charles and Lee Lee's house and when I get to be a grown-up, this is the first thing I want to get. Alissa was in this very chair not so very long ago.
Anyway, when the sun came up in Manhattan, Kansas we could see that the snow predictions had not come true. There was snow, but nothing new in the night. Plenty of blowing and drifting. We had a civilized breakfast with Paul and Dan. The night before, we had dinner with them but because we arrived late, Paul had to get up pretty quickly from the table to be on a long call, so we got to talk to Dan for at least an hour without Paul. That was a good opportunity to find out all about him. I just said, "well, now that Paul is gone, tell us your life story." And he is a good talker with lots of stories so he told us all about his work as a church pianist and organist, his long but unhappy marriage, his amazing kids and grandkids. It was really a great chance to learn about someone who is now in Paul's life. Could not have planned it better.
Jon was anxious to get back on the road and he wasn't interested in spending a snow day hanging out, so away we went at 9:00. It wasn't clear that we would be able to get out of the long, curving, hilly driveway or that any roads would be plowed, but we had to go and see. Miraculously, we had all our gears again. Who knows what that was about. Good thing the road was plowed because we would never have made it back up that driveway.
Because we are still avoiding toll roads, we headed back out toward a smaller road that runs north of and parallel to Route 70. (If Lilah were reading this, she would be shaking her head.) Route 24 is a two lane highway with good shoulders but no guard rails. I am trying to think of a road like it in our area, but I really can't think of one. Route 9 doesn't have the shoulders and the lanes are a little bit narrower. On a dry, clear day, this road would have been just perfect. As it was, it had a layer of crunchy snow on it for the first couple of hours and then there started to be a little pavement showing as the sun warmed things up a little (24 degrees) and as the day went on, things got better and better. There were almost no other vehicles going in our direction, which was ideal, and there were snow plows coming from the other direction with some frequency. As it happens, we figured out eventually that Route 70 was closed all day for most of Kansas. That was not an option anyway.
It was the quintessential "ribbon of highway." It went up and down the hills, due west, going through small towns. Vast expanse of farm and prairie to the north and south. Could not see any other roads except the rare intersection. Now and then there was a car or a truck that had fallen off the road into the snow, stuck. We stopped to get lunch in some forgettable town that had never been plowed -- the restaurant was called Kountry Kitchen and Katering. There was no sign on the outside, no number on the door. We only found it because of Jon's phone telling us that it existed. It felt like deep, solid Trump country with Fox News playing on the TV, the captions listing all the weaknesses and shortcomings of the Democrats. The sandwiches were fine except the lady forgot to put the pickles and lettuce on. It was a busy time of day in there, and three women of undetermined age were doing everything.
We listened to more of Jon's current favorite podcasts (If Books Could Kill) and just at the end of the day we tuned into the class we would have attended at NVHC about democracy and Zionism. It was okay that we couldn't see anything because apparently the images on Zoom were stuck and no one could see the video the rabbi was trying to show (all in Hebrew, five minutes of Hebrew rapping). It was comforting and nice to hear voices of people we know well, asking questions, and to hear our rabbi's rapid fire analysis of super interesting topics. I have always wanted to talk/think about the version of democracy that they have in Israel. So different from here.
Then we got to Charles and Lee Lee's where Lee Lee was completely ready with a delicious dinner. Dena and Jacob and Emily joined us and Lee Lee (in true Lee Lee form) asked the young people to tell us their favorite thing about their job, and their least favorite. It was a fine prompt and we ended up going all around the table with that. It seems that our extended family slides into that pattern of going around the table, answering a question, wherever we are. Or some version of that.
We didn't see any of the kids because Tillie went to a rodeo and Ella lives in her own apartment now but I am sure we will get a glimpse of them before we leave Denver.
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