Quite a Trip

This weekend, I flew to Columbus, Nebraska to help my family move my grandma from Columbus to Eau Claire where she is living in an assisted living center.

It was sheeting rain when my sister Teena and I left the hotel in Columbus with the moving truck. When we pulled off the highway in Fremont, two women in a pick up truck raced up to the truck and told us the back door was open.

Oops. Serious oops.

So we walked to the back of the truck to see all the boxes in the back soaked from the rain. One box had broken up and books we found in grandma's attic were gone, presumably all over the highway.

And my duffel bag was missing.

We backtracked down Highway 30, saw the carnage of books scattered all over the highway, but no bag. Our parents were about 40 minutes behind us, so we called them to look for the bag, but they had no luck.

Teena had loaded some of mom and dad's stuff into the truck, and I told her to leave it open in case there was more to load. But when we left the hotel, it was sheeting rain, and neither of us checked the back to lock it. My fault. You'd think after 25 some moves in my life, I'd check something like that.

In the bag was clothing, shoes, a journal with some recent poems, and, most importantly, press clippings from my grandfather's glory days as a high school running back from the 30s. I also had a picture of grandpa's football team.

My car keys were also in the bag...

So Teena and I kept driving, but found Highway 30 closed due to flooding. After numerous false turns, we ended up detouring to Omaha. After an extra hour or more in Nebraska, I was never so happy to see Iowa!

With the open door, detours, we were going to be late for my bus to Milwaukee. Teena planned to drop me off there, I'd take the bus back to the airport to pick up my car.  So we burned a boatload of gas while I drove 80-85 in the rental truck through Iowa! I put the invisibility cloak on the truck and flew!

The great spirit was looking over us. I caught the Badger Bus back to Milwaukee, arrived at 9:30 pm, and took a taxi back to my house.

I'll ride over to the airport today to pick up my car. Thankfully, I had a spare key at home and left my side door open since the house key was in the bag.

Good to be back in Milwaukee!