The Fourth of July in Twenty-Twenty

We had a pleasant time down in Tuscola for the Holiday, with hard work, good food, and family. Always family.

The route from Plano to Tuscola is relatively straightforward once the confusing maelstrom of roadways in the Dallas-Ft.Worth metroplex have been successfully traversed. (Here "successfully" means no traffic congestion, no accidents, no blinding thunderstorms, and no mechanical failures.) Taking the Sam Rayburn / Hwy 121 to Hwy 114 / 121 to Hwy 121 / 360 to Texas 183 / 121 to I-820 to I-30 to I-20 on the far side of Ft Worth. From there, it's an easy hop along I-20 to Hwy 322 in Abilene and a short drop down Hwy 84 to the Ranch.

Google says a little over 3 hours at highway speeds. We made it in almost exactly 3 hours. Guess we must've had a tailwind.

Got there Thursday night just in time for a dish of ice cream before bed, then we all woke up fresh and ready to go on Friday morning.

On Friday, Dad and I worked on mudding some drywall in the middle bedroom. Come dinnertime, thanks to Cheryl, there was some amazing salmon with cous-cous and spinach salad; after that, in lieu of taking a nap,. we enjoyed a leisurely evening's entertainment with John Wayne and Jeff Hunter in "The Searchers". Hadn't seen that movie all the way through in quite a while. Still haven't, as I only caught the last hour-and-a-half or so. But it's a good one.

So was the blueberry cobbler (made by Cheryl) and ice cream (provided by the folks) dessert.

Saturday was the big yard clean-up in preparation for the Independence-Day festivities; while Mom and Dad attacked the vast acreage with their respective riding lawn-mowers, I edged the front yard with the weed-whacker and Jan cleaned up the "inner" yards with brooms and rakes and the push-mower. (They do have quite the collection of lawn equipment!) Then Jan brought out the grilled burgers and red-white-and-blue corn chips, and we had a lovely late lunch on the back patio.

Later that evening, we got Jan's new air-conditioner installed, so she could enjoy a full 8000 BTU of coolness needed to fend off the warmth that streams through the windows all day long (the old unit was only 5000 BTU, and it was fighting a losing battle).

Sunday was a lovely day to go to church and meet up with those really lovely people we haven't seen in a long time (last October??) and sing some wonderful songs and hear a couple sermons (Dad had to do the Bible Class lesson because someone was sick, and he was already slated to preach the sermon); then it was home for lunch and a brief bit of socializing before we hit the road again for "home".

The whole weekend went by in such a blur. Tomorrow it'll be back to whatever we call "normal" these days. I'll be working in a huge building with five or six other people, washing my hands two or three times an hour, wearing my mask every time I get up from my desk; and Cheryl will be picking up some new furniture and doing some grocery shopping for the week.

This new normal is kinda weird.