Heading Home To The Lake, With A Stop Tonight In Oxford, Ohio

Finally, A Kansas City Barbecue From Jack Stack Barbecue

Mary And Bella

We have a nine hour plus drive ahead of us today, to Oxford, Ohio, plus we lose an hour, so we want to be off by 6:15 at the latest.  We should make it easy since I was up at 5:15.  And it looks as though we may have some sun shine on our drive!

Yesterday was another rainy day in Kansas City, making it the fifth day in a row that we have had to stay inside because of rainy weather, both here in KC and in Dallas our last day.  What made it worse was both Nick and Marlena were gone, so we were stuck here at home with Mary, or rather, she was stuck with us.  We both decided to go our ways shopping, Mary off to Overland Park in Kansas and we decided to stick around Lee Summit and go shopping at their shopping area which has all the stores we needed or I wanted to be honest.

So we left about 11:00, a fifteen minute drive and we were already shopping for bargains in an Eddie Bauer discount store.  Unfortunately, I don't really need anything and the deals were not that great. Anything I thought about buying, with a discount was in the 40's so I just looked and did not buy anything.  The same went for Evie; two years ago we were able to pick up some real bargains so we were a bit disappointed with our results.  We then stopped briefly at Kohl's where Evie returned a jacket and found one she really liked as she walked out, and with the discount and coupon, it cost her only seven bucks.  I couldn't complain.  We then spent another hour shopping, Evie in TJ's and Bed Bath and Beyond, me in Dick's Sporting Goods but neither of us ended up buying anything.  I did not want anything and Evie could not find anything that she wanted.  And so it goes, as Billy Pilgrim from Slaughterhouse Five would say.  

Bella, Happy To See Us

We were home by 1:30, Mary by 2:30, Nick by 2:35 and Marlena around 3:00.  Both kids immediately sat down and started working on their homework to get it down.  I never remember walking in the house and immediately sitting down to get my work done.  Both grandchildren have Chrome books, compliments of their schools, which is neat.  I just hope the teachers, in their classes, are making good use of them to make the purchase worth it.  I found when I taught that much of the new technology which the school invested in went to waste.  Few teachers ever really got into the 'new, new thing.'  For me, the best investment the school made was to buy all the teacher's laptops back in the 1990's, which changed everything.  

Playing A Final Game Of Telefunky With Granny

Around 4:00, we went up and packed our things, then the car, so we would be ready to leave early this morning.  Once that was done, we were ready to relax with the kids, enjoy a glass of wine, and Evie played more Telefunky with Marlena.  The rest of us waited for Tom to get home with dinner, ribs, brisket, burnt ends, and all the fixins from Jack Stack Barbecue, the famous barbecue place now easily found all over the KC area.  

Looking At Topsail, NC, Photographs

Dinner was great of course, and we ate and ate and ate until there were no ribs left.  Nothing like good barbecue, especially Kansas City style.  We then took it easy, watching some TV, some news shows, featuring another meaningless Donald Trump faux pas, then the Browns and Ravens game until we got sick of watching football. We then had fun going through the photographs from our week at Topsail, North Carolina, which seems so long ago.  It was nice to do something other than binge on football. During the second half, Evie, Mary, Nick and Tom played Word Brain on their devices, a fun word game Evie showed them, rather than watch the game except me who stuck with the Browns like a true fan. We went to be early because we wanted to get up around 5:15 so I missed the thrilling, typical ending to a Browns loss.