As we pulled away from Wayne and Eileen’s, The Grand Otter assumed her usual traveling position: ear buds firmly in place, eyes half-closed, sitting upright yet seemingly semi-conscious in the back seat. The Muse and I try to engage her in conversation, but each question requires an emphatic arm wave to elicit any response. She’s plugged in and must unplug before, after we repeat the question, she can reply with a one-word phrase sounding almost but not entirely unlike a word. “Ugg.”

The naive might conclude that she’s refusing to associate with her loving, caring grandparents, and I admit that her conversational style can feel damned off-putting. I point out Kansas City’s lovely suspension bridge over the Missouri, and receive the usual mumble along with a brief tirade opposing high bridges over wide water. I’d like to hold forth on the historical significance of KC’s lovely downtown, but The Otter might as well be elsewhere. Slip over here for more ...

Tags: Granddaughter, Grandparents, Roadtrip, Adolesence

Family gathers before we leave: Sisters, brother, in-laws, cousins, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, and their children; a houseful. The Grand Otter’s passing through with just a few short hours to renew connections in this decade-straddling family where a single generation spans nearly forty years. Nobody calls anybody ‘once-removed,’ but cousin instead.

Donna slow roasts a brisket and broils green-lipped mussels. Food’s never in short supply. The little ones use the wrong door to enter and exit, tracking in pea gravel. The girls head for the corner where the farm cat protects her three tiny offspring. The boys ride bikes down the hill in back. Adults wander in and out, continuing a conversation that started before they were born and will certainly continue long after they’re gone from here. Slip over here for more ...

Tags: Granddaughter, Grandparents, Adolesence, Roadtrip

I’d been anticipating all day. By the appointed hour, we were tucking into a buffet supper at the American Legion hall. I excused myself and stepped outside only to find the Eastern horizon cloud-banked. I shuffled back inside to sit with The Muse, who was catching up with her high school graduating class members. I was more interested in what was unfolding outside.

A short time later I excused myself a second time to find that full moon, escaped from the clouds, hanging over the grain silos on the edge of this tiny prairie town. I ducked back inside, asking The Muse to slip outside for a moment. She came, trailing two classmates, and we stood on the sidewalk marveling at that moon. Slip over here for more ...

Tags: Granddaughter, Grandparents, Roadtrip, Adolesence

I’d been waiting outside the reunion hall for their arrival, hoping to spend a few short minutes with The Grand Otter and her dad as they passed through on their way to visit more family a little further down the road. We’ll reconnect Sunday and, Monday, start two or three days on the road back with her, but The Muse and I had not seen her since last October, and on that visit she was wearing a bright orange jump suit and we were not allowed to hug without the scowling guard’s permission, and we were both eager to reconnect.

Their passage from The Cities had been a rough one. Slip over here for more ...

Tags: Granddaughter, Grandparents, Roadtrip, Adolesence

After supper last night, my brother-in-law Carl suggested a look at the garden. After finding five pairs of kid shoes and wrangling the crew outside, we found a garden clearly suffering from the late spring. The walk-thru became a game of ‘identify what’s that?’, distinguishing stressed sprouts from their hardier counterpoint weeds. There were rough rows, though some seeds had drifted in the sog. Tomatoes looked the worse for last week’s hail storm. Peas seemed to be coming along, though frightfully late.

My nephew John accepted my hoeing lessons while his dad and siblings performed a Keystone Cops rendition of find the hose. Nick was in charge of turning on the faucet once it was connected. Christopher was sent to ferret around in the garage to find a spray head while Carl and two year old Lilli buzzed off in the mule to find a sprinkler out in the shop. Three year old Andrew supervised. Slip over here for more ...

Tags: Granddaughter, Adolesence, Grandparents, Roadtrip

Hard for anyone who’s life experience extends no further than the Beltway boundary to accept, but wide areas of these United States have no cell phone service. I’m not saying they don’t have cell towers in perfect sight-line sequences, it’s just that many of those cell towers don’t provide service unless one happens to subscribe to the particular company owning each tower. This results in technical absurdities. Here in rural South Dakota, my iPhone registers no signal while I’m standing a half block away from an apparently perfectly functional cell tower. My brother-in-law’s place has wireless internet service, but intermittent Verizon-accessible cell service. I’ve consequently been in the dark telephony-wise for two days. Slip over here for more ...

Tags: Granddaughter, Roadtrip, grandparents