Better than Lakes and Sunsets

I’d lost sight of how long it’s been since we saw a friend. Heck, or even had an in-person conversation with someone else that lasted longer than a few seconds.

Yesterday’s meet-up was a balm to my soul. Thank you, Tom!

• 

• 

• 

Tom’s the reason we came to Missouri, and just a couple of hours hanging out with him on the back deck of his local brewery made the cold weather and rain an easy price.

Tracy and Tom went to high school together, along with other folks we visited in Iowa (Dave, Mike, and Ron are ones I posted about). Each time I meet someone Tracy grew up with, it takes me a few seconds to get used to the Midwest style of slow, easy-going conversation. Tom’s a Navy guy turned yogi, though, having traded his Iowa accent for a wealth of topics for me to grill him on then gab back with him.

Thank you for so much more than sharing beers, Tom! And Banjo apologizes for being so excited. Next time we see you, we’ll leave her sleeping in the truck and be able to hang out closer than six feet.

Downtown St. Joe’s

We’ve passed through some economically depressed towns, but St. Joe’s takes the cake, with its prison and mental health hospital and population of folks trapped in the cycles of powerlessness both places produce. (Tom and his wife serve this population through their respective jobs.)

St. Joe’s tries, too. A sculpture exhibit throughout downtown is an annual competition: you visit them all, then vote on your favorite (and can purchase, and according to one empty pedestal, steal) them as well.

Our favorite is this five-foot tree with flatware as leaves and berries.

This boy pitching a baseball was cool from one angle.

And once I stopped thinking about this piece as the time portal in the original Star Trek episode where Kirk and Spock have to save McCoy from falling in love with Joan Collins (of course Kirk does it instead), I dug the mixture of textures.

Turns out humans aren’t all obnoxious.

We head south again today, and I don’t know anything about our next campsite other that it’s run by the Army Corps of Engineers and is on a lake. Maybe no cell service; we shall see.

You guys, take care.