Mary and Jan's Adventures

Day Eight

Across the wide Missouri (state once; river twice)

Pretty decent weather when we repacked the car (it's been a week now, and the dorky little wagon needs a real cleaning. Maybe at a rest stop tomorrow.) But shortly out of St. Louis the rains came, in sprinkles, then downpours, and then monsoon, until finally, well north of Kansas City, we thought there might be a chance that our tickets to a triple A baseball game in Omaha might work out after all.

Rain across Missouri. Note utility poles on both sides of the road.

Then my phone began to ring. Understand, I don't talk on the phone and drive at the same time. I gave up chewing gum because it interfered with my walking. So I handed the phone as always to Mary Frances (good thing I'm not fooling around with anyone--either for my sake or the anyone's I'm not sure) and FaceBook friend Jim Russell explained that he got a friend request from me that turned out to be a hacker promising he could get $100,000. Now Jim and I have had lunch together often enough for him to know that kind of generosity couldn't have come from me, so he knew it was bogus. While he and Mary Frances were chatting, another call came in from our son in Columbus who, along with every other friend I already have, got the same request. He confronted them, the site disappeared, only to reappear a short time later at a different address but still using my picture and friend list. A third call came in from another friend named Jim with the same story. And I still had seven hours to drive before I could get online and make heads or tails of it. Turns out, since the hacker never showed up on my timeline, that all I could do was explain to everyone what had happened, even though I hadn't witnessed it myself.

Omaha Storm Chasers vs Oklahoma Red Hawks

Mary Frances was of two minds about the game we attended tonight. We typically cheer the home team wherever we are, but she has been to Red Hawks games twice; once when she was deployed to Oklahoma City, and again when she and I were in Spokane on an earlier adventure and they visited the Spokane Indians (who apparently don't exist any more.) Also, she had brought with her for this occasion an Oklahoma Red Hawks blanket, which she wisely didn't display too much in this rabid 'Chasers crowd.