My Arkansas visit

Things didn't start well. When I pulled out of McCook around nine in the morning on Friday, December 16th, the temperature was in the mid 20's and we had freezing fog. As I headed south, things got worse instead of better. By the time I got into Kansas, the freezing fog had turned to freezing drizzle and the roads had turned icy. I slowed down to around 40 and kept that speed all the way to I-70 because the conditions had not improved at all. I did nudge it up to 50 on the Interstate but it wasn't safe to drive any faster than that and kept that speed until the temperature finally reached 34 just east of Russell and the ice on the highway finally went away but the fog didn't. In fact, the heaviest fog was in Wichita and after 6 hours of driving in it, I finally drove out of it pretty close to the Kansas/Oklahoma border. The road and visual conditions put me almost two hours behind schedule and so by the time I got to Will and Erica's house in Fayetteville, Arkansas they had decided it was too late to go out to supper so Erica was cooking when I got there. After catching up on what we had all been doing, I turned in, thankful that the drive was over and knowing that the worst was behind me.

But it wasn't.

Sunday was Will's birthday but since he and Erica had planned to attend a play that afternoon, we decided to celebrate his birthday on Saturday. Erica made a red cake which is his favorite and I was going to take them out to eat at a steak restaurant that was in business when I attended the University of Arkansas a few decades ago. I had cashed a fairly large check in McCook before I left that had Will's birthday money in it along with Christmas money for everyone. Before we went to eat, I took his birthday money out of the envelope, put it in his birthday card and gave it to him over dinner. The same family who owned the restaurant when I was there still owns it now, two or three generations removed, and it has always been famous for its steaks with an Italian influence. So instead of serving a baked potato with the steaks, they served either french fries or spaghetti. I had never had spaghetti with steak so that's what I ordered and although I would have preferred a baked potato, the spaghetti wasn't bad. After a few after-dinner drinks, we went back home and I turned in.

The next morning, I left relatively early so Will could celebrate his birthday with his wife and about half-way home, I realized I hadn't seen the bank envelope that had the Christmas money in it when I was packing. I had checked my bedroom thoroughly like I always do before I left. I was certain it was in my clothes bag so I didn't think much more of it. When I got to Russellville, I carried the bag into my bedroom, opened it up and searched it thoroughly but the money wasn't there. Linda and I went out to the car and searched through the car with no luck either so I called Will and asked him to look through his house which he did without finding it either. In fact, we never found it. So Christmas was doubly expensive this year because I had to double-gift with checks instead of just giving them the cash I had taken out of the bank for them. Sometime during the trip, I also lost a set of keys so after taking an untold number of trips throughout my life without ever having lost ANYTHING, I lost two really important things in one trip.

Aside from that, the rest of the trip was pleasant. I spent quality time with first Will and then Michael who was at his mom's house in Russellville. Will and Erica came down for Christmas on Christmas Eve and we went out for steaks again at Michael's favorite steak house. On Christmas morning, we exchanged gifts, drank a couple of pitchers of Mimosas, watched a Christmas Story on television three times in a row and then went out for Christmas dinner. And if you're a Christmas Story fan, you know where we ate.

At a Chinese restaurant.