Road Trip

See that cow? This would be the convenient Bonegue Creamery, located smack dab in the middle of nowhere. Creamery would indicate ice cream, milk, butter. Yup. But there was also plenty of this fine fare:



But wait! She digresses. Back to the cow. Notice the dark clouds developing?

Now, the Matron has weather credentials, friends. She has survived one tornado, a lightening strike and a 15 ton, 100 foot disaster that gave real meaning to the word 'tree house.' Hers was.

Friday's trip to Marshall offered just one more chance for weather to finally kill the Matron!


Does that look like a tornado, bearing down upon the Matron? It sure did to her. The Matron was driving her children through the vast open spaces of farmland when a terrible, dark storm appeared on the horizon into which they were headed.

Scarlett screamed.

The Matron did not mess around with instant black sky and ominous feeling. No, she turned the van and went back half a mile to the tiny little piece of humanity she had spotted, the creamery.

As she gathered the children, she knew that inside she would find the Bonegue Creamery proprietors. She imagined them warm people, Lake Woebegone-ish and somewhere in their 50's or 60's. Experienced with tornadoes, violent storms, nervous mothers and such.

So when she walked in and said hello to the two giggly 15-year olds behind the counter ("oh! is there a storm coming?! cool!") she realized that if a tornado were indeed to hit, she would be all alone, saving the lives of five children, instead of just her three. All in a day's work, isn't it, Mamas?


The tornado didn't materialize but a damn fine thunderstorm with 60 mile an hour winds and hail, did. Enough to keep them in the creamery for nearly 40 minutes. Just enough time to get Merrick real sugared up.

Now, a dear friend had given the Matron blessed salt to sprinkle in her van as protection and prayer for their travels. Now, the Matron is a big big believer in protection and prayer but she had never heard of blessed salt and couldn't quite remember the instructions about what to do with it.

So before they left, she had sprinkled liberally throughout the van and then brought along the whole can to ride shot gun, just in case!

As they waited out the storm, Stryker said: "So much for that salt, I guess."

The Matron: "I'd say it's working perfectly. Here we sit, eating ice cream, safe."

Thanks, Stephanie!

Once the weather cleared, there was plenty of bright blue sky and small town. That would be a smiley face on the water tower for a teeeny tiny town called Sacred Heart.

Stryker: "Mom? Did you know that half the towns here have less people in them than my new junior high school?"

That gave the Matron pause, both about the magnitude of a junior high with over 700 students and the flavor of life in a town with even fewer. And they have to find their way through long winters, just like she does, but with fewer options.



Once in Marshall, the children had a wonderful time with their New Jersey cousins! See how easy it is to take perfect pictures of five children?


The Matron did not exactly turn into a toddler on meth while around her mother but there are a couple of stories, coming later.



Throughout the short trip, her brother's sons each wore nice, clean pants and shirts that matched. Her children did not. That's a stripe and camouflage theme Merrick has going.



The five inch hole in Scarlett's shirt isn't visible here (but it was to the Matron).

Matron: "Scarlett? Do you have any clothes that are dirty or torn?"

Scarlett: "Why? Should I?"

The Matron likes to be sure someone holds up the low-brow end of the family and she guesses that job is left to the offspring she's producing.

Uncle Dean has power tools and knows how to use them. Merrick pretty much never left his side or wiped that adoring look from his adorable face.


After one full day of fun and family, they got back into this and drove home. Safely.


But the question of the day is why the Matron found a jar of BBs -- as in BB gun -- in Merrick's room?

Merrick: "I found them."

Matron: "Where?"

Merrick (with big smirk on face): "I don't knee-member."

The likelihood of not remembering where one found something as unusual and precious (to a five year old) as BBs would be about zero. Although the Third Child Syndrome persists, at least it did not fell Merrick -- or the Matron -- in front of her family.