Last day in MIssouri...

Monday was our last day with the family. We got off to a very slow start and arrived at the farm around 11AM. Greeting us in the front yard was Ron's new tractor.

 Ron and Carol's farm is really a lovely place. Just take a look at this, rolling hills, lots of green grass, a pond, a huge vegetable garden, fields of wheat and alfalfa....

 We spent a perfect day with family, just "hanging out" in the sun room. Even Molly the aged
Scottish Terrier got to sit on my lap and hang out too. I felt this had been a wonderful visit, because we all got to know each other a lot better. At least now I have most of the immediate cousins memorized and most of their children and grandchildren!!  At the end of day, we lingered before the big good bye to Carol and Ron...

And Aunt Betty of course!

Aunt Thelma said her goodbyes inside the house, so no photo of her but I will give you one from the birthday party...

We headed out across the Missouri River into Kansas and started the next chapter of our adventure.

Unfortunately, when we pulled into our campground in Kinsley, Kansas we were greeted with some very upsetting news. My dear dear friend in Nanaimo BC, Pat Gleeson had suddenly passed away. Thankfully my other dear friend from Nanaimo kept me informed about the events, even though I was so very far away from home. Pat was a one of a kind person. I thought of her as my big sister. Her heart was about as big as could hold the world and the hole she has left in our hearts is beyond measure.

The weekend before we left home, we (her family and friends) had gathered to celebrate Pat's 80th birthday with a surprise party. She was overwhelmed, and said it was the best birthday she had ever had. We are very grateful to have that as our lasting memory of her...so let's lift our glasses to a very great lady and offer thanks for the privilege of calling her "friend".

Sunday church...

This morning it was our privilege to take the two aunties to church. Or so we thought. We set off to pick up Aunt Betty but when we got to her place, she had already left. We caught up to her on the freeway and followed her to the church parking lot. Once there, we realized that Aunt Thelma had been there for some time, and she had driven her own car too. So we all met up inside the church. It was very different from anything I had ever seen before at home. It had a recreation centre inside, with a full gym set up for basketball, facilities for day care and the sanctuary upstairs where the church held its services. This church is Aunt Thelma's church, and it is called Huffman Memorial Church. The family held a little discussion about which church would be the best fit for us and decided the traditional United Methodist service would be it.

Right away we saw many similarities to the United Church service in Eastend. The print out of the service followed the same order for prayer and hymn and scripture reading. The minister even called up the children for a short instruction, just like Reverend Schrag had done in Eastend. There were, however some notable differences. The Huffman Memorial Church is a lot bigger and more modern, with a large media screen high up in the far right corner. The whole congregation could read along with the various prayers and instructions. Also, the minister was far more energetic and outgoing than Reverend Schrag who was a rather quiet kind of man. But the big moment for me was when we opened the hymn book for the first hymn, and it was the same hymn we had sung in Eastend!  How is that for coincidence??  The other difference was that Aunt Thelma stood up in the church and announced us as guests from British Columbia to the congregation and afterwards we were surrounded with many kind people shaking our hands and welcoming us to the service. All in all, it was a lovely experience for someone as inexperienced in church attendance as myself.

After the service and the socializing moments, we all headed back to Aunt Betty's place. Janet was already there in front of us, unloading our lunch which was composed of all the leftovers from the birthday bash. I happen to love leftovers, I consider them better than the originals. And Janet had even pre-warmed them so all we had to do was serve them up and eat. Janet couldn't stay because her grandson Josh was playing in a football game. I thought Josh had turned 11. Aunt Thelma thought it was 10 and Aunt Betty said 9. I think we need to consult with Janet about this. Because of the football game, Josh wouldn't be coming over for the scrabble game with Aunt Betty and Aunt Thelma.

Can you even imagine the incredible experience of playing scrabble with your great-grandmother and your great-great-aunt when you are 11 (or 10 or 9 as the case may be)????  I was having a serious case of envy of Josh. What a lucky young man he was, growing up surrounded by all these layers and layers of family...

