Hello from the few moments I get enough internet access that I can slip in a blog.  I’ll keep this short so y’all can get back to your turkey, or shopping, or football, or what have you.  I’m down in the Lower 48 for my annual pilgrimage to my hometown in Southwest Wisconsin, which is surprising  short of a good cell signal (at least good enough for me to get my usual feed of internet, sports scores, or cat pictures on Facebook).  Will be here through Friday before I make the slow ride home.

Coming down from Alaska requires a fair bit of flexibility.  It costs a fair bit to fly during any heavy travel season, so you have to be open to going anywhere.  What that means is that I will have to find what ever airport I can get to that gets me close enough to drive home.  Truth is, where my family lives is no where near any airport, so I have to drive a couple hours regardless, so be it Chicago, Minneapolis, Des Moines, Dubuque, or Moline (aka Strugglebus International Airport); you take what ever comes in at the right price.  This time it was the massive three gate airport of Rochester, MN.

The bonus that came with it was the drive down.  I took the interstate to LaCrosse, WI which then leads to a road that runs 60 miles along the Mississippi River south to home.  Growing up, that was the drive we took a hundred times over, heading up to LaCrosse because it was where all the fun things happened – it had ‘The Mall’, it had ‘the Burger King’, it had the concerts and movies and things we couldn’t get at home.

Driving that route this week was like heading back in time, more literally than I expected.  It must be twenty years since I been down that way. I was surprised with how little really had changed.  Things seemed updated, cleaned up, but the same stores the same roads and the same things under construction.  Some things being changed, some things under construction as they have been for 20 years.  In a way its nice to see how things remain as they are; but as time catches up with me I sometimes wonder why it doesn’t for others.

But that’s for another day.  Let’s let time slow down for today and enjoy a bit of the holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving … or as they say in Canada:  Happy Just Another Thursday.