After five days in the harsh, frozen tundra of Northwest Iowa, Mojo & I are on the road again... albeit gingerly these days. We had a lovely time with the folks and some relatives and friends, tho the good times were all indoors! After leaving the land of wicked winters, I have pondered again the fact that anyone who grows up in Iowa and/or lives in Iowa is just lucky to stay alive! Sheesh! I'm thinking that all Iowans - past and current - should receive a medal for just surviving 

Besides my little icy-road fender-bender, there were other hazardous occurrences up there. Our dear old lifelong friend, Phyllis was planning to join us on Saturday for Mom's birthday celebration... until she slipped on the ice in her driveway and cracked her head on the cement. Thankfully, the CT Scan at the emergency room said she was ok, so my brother and I drove to the neighboring town of Spencer to fetch her and take her home Saturday evening. On the way back to my parents' house, a deer lept out from the ditch on the very dark country road and we hit it. Luckily, my bro (the driver) had already slowed down, as he had spotted another deer previously, so the poor critter who was unlucky enough to meet the bumper WAS lucky enough to get up and run off into the fields. AND there was no damage to bro's rental car! Amazing, really. The funny part, tho, was when bro was inspecting the car for damage, he spotted a brown smudge on the hood, so he wiped it with his finger and found it was deer poop. This, of course, brought to mind the old Cheech & Chong routine about dog shit... "Smell!"  "Huh?" Smell!"  "Oh - smell like dog shit"... So we laughed.

During our time there, I saw several cars in the ditch that had slid off the road - yet, there were still plenty of pickups zooming along these slippery roads as if it were July. As for me, I rarely topped 40mph on any of my very few outings there.

So now we're in Illinois (same landscape as Iowa but way less snow and ice - so far) and heading southeast back to the loving arms of Asheville, where icy roads are a rarity. Yes, all it takes is a wintertime visit to my old stomping grounds to remind again me of why I left. 

Next year, I'm proposing my family does a "Christmas in July" thing... I doubt that will go over very well with these uber-traditionalists, but it's worth a shot. Wish me luck!