Aunt Betty gave all of the leftover brownies to Rick (she baked them herself) so we have plans for this evening which involved several downloaded TV programmes and lots of chocolate brownies. Yum.  See y'all tomorrow.

Aunt Betty's birthday bash...

Yesterday was the birthday party. This time it was a smaller group, just Aunt Betty and her immediate family. Aunt Betty was never married but she had 10 brothers and sisters. One of those was Sam, Rick's dad. One day as a young woman she introduced her friend Thelma to her brother Jimmy. Despite the fact that next day he left for a job in the shipyards at Portland Oregon, and then world war 2 broke out and swallowed up some of his time, they eventually got married in Saint Joseph  and had 3 daughters: Carol, Rhonda and Janet. I don't think that Aunt Betty ever lacked for family company.

Aunt Thelma had her 91st birthday bash in the summer and today was Aunt Betty's turn. of course we all met up in Ron and Carol's sun room. Today it looked like this:

Meanwhile, in the kitchen all the women were busy coordinating the food and the fun...they all seem to know exactly what to do and not get into anybody else's way. They also crack jokes and talk a lot. One thing about Rick's family that is essential to know about. They love a good joke or a funny twist of a word or saying. And they do not stand on ceremony. You would probably feel really comfortable in this family, as I do.

It's hard to catch everybody all together in the kitchen because nobody seems to stand still, but here is the best I can do...

That's Rhonda on the left and Carol in the purple with her back to the camera, and Janet in the background stirring something. Aunt Betty is in the green and Aunt Thelma is to her right. That's Ron standing guard on the far right. You can't see it but just out of sight on the right is Ron's chair set in front of the TV and the TV is turned to the Missouri vs Florida football game. And yes, Missouri won which was a welcome thing here in Missouri !!

We had a fine meal, and the family took a break before desert and presents. Here's Aunt Thelma and her girls, doing what they always do (laugh):

Meanwhile, the birthday girl got serious and opened her presents and cards.

After the birthday group disbanded, Rick and I peeled off to see the Pony Express Museum. The Pony Express started in 1860 as a method of getting the mail through to California. It started in Saint Joseph and was made redundant in 1861 by the arrival of the telegraph and the train to California in 1869. Not doesn't this sound familiar?? Didn't the same thing happen in England with the canals and the railway? It is odd to me that one good invention just seems to trigger a whole lot of others that make the first one redundant...just like Blackberrys and ipads and iphones of today??

Unfortunately the Pony Express Museum was closed but we did photograph it from the outside. It is housed in the original Pony Express stables.

Home in Missouri...

After three solid days of flat landscape, an attractive but featureless and hopelessly unphotogenic landscape, it was a welcome relief to find the view out the truck window subtly changing. The air became warmer, the trees more frequent and taller, and the ground became greener and started to roll. We crossed Iowa on the way southwards, and found our first skyscraper in the last 2,000 miles. It came as a visual shock, a sharp sensation that man had intruded himself onto the prairie. It was the city of Omaha.














Even the nature of the traffic changed dramatically, as the huge combines and trucks carrying oversized grain storage units disappeared and were replaced by the ordinary ebb and flow of semi-trailers.

We crossed Iowa quickly and entered Missouri, where it felt entirely different...a land more gentle, but somehow calmer and to me more recognizable from my Ontario roots.

The next day was grey and dismally cold. The Missouri habit of changeability had struck, and lowered the 70F sunshine to 49F murk. But still, as you can see from the scenery on the way to Rick's cousin Carol's house, Missouri is anything but flat.

It's good to be with family again. We got a wonderful lunch, a very hot shower and washed our little bag of laundry. We sat in the family sun room and chatted about the trip, the family, the harvest this year....all the ordinary stuff of family life, and it felt warm and comforting. I love the sun room that Ron and Carol added to their house a few year's back. So I took a picture of it. Ron and Carol are on the left and Aunt Thelma is on the right. Aunt Thelma turned 91 this year. You'd never know it!

