Senior Citizens on bus trips

We are home from our two-day getaway.  Gabe is home from his three-day getaway, which cost $60.  Sort of expensive, I guess, but how much is peace-of-mind worth?  I wasn't worried about my dog while I was gone.  He was very happy to see us both.  Then when he saw I was going to give him a bath after we got him home, he suddenly became Cliff's dog and refused to come to me.  Traitor!

For the last four years, we've gone on an annual bus trip with some of our tractor club members, usually to Iowa or Kansas, and this time to Peoria, Illinois.  Many of our club members don't like to be away for an extended length of time; I'm amazed at all the places of interest our club secretary, Joyce, has found within six hours of home.  I salute anyone, including myself, who is past the age of 70 and goes traveling on a bus.  There isn't a lot of leg room.  If you watch our group getting off the bus, you'll see many people limping, grunting, and groaning.  Some carry canes.  Some, once we arrive at a place of interest we're going to tour, ask for a wheel chair.  I'm not the only one who has to sit down and rest my knees often.  You won't hear a lot of complaining from anybody, though.  What's the use, when most everybody else has the same aches and pains as you?  We have lots of laughs.  

Our bus driver, a 75-year-old divorced fellow, drives 80 MPH most of the time on the freeway; we've had him before, and probably will again.  I swear, I think he could drive that bus through the eye of a needle!  He went through rather small, cramped round-abouts with no problems and backed the bus up like a pro.  Our club president, Bill, asked him how he learned to drive a bus, since he only started doing this late in life.  He answered that he'd had a big RV for many years, so a bus was nothing new for him.  He wasn't interested in our museums, so after he let us off to check out the Caterpillar Visitor Center, he headed over to do some gambling at the casino in Peoria, and went back again the next day.  He ate meals with us, though (one of the perks of being our bus driver) and stayed at the same motel.    

I'm always ready for a road trip, and I'm usually the one who has to talk Cliff into going on these things.  We get to eat out and stay in motels and go to museums:  What's not to like?  

We ate breakfast while we were still in Missouri, then went right to our first point of interest, the Caterpillar Visitor Center.  This is actually the back of the place:  The museum is on the riverfront, so it's really facing the river.  

If you arrived in a car, you'd have to go around on the river side to park.  You'd be greeted by a huge statue of Abe Lincoln with his arm around Perry Como, which for some reason cracks me up.  Since it was a cold day I had no desire to walk clear down below, so I only got a picture from the rear.

 Here's a picture I stole from the Internet that may be subject to copyright, but if somebody complains, I'll remove it.  I've had to do that a couple of times before.

You can read more about the statue HERE.  It's only been there since September, 2017.

I'm have to tell you I don't have my mind too much on blogging:  Cliff got good news about his PSA test, which sort of rattled me even though it's good news... and I have a granddaughter in labor, so there should soon be another great-granddaughter around, one that lives REALLY CLOSE and might need a babysitter sometimes.  We've had recent experience with babysitting, right?

I hope to do another entry about our trip tomorrow.  

Alexa?

I imagine a lot of my readers have some form of Alexa or "hello Google" in your home, although I'm sure some of you have issues with privacy that won't allow you to have such devices.  Folks, if you are using the Internet... especially Facebook or other social networking... you're already hosed.  But that's your problem.

We use Alexa a lot.  I've been known to argue with her and call her names, as though she's a real person.  In fact, you'll hear her stump me in this video, which causes me to whine at her.  I decided rather than list the ways we use her in this house, I'd make a video to demonstrate how handy she is.  Keep in mind I'm reading from a list I made in one hand and holding the iPad in the other, which is about as much multi-tasking as I care to do.  Hey, it was difficult!   By the way, I intended to make the title on the video "talking to Alexa", but I left out a letter.  It's OK; just goes to show you what a terrible proofreader I am, although those who read my blog already knew that.