At grandma’s house that is. We had been on the road for five days now. Grandma had some errands she needed to run, then we got lunch at Steak and Shake. My favorite one that we went to when I was a kid with my favorite bridge next to it for the kids, young and old, to run over.

Poor grandma went back to the house to wait for the repair guy and we ran off to play. Mom has often told of coming to see her grandma as a child and how they could hear the lions roaring for their breakfast at the zoo. I assumed that it would be an old somewhat icky zoo because of the age I guess, so I wasn’t overly thrilled at our plans to go but, anything for the kids. We drove clear across town and they both fell asleep within minutes of getting there. So we did what anyone would do and went to Starbucks. With cold, and hot, drinks in hand we went for a drive and looked at stuff until they woke up. Then we went to the zoo.

I couldn’t believe what a great little zoo it was. Why does every zoo not allow you to feed the giraffes? They were SO cool. No upper teeth, just like cattle.

Unfortunately when we got home the repair guy had suffered from pickup troubles that had to be repaired. No new pan for the air conditioner. So sad, but we had a fun day at least.

She thought we were never going to make it. Our shenanigans that day added a few hours to the trip. By the time we got there it was dark and we were starving. So we ordered pizza and ate on her beautiful back porch. I was overcome with excitement when the fireflies came out. I tried and tried to show the kids but they were not enthused.

As we were getting ready for bed grandma pointed out the flooded spot in the middle of her hallway. She could not find the source and it was getting bigger. It was obviously not coming from the ceiling so we checked the bathrooms and washing machine but couldn’t find any leaks. Mom was on the phone with dad who was running out of patience telling us that it had to be coming from one side or the other, we kept insisting it was coming up in the middle. Finally we were standing in the garage about to admit defeat when we noticed another door. Inside was the heater and air conditioner coils. We checked to see that the drain wasn’t plugged which lead to the conclusion that the pan was rusted through. With nothing we could do the air conditioner was shut off until help could be found.

The next morning we went to one of grandma’s churches with her. The music was awesome and The Goblin Child was thrilled with “her new church”! That didn’t mean either one of them would sit quietly through the service of course. After lunch we got home and the preacher and another really nice man from the church showed up to take a look at the air conditioner and see what they could do to help. It was so nice of them, the mark of a great church. Unfortunately they couldn’t find any problems besides the one we found and were equally unable to fix it.

As they left it started pouring rain. We stayed nicely in the garage watching for a little while then as the lightning subsided we couldn’t resist any longer. We brought along umbrellas but they could only do so much and made it hard to play effectively. Our country raised kids have many benefits their city dwelling counterparts lack but playing in the gutters after a big rain isn’t one of them. I’m glad our kids get to enjoy the benefits of both worlds. The water was nearly knee deep and we watched, thrilled as it poured off the bridge into the culvert below, cheered as cars drove slowly by making waves and splashing. Finally the rain stopped altogether and eventually the water ran out, we walked slowly back to the house.

While we were gone grandma had called a repair guy, whose name she had gotten from someone at church and although he didn’t work on Sundays he said he would come by and look at it. He checked, again, to see if the drain was plugged, it still wasn’t, then came to our conclusion that the pan was leaking. He couldn’t get a new one until Monday but he would come out then and fix it. So still no air conditioning in the rain forest like heat. We spent the rest of the afternoon puttering in the garden, also very rain forest like.

That evening we had a little birthday party for The Goblin Child. She got to decorate her cake, eat ice cream  and open presents. It was hot and great and we loved every minute of it. We fell into bed exhausted.

My phone said it thought we would get storms about two o’clock. We scoffed. The sky was blue, the radar showed nothing. We went swimming.

When I drug the kids away from the water, just before two, for completely unrelated reasons we were quite shocked to see a large black cloud that had built suddenly just west of us. We rushed home and I got the kids to bed, then I went out and watched. And took pictures of course.

I can handle this type of tornado. I can see it clearly, it’s far enough away and didn’t look look it was touching the ground. From other peoples pictures apparently it was. One of those was by our neighbor to the south, the one from underneath it.

The weather radio said they were fourteen miles south of town, we are about seven miles south. That’s close enough. More storms are coming, radio is going crazy again. We’ll brace for another round.

This one is hard to see, my phone would not focus and it’s little and sideways in the cloud

He’s strangely appealing. We’re hoping he sticks around and it takes the powers that be a little while to notice and remove him.

I was glad we hadn’t waited around to watch them pulling it out.  Unfortunately there hasn’t been one word about it on the news which at least tells us that the driver was okay. We didn’t stop to ask the cops holding traffic, they were looking decidedly less than cheerful by afternoon.

As hard as we looked we couldn’t see anywhere that the fence had been broken which leaves us to believe that the semi cleared it. It would have been some thing to see when it happened. A flying semi leaping gracefully into the air. Yeah, it’s good that we weren’t there.

The Local Robotics team is in Kearney today for the regional robotics competition. They made it down safely having left early Friday to avoid the blizzard. Hopefully the trip home is as uneventful.We wish that we were going with again this year, last year was a blast. My darling husband helped coach the last two years but this year something else (small goblin child) kind of took up all his time.

Robotics is awesome. Our team is  Four-H sponsored, for kids 9-14 to learn about science and technology. They build robots out of lego’s, Then they build an obstacle course, or as they call it a thematic playing surface, also out of lego’s. They then have to program the robot to complete missions in and around the course. I am sure they can explain it much better than I at usfirst.org and firstlegoleague.org

Not.

Twenty-seven degrees outside right now according to my computer. We got a light powdery snow last night and now the wind is howling. I understand there was a nice little ground blizzard going on on the way into town today. I suppose all the guys in town will be out plowing snow on their four wheelers.

For once there is stuff going on on the main street cam. What is the main street cam you say? Why it is a service provided by our stellar local computer store/repair shop. A live web cam showing the lively down town. Not that their is usually much to see

http://mainstreetcam.enebraska.net/

Driving south through Metcalf on top of Beaver wall to the east of the last set of pictures.

Beaver Valley road driving north from Hay Springs, as close to in order as I can remember. To where it turns east towards White Clay.