All good things must come to an end, including the annual Mighty Milligan Big People Gathering for 2020.

February 24, 2020 - Monday morning

27 degrees/clear skies/calm winds

Pentoga Road

I'm in deep mourning this morning, not only because our Milligan weekend has come and gone for another year, but more so that my beloved, old, Macbook Pro has died. 

We've all suffered the loss of an inanimate object;  a pair of shoes, a favored piece of clothing? Maybe a tool, a kitchen appliance, or a car or truck that had become a part of one's life.

I know Mississippi Brother Garry suffered regret when he had to kiss Old Yellar, his beloved pick up truck, goodbye. We often teased each other about who had the ugliest truck.

In my case, I'm saying goodbye to the last vestiges of my Alaska teaching days. The computer wrote many a dissertation concerning Native learning styles, teacher education, and how many thousand blogs and pictures are stored on it's hard drive?

Unable and/or unwilling to spend over $2,000 for a new MacBook Pro, I've purchased a refurbished model with the exact same specs as the old one for a minute fraction of that price. No one wants a computer that's fifteen years old, regardless of what kind of shape it's in.

No one, except me.

My brand new/used, almost fifteen year old, refurbished (with a one year guarantee!) laptop is due to arrive on Wednesday. Until then, I'll limp by on my trusty, very inexpensive, but always dependable, Chromebook, the one used in the shop for patterns and such.

It's hard to put into words how much fun we had this past weekend. The family spent copious amounts of time sitting or swimming in 80 degree temperatures, just on the other side of the glass from several feet of snow on the northern banks of Lake Michigan.

I have stories to tell, many of them humorous, but I'm a mere neophyte when sitting beside my brother-in-law. A lifelong car salesman, he began relating true stories of his early sales days in Kansas City. We laughed, then we roared. At one point, I looked around the table and noticed Sargie, as well as others, were shedding tears of laughter. 

I don't care if I live to be a hundred, I'll remember some of those stories and even now, I'm smiling while I write. 

Fun. Just good, plain, old fashioned, no nonsense, fun. What a wonderful weekend.

As I said, all good things must come to an end. We arrived home shortly after noon on Sunday, but not before following a slowpoke driver for, what seemed like, thousands of miles.

Actually, we questioned whether the car ahead of us even had a driver. We couldn't see a head above the steering wheel.

Screaming along at a roaring 30 mph on a major highway, the car weaved from one side of the road to the other. We were well past Foster City, Sargie's hometown, before an opportunity presented itself to pass.

It was a little old man, looking through, rather than over the steering wheel. As we left him in our rear view mirror, we concluded he was either going to church or to a tavern. We never did find out which.

Sargie and I spent a very warm, very windy, afternoon working on the drive.

Our goal was to chip away at large areas of glacial-hard ice and snow to expose some of the blacktop to help with the melting process. Much of it was over four inches thick and hard as concrete.

With the temperature nearing fifty degrees, rivers of melt water were soon running down the drive. We aided their flow by building canals.

We worked almost all afternoon. After a late lunch break, I walked three miles and arrived home to find Sargie back outside digging and chipping away. I quickly joined her as we made some real progress.

Needless to say, there were two sore and tired kids on Pentoga Road last night. We climbed the steps well before our usual bedtime and quickly fell asleep.

I'm heading out the door fairly soon to step off a quick seven miles. The day is dawning clear, it's warm, and I'm eager to work off some of this past weekend's gluttony. No doubt, we'll work on the drive more today and I'd like to spend some time in the shop.

Mel and Macrea will be dropping off Sadie the dog later today. We'll be dog sitting for the next week while Hambone takes his parents to Florida and Disney World. 

Hard to believe that in a bit over a week, Sargie and I will be heading south on our first retirement journey to see Mississippi Brother Garry and Miss Jody. We'll be driving to Laurel, MS, then later, flying onto southern Texas to spend a few days with Yooper Brother Mark and Sheri at their timeshare before returning to Mississippi.

I feel like a little kid the week before Christmas. I wish it would hurry up and get here.

OK, enough dreaming. Time to strap on the hikers and put a mile or two under my feet before beginning the day.

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...