Travel log...

Well, I’m still on the road. I have been since Saturday, and yes, I’m ready to go home. Anything that does not involve turning left at a high rate of speed should never involve this much travel. That’s my statement on the issue.

Okay, so here are a few musings from my travels.

When I’m by myself…
I don’t mind traveling. The solitary confinement of a truck/car is actually quite refreshing when all you’ve done is deal with morons for an ungodly amount of hours. The few hours of down time is appreciated.

Toss in some sports talk radio and I’m good.

The Hampton Inn…
This establishment wastes more toilet paper by putting the ‘seal of approval’ on it, than just leaving it alone. Hallmark makes a similar seal you can place on cards. The Hampton Inn appears to have ripped off the design. They have a similar looking gold round sticker they place on the seam of the roll of paper next to the toilet. At the initial use you try to peel it off, but toilet paper is generally cheap at hotels, this is no exception. So when you peel off the sticker most of the initial layer of the roll comes with it. What a waste. You can’t flush that thing so you have to try and separate it and, you know, it’s just a mess and a waste.

Just fold it for Christ sake.

Interstate traffic…
I often wonder why these people are driving around. Then again, I’m driving around. Then again, I’m not driving a rusted out Chevy Beretta with a dog hanging out the window and a Marlboro between my lips with my trucker hat on sideways. So, I just have to wonder what’s going on there. Then again, some things are better left alone.


The state fair really will make you feel good…
Jeff Foxworthy really hit it on the head with this one. I felt so normal at the fair. I felt good about myself and I felt thin.

Educators deserve medals…
Part of the traveling stint has been working with kids. I love kids, well, I used to love kids. I spent two days or 26 hours in a booth set up to educate kids about agriculture. There are all sorts of fun stuff for them to see and do and feel. There is a soil tunnel they can crawl through, a combine cab they can play in, actual grains they can touch and feel, a dairy cow that they can milk (seriously), and they even get their weights to compare to commodities. There are some other things too, but those are the big activities.

Sprinkle in about 650 kids per day, of all ages, and you have adults ready to pluck their little heads off. I actually witnessed a teacher plop down on a cinder block and say “just go” to her kids. If smoking was allowed I’m convinced she would have lit up and sucked a long drag. That woman needed a beer, and a medal.

A guy I was working with actually told me he was going home to slap his third grader, just because.

Not everyone needs kids...
I dealt with more people that should have never been allowed to breed too. I just have to shake my head at some of these parents. Do they realize what makes children? Stop crawling on each other! They should have worked the booth for two days, because that folks, promotes sterility.

Some of the family dynamics of the shady acres trailer park community that filtered through worked as a good brain stimulator. Trying to figure out who belonged to who and who actually had responsibility for some of the children was harder than champions week on Jeopardy.


Favorite encounter to date…
A man and woman brought their children into the booth. They got to the weigh station, which I was working, and the kids hopped up on the scales to see what they weighed and what measured up. Mom and dad got weighed too and dad seemed ecstatic that he measured up to a market steer. Mom, well, I’m not going there. The little girl stood there and her weight came up 38 pounds. I told her she was the same as a large raccoon. Dad, being the civilized human he was, took the sheet and said. “heyall…that’s a dayum big coon there.” I nodded politely and smiled, like I’m supposed too. “I’d ki-ell to get me one that dayum big.”

I hope he meant for a hat.

Until I can post more travel logs…
-MO-