Road Trip

Answer to the question:  Not if it's in cans.

On Thursday I took a road trip with my parents to Vermont, Illinois, where they both grew up.  I have not been there for many years, since all my grandparents died.  The town is so small they count every single person in town on the population sign: 

I think maybe all the residents balance their checkbooks to the penny, too.


We drove through town, which is kind of sad as the town is not a thriving place.  No gas stations, very few stores, a lot of closed businesses along the main street. 

The water tower is next to an empty building that used to be the jail, according to my mom. She said she almost got put there one night in high school, when she and her buddies got caught tipping over outhouses for fun.  Like I said, a small town.

We had lunch with a friend of my mom's and her husband, Donna and Jack.  Donna and my mom have known each other since 6th grade.   And yesterday, we almost got sent to the county jail, again, on our ride to Bernadotte, pronounced Bern-ee-dot, where we drove to have lunch.

We drove through an area where a POW and US Army training camp was located during WW II, called Camp Ellis.  We drove down a road that, about halfway to our destination, was clearly marked "Road Closed."

My dad drove Jack's  4-wheel drive van, and Jack and I rode with him.  Mom drove with Donna in my parents' Alero.  We came to the sign, on a mud and gravel back road.   Jack said to my dad, "Just go around it."   And he did.  Mom followed.  A ways down the road, the mud and gravel got messier and the ruts got deeper, and the going got tougher, but did we stop?  No we did not. 

The road was bad.  No doubt about it.  I drove through Baja California in a beat-up little truck in the 1980's and thought those roads were bad but driveable.  This road, though, was a little worse.  Or maybe a lot worse.

Somehow, though, my parents got both vehicles through the rough parts, and then we came to the end of that road where we were to turn onto a paved road to Bernadotte.  But guess what? 

To be continued...