Seeing the Sights

We have been lucky enough to have basically skipped the month of February in Montana, shortening our winter by a month.

The beginning of the month was spent in Florida, just south of Tampa, visiting our middle daughter and her family. That family includes her husband, a newly teenaged son, a five-and-a-half-year-old son, and a soon to be four-year-old son.

We had several side-trips while there, including Dinosaur World, Legoland, the Tampa Aquarium, the Florida State Fair, a trip to view the manatees, and a pro-hockey game, in which the Tampa Bay Lightning trounced the Pittsburgh Penguins 6-3. Our daughter knows someone who knows someone, and the jumbo-tron welcomed the Honrud Family between the second and third periods.

We also attended the final game of the season of our teenaged grandson’s traveling hockey league game. The Everglade Eels unfortunately lost to the Junior Lightning, which was a sad end to his season. The younger two boys enjoyed playing in the “snow” the Zamboni had deposited outside behind the arena, until their hands were frozen.

We took the youngest to an amusement arcade. Both the younger boys got to play for some time in a play area at a huge mall. They scored new toys and were basically spoiled by us grandparents, as is our duty, isn’t it?

At the fair, we went through the agricultural exhibits. The 4-H kids were having educational exhibits, and Cam, the youngest, was daring enough to pet a duck with me (they’re really soft) as well as a couple of chickens. As we left that area to go see the bunnies, the young man showing the duck warned us to wash our hands thoroughly before eating anything. Cam listened well to this, and kept his hands well out in front of himself, staring at them as though he could see the germs until we found a sanitizing stand with anti-bacterial liquid and hand towels. Jace, the five-year-old, refused to touch any fowls, but still had to disinfect his hands.

Heading into the dairy and beef cattle barn, there was another educational exhibit. This one was a milk cow hooked up to a milking machine. I commented to Jace that he should go closer to see that because that’s where the milk for his cereal came from. Indignantly, he argued with me that his milk did not come from a cow. Only one generation removed from the farm, and they don’t know where their food comes from! (I was afraid he’d refuse his cereal the next day, but by then he’d forgotten.)

Our daughter plans to come up to Opheim this summer for our all-school reunion. The boys will get to see a rodeo, get rides on the tractor, and we hope see a branding. They’ll also get a bit of education about where their food comes from.

The end of this month we are in Arizona. (We did have four days at home between trips - enough time to do laundry and repack the suitcases, as well as water my houseplants.) The first few days down here are being spent at a fancy resort, where my husband has meetings to attend.

It’s interesting to see how “rich” people vacation. I at first felt very out of place, but have recovered from that. My sisters reminded me that Dennis and I do have class - at least more so than the “affluenza” family does. I was also reminded that I’ll probably never see these people again, and so we should just enjoy ourselves. And so we are. Besides vacations should take you away from everyday life and be relaxing.

After this resort experience, we are heading across Arizona to spend a few days visiting friends of ours who snowbird their winters down here.  We will enjoy a few rounds of golf with them before heading home to reality. First thing back will be our annual dental checkups. Yay.

Then we will work on tax returns (double yay), and getting the farming equipment tuned up and ready for seeding. And we do enjoy putting the crop into the ground. I’ll start dreaming of the garden I’ll put in. The seed catalogs are piled up, ready for me to dream and drool over. (A plus on that is that you won’t have to read my opinion pieces, but will instead be subjected to articles about getting things to grow in our corner of the state.) And so life continues.