Today is Aunt Betty's birthday bash at Ron and Carol's. She turns 91 too. We have to get ready and will fill you all in later, after we get back. We went to check in with Aunt Betty yesterday at her apartment in Saint Joe. We took her to supper but she drove us. Afterwards we did a tour of the area where her grand-dad had lived in an old and interesting area of the city. Aunt Betty doesn't think too much of it, as to her the area has become run down and neglected. But we could imagine it all and her reminiscences created for us a living tour of what life used to be like in old Saint Joe...

Last things....

Somehow the mind is still in Eastend, even though we have traveled 1200 or so miles of prairie in two countries since then. There was just so much to tell you about this little place, this extraordinary little place. I think of it as a combination of "Corner Gas" and "The Vicar of Dibley". Some of you will only know Corner Gas, and some of you will only know The Vicar of Dibley, but for those of you who know both, I can see you smiling. Right, John?

Before I get to the last day in Eastend I need to tell you about the dinosaurs. Eastend is lousy with them. Our new local friend and guide, Ken Wills used to work on road maintenance for the town, and one day he was out fixing a part of the road that had washed away. He was digging out a bit of earth from the hillside to fill in what had washed out. He backed up the 'dozer with his load of dirt and saw a row of gigantic teeth staring at him. It turned out to be a kind of dinosaur of which there is only one in existence. I have forgotten his Latin name, but he resides in the Eastend Historical Museum as their prize exhibit. The earliest person discovering dinosaurs was of course Corky Jones. But since Corky, Eastend has become widely famous for its long extinct residents. It now has a beautiful dinosaur museum called the T.Rex Discovery Centre which houses "Scotty"...do take a look at it here... http://www.trexcentre.ca/

Eastend is now on the Trans Canada Trail, which also brings them a steady troop of hikers all through the summer season. Their favourite walk-in guest from this past season was a Tibetan monk in full orange robes, who politely asked if he could buy vegetables from someone in the town (happily supplied by the vastly amused carnivorous neighbours).  People in Eastend liberally share everything in true prairie fashion. Almost everything in town is a co-op...the gas station, the feed store, the hardware store, the agricultural supply. They have a huge arena that houses both the ice rink, and a roping arena. They also have a town swimming pool and frequent dances held at the Old School House. We were invited to the local dance the very day we arrived. Ed, the manager of the campground was the guitar player and he issued the invitation. And people do love to chat. Rick was surprised at how long it took to walk around the town as everyone wanted to chat and were happy to do it with us. They do it as if they have all the time in the world. Perhaps they do? Perhaps chat is more important to them than other things?? Perhaps chat is what glues this amazing little community together?

Well, the last day came. I said my final goodbyes to the family. They are all tucked into the cemetery just above the Riverside RV park where we were camping. In fact every morning I would look out and see them up there....here is the last good-bye from the campground..

But we weren't finished with Eastend just yet. Ed, the manager of the Riverside RV Park came running over to us. He said "you know, we are having a special Hallowe'en celebration the end of the month and we are going to have a poetry reading, and some local guy is giving a power point presentation on the life of Corky Jones. I understand he is going to be using one of those photographs you brought with you and gave to the museums It would be real nice if you could maybe write a note or a little letter to the town and just tell them who you are and what brought you here"...

So I sat down and I wrote the first letter I have ever written to a whole town.  "Dear Eastend," it started......"thank you so very much...."

Postscript to Eastend Saskatchewan

My body is in Minot North Dakota, but my heart is still in Eastend. I wanted y'all to know that 15 miles north of the town of Eastend is the continental divide...now how cool is that??  This continental divide is between the waters that flow southwards into the Gulf of Mexico and the waters to the north-east that flow into Hudson's Bay.  I thought this a remarkable fact. You might not agree with me...

It is dark at 7:10 AM here in Minot and we are planning an early start since there seems to be nothing left here to do. Our progress is good, and it looks like we will make it to Saint Joe a day ahead of planning, which will give us a lovely bonus day to relax and  catch up on laundry and bathing and so on. Just a note to Aunt Betty: if you happen to be home on Friday we might pop by. In any case, we will definitely phone and let you know we have arrived safe and sound.

From today, all roads lead to Saint Joe.

Minot North Dakota

Long day. Saw more cows than cars. Off to bed.