Traveling With The Tindalls

Marc and I left Borger Saturday morning. We were headed for Venango, Nebraska. I was really excited. I had never been to Nebraska and I always love to enter a state in which I have never been. And I like riding with Marc and seeing things I have never seen before. Marc mapped the route we would take. He chose the route along the eastern edge of Colorado.

And we just thought the Texas panhandle was flat. I believe that is the flattest country I have ever seen. We went for miles and did not see a person, a house, a cow, a fence, a high line. Not a single living or nonliving thing.

I never thought of Colorado as a farm state, but eastern Colorado is every bit as much of a farm state as Nebraska and Kansas. We saw fields of corn, maize, barley, sunflowers.

It was only an eight hour drive from Borger to Venango. Venango's claim to fame, besides being the home of Steve and Rachel Tucker, is the buckle of the wheat belt. And I was glad to have arrived at the buckle of the wheat belt. But going north, we thought it would be cooler in Nebraska than it was in Texas. Were we ever wrong.

We got to go the field and pick sweet corn. Enough for supper and enough to take to pot luck on Sunday. We came back, shucked the corn and less than an hour after we picked it, we were eating the corn. It can't be much fresher than that. It was delicious sweet corn.

In the same way I want to show Casa de Esperanza to guests, Steve wanted to show me his farm. And I wanted to see it. I was impressed with the part I got to see. I got to see the corn, of course, and the sunflowers too, up close. The sunflowers up close were a sight to behold and much prettier than the ones we whizzed by at 70 miles an hour.

The next morning we were at the Church of Christ in Ogallala, Nebraska, where Marc did his usual outstanding job of sharing our work. And then. Just imagine pot luck in August in the middle of farm country. More sweet corn. Green beans, cucumbers. Canteloupe and watermelon sweet enough to be dessert.

We then drove three hours to Denver to have a wonderful, but much too short, visit with Linda and Larry, Marc's aunt and uncle. It has been way too long since we spent time with them.

We drove back to Texas today. Out there in those flat lands of New Mexico, we could definitely see what the weatherman meant by scattered showers.

We will be hanging in Borger until next week.

Terri