I haven't blogged in awhile and with good reason, no internet at the new condo I moved into upon my return from Illinois. So today is a catch up day. I am sitting in a Starbucks in Lenwood CA, just outside of Barstow. A lot of my pictures are on my camera which I don't have with me, so for those that can't read and need the picture menu from McDonald's, I apologize, these blogs will bore you to tears.
Well, I made it home for the holidays, back to Illinois. I hadn't been in Mt. Zion since May of 2010, so it had been awhile. For those that don't know, two of my best friends that I grew up with and their assorted families live in MZ and most of my family lives within an hour drive or so. That is to say, when I go home, I am running. It's not like Alaska or Cali where I spend most nights and weekends alone, it's just the opposite. I wear my self out and usually come back sick from running and visiting so much. I love it, but it does wear me down. This visit was no different.
I flew in from Ontario on the Friday night redeye. I got into Bloomington late in the morning on Christmas eve then we grabbed lunch and headed back down to MZ. I took a nap, I was beat then headed to my maternal grandma's to visit with mom's side of the family. Everyone was there except my cousin Greg and his wife and sons. I miss those guys a ton. They live in Wyoming now so I hope to see them in May when I head up to Montana for rugby. The food was great and I had 3 glasses of my aunt's pineapple slush, so tasty.
On Christmas day, we started off with Christmas movies, but got sidetracked by the Walking Dead, my mom, dad and brother hadn't seen it, so we watched the whole first season. Such a good show.
The rest of the week, I visited with family and ate out a whole bunch everyday. Oh so bad for my waist line but I got to experience all the great eats of home. I have 3 places I always try to visit, a pizza joint, a burger joint and a burrito place. Monicals, Kreckels and La Bambas. I hit all three while home, so glorious.
New Years Eve was up in the air all week. My friend Chad is a new year baby, but he hates to celebrate, so it was back and forth on if we would do anything substantial. Ryan finally decided he was going to have people over and that ended it. We drank and ate and talked and laughed until 4am. Whoa. At some point Ryan started pulling out his high test to sample and my eyes went crossed. I remember pulling Chad out of the van and thumping him in the front yard but not a whole lot else. Lori, Ryan's wife, made a pizza in the morning on her new Pizzaz pizza cooker, and the greasy cheesy goodness helped cure what ailed me. that and lots and lots of H2O and Alleve. Mom ran me to Bloomington on Monday and kept trying to take me shopping to buy stuff. Mom's always worry about you wether you're 5 or 75. Just the way it works I guess.
On the 3rd, my stuff showed up at my new condo and the movers had it all in by 1pm. It was nice to have my stuff again in my own space after living in a hotel for a couple months but I did not look forward to unpacking it all. Then the 4th consisted of Southern California Edison Power shutting down the entire Fort Irwin to update the power grid. Public Works connected giant generators to some of our facilities so we could still offer critical services such as a gym. the day went exceedingly well then it was back to unpacking.
The old family homestead in Mt. Zion Illinois.
Mom taking down holiday decorations. That's a real runner sled that I used to use when I was a kid. We'd wax the skids and it'd fly.
Front door, pretty damn midwest.
Good hooch a la Cassity
More of the good stuff.
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