After crossing Potato and Opossum Creeks and driving through
many failing towns, we arrived in Coffeyville, Kansas. As we all know, food on the road leaves a lot
to be desired. If you want to make it to
your destination on time, a sit down breakfast is pretty much out, so that
leaves McDonalds or junk food at gas stations as the only real options. Once we arrived and drove around town, we
bought some tamales from some old white guy who swore up and down his wife was
Mexican. The food was good, though.
Patkoshuk took first place in the grass category. He is doing well with his dancing and we try
our best to support his efforts, plus he expects us there. He rode the bus
down. I think he prefers to be with his
friends on the bus rather than us old folks.
I told Voncile on the way, that we have been doing this for a lot of
years –supporting our kids, and now our grandchildren by going to just about
every event they had. We’ve seen a lot of pow-wow dancing, softball games and
basketball games all over, far too many to list. But looking back, there was nothing wrong
with that.
On the way home, we were fully intending to hit the nearest
Indian casino to help the Indian economy, but decided against it since we would
be home late and we don’t do well driving late at night. You know the routine, arguing over who is
going to drive, etc. We took a county road toward Independence, Kansas and this
area had some might big churches along the way.
Bible Belt, I guess. And there were also some huge homes, so there must
be some wealth in the area and we saw the other side of the spectrum, too, when
we saw a man with a huge backpack walking down the train tracks. Two young
boys, probably his sons were walking with him. A scene like that should make us
thankful for having a roof over our heads.
I drove a bit faster
than normal going home since I wanted to see the end of the KU game. I even passed up some old folks. The
draw-back was we had to listen to KU radio announcers Bob Davis and Greg
Gurley. Davis has a good voice and is a
top announcer, but this Gurley guy tries to overcompensate his weak voice by
acting like he knows everything and that is so distracting. We arrived for the last 10 minutes of the game. I should have taken my time since KU took a
first class beating reminiscent of a routine police brutality scene, but they
will learn from this loss and do what has to be done in the future.
And as I always say, I will return if God’s
willing and the creek don’t rise and we did make it home, safe and sound from
another road trip supporting one of our own
