Friday, July 30 - Back to Iowa

Up at 5:30 a.m. for one last walk with Pam and Clarabel, then it was back to check the weather. The radar indicated thunderstorms and rain for most of Iowa and scattered areas of Missouri. I decided to head back to bed for a little more shut-eye before checking on the storms again.

We ended up staying awhile to see what path and how fast the storms were moving which gave us the opportunity for one last trip to Starbucks and one last game of Scrabble—sorry I had to beat you, Pam. (Not really—rematch?)

With no end in sight for the rain and storms to subside, I decided I needed to power through, suck it up, and get going. So, we got the car loaded up and left Pam and Matt’s at 11:40 a.m. I decided to take the Avenue of the Saints up through Hannibal home so I wouldn’t have to be on I-70 for so long. It’s actually a very nice stretch of 4-lane, 65 MPH road—an easy, no hassle drive that was just the ticket so I didn’t have to fight traffic in addition to rain. With only a couple of brief stops, we made it back to mom’s in Marshalltown around 5:30 p.m.—just a little under six hours.

Back at mom’s, Mary and I regaled her with stories, pictures, shopping purchases, and video re-enactments. It was fun going through the week’s events again and remembering all the amazing things we did and the non-stop fun and silliness.

I think Carol Burnett’s theme song that she sang at the end of every show sums it up best:
“I’m so glad we had this time together. Just to have a laugh or sing a song. Seems we just get started and before you know it, comes the time we have to say, ‘So long.’”