We're in Alpine, WY

We arrived in Alpine last night after a long day of driving from Sidney, NE. We took I-80 all the way from Sidney to the exit just after "Little America" (a distance of about 400 miles) - which is the name of a very fancy truck stop west of Rock Springs, WY (e.g., it has "17 marble showers" for truckers). Unlike VT where a travel plaza would usually offer a choice of caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee, at Little America the choice is between caffeinated and super-caffeinated (no decaffeinated)! I guess in the west, decaffeinated coffee is for wimps. However, it also has a good selection of postcards, toys and offers 50-cent soft-serve ice cream cones - Ellen and I shared one.

There was a point west of Cheyenne, WY where the visibility was almost zero for a stretch and we wondered if we would have to turn back, but Ellen soldiered on, and from there on,  the visibility was ok, and the road surface was clear and dry for the most part (although there were warnings of "slick spots" along the way - due to blowing snow across the road). But the big problem was cross-winds - gusts up to 50+ according to the warning signs, though I'm not sure we ever experienced that. Ellen had to keep both hands firmly on the wheel, that's for sure! The Subaru held the road well - it is heavier than the Toyota and lower to the ground than an average SUV would be. It wasn't dangerous driving, but it wasn't relaxed for the driver either. We were able to listen to NPR much of the distance, interspersed with my reading aloud from Secret Water, so the miles flew by.

The exit after Little America was Exit 66 - Route 30 west. It goes up to Kemmerer, WY, then turns north at Sage, WY and over to Montpelier, UT (we left it at the Utah border and went due north up to U.S. 89). Just out of Kemmerer we hit another white knuckle stretch of zero visibility due to blowing snow, and once again we wondered if we should turn back and go into a motel at Kemmerer. It was by now late afternoon - about 5:30pm -  the light was waning, and we were about 130 miles from Alpine - tantalizingly close! We decided to keep going and in just a few miles, everything improved dramatically - visibility was good, the road was dry. By the time we got to Smoot, WY - the southern Star Valley (which is the valley Alpine is at the northern end of) it had started to snow, but that did not cause a real problem. It did not seriously affect visibility or road surface. That latter leg of the trip from US 30 up to Alpine, we hooked my computer into the tape deck of the car and listened to iTunes in "shuffle" mode - which means it randomly selects items to play from the thousands in my iTunes library. That is always enjoyable because you never know what you'll get next, and there is a huge diversity of tunes in the library - sometimes it's an old favorite, sometimes a total surprise - "I didn't know we had that!" We got to Alpine at about 8pm, and we found that they had had a lot of recent snow there - over a foot for sure. So it was close to a twelve hour day of driving, and over 550 miles, under not the best of conditions.

But we made it, we had a wonderful bowl of Jenny's white bean chile on arrival, Max was still up and gave us a warm and joyful welcome, as did Paul and Jenny, and we talked for a while, catching up on their lives, and then to bed. We'll take it easy today.

In Sidney, NE

Tonight we are in Sidney, NE in an America's Best Value motel. We thought we might run into a lot of snow today, but we didn't. There was a little blowing snow in eastern NE but the roads were mostly clear and dry. It was a fairly uneventful day. I read aloud from Arthur Ransome's Secret Water as we went along in the car. I did some work on the computer. We listened to NPR's Fresh Air. We snacked out of our food box. The miles pretty much flowed by  - 550 of them - with Ellen at the wheel. There was virtually no snow on the ground all across Nebraska. Very strange for this time of year. But we are expecting snow in WY - both in the air and on the road. So we'll  be taking it easy and hope to arrive in Alpine tomorrow night. Paul said Max has had a little fever but we're hoping it'll be better by tomorrow night.

We're in Ames, IA tonight

We had a really lovely gathering yesterday at First Church - I would estimate that at least 50 people, in addition to family members, came, and people came and went, but many  stayed a long time and visited with family and each other and talked about what Stewart meant to them. Given the sloppy, icy weather, I think that was a good turnout and a tribute to Stewart. Ellen largely coordinated the food - which came from Jewell Supermarket (lots of platters of fruit, veggies, cold cuts, etc), Pasta Mia (Buffalo wings and chicken tenders) , Pita Puff (falafel cakes), Danny's pizza, etc., plus a few things she made - there was way more food than we needed but we had no idea how many to prepare for so we erred on the "too much" side. But it all looked beautiful, and with flowers and nice table cloths and everything it was a very lovely event.  Susie had made a really great display of photos from Stewart's life and I had prepared an 85-photo slide show of Stewart on my computer, which played continuously. The DIRRT band (Damon, Tristan, Ryan and Dennie) played one of Stewart's favorites - Dave Brubeck's Take Five  - over and over. It was exhausting to be on one's feet for over three hours and talking most of the time, but it was well worth it and I think everyone felt good about it.

We left Maggie and Jerry's this morning late - close to noon - and drove to Anamosa, IA, where I went to high school in the 1950s, to visit Betty Remley. Betty is 95, and she was the choir director in my father's church when I was in high school!! She is amazing. Joining us was Bettie Miller, who is the daughter of Parke and Lucille Ogden - whose farm I worked on in the summers of 1947 and 1948. Then in 1949 I became a chauffeur for her grandfather, Dan Umbenhauer, who was himself probably 80 years old that year, but was still a top notch salesman for the Grinnell Glove Company. He had never learned to drive a car and for decades had covered his territory - Iowa, Missouri and Illinois - by bus and train! He got the company to hire me to drive him to all the little towns he had missed over the years because they weren't served by bus or train. I was paid $25 a week, had an expense account, and got to drive 10,000 miles the summer of my 16th year - with a brand new driver's license!  How's that for a job!! Bettie said she has lots of photos of her parents and grand dad - so next time we'll go by her place and look at them. Today we just had a good visit remembering former years.

We left Anamosa at about 5:00pm and drove along Route 30 to Ames. It was very foggy all the way and right now we can hear thunder outside our motel window, and it's raining hard. There was lightning earlier. 

Part of Susie's display of her dad's life

Detail of display

One of my favorite shots - taken on our land in Vermont, about ten years ago. 

Stewart's barbershop quartet Grandfather's Clock in performance
(Elgin, IL is the home of the Elgin Watch Co.)

Brothers

Here are some photos from over the years that sort of speak for themselves. 

Top to bottom:
1. Me and Stewart, taken on our deck in Vermont c. 1987.
2. Me and Stewart, by Como Avenue Congregational Church in Minneapolis, c. 1937-38
3. Stewart and me, location unknown, c. 1936
4. Stewart, Gretchen Almberg, me, Anamosa, IA, c. 1954.
5. Stewart, our mother, and me, Texarkana, Arkansas, c. 1941
6. Stewart and me, Minneapolis, by the church, c. 1938 (note matching sweaters!)

I love you, Stewart!!  What a great brother!

About Stewart

As his daughter, Becky,  said as we were standing around his bedside last night, "When they made dad, they broke the mold." Stewart was indeed a one-of-a-kind person. One indication of his uniqueness is that he willed his body to the University of Iowa Medical School, but on top of that, he requested before he died that we all get into a station wagon with his un-inbalmed corpse and drive it to Iowa City! We're pretty sure that he was remembering the occasion of my mother's death, back in 1967, when we all piled into a station wagon - "we" being my family, Shirley, Betsey, John and myself, and all Stewart's family - Stewart, Maggie, Susie, Peter, Daniel and Becky, and drove to Anamosa, IA for the funeral, with our mother's ashes in an urn. Admittedly, that was a memorable trip!   The kids balked at driving his corpse to Iowa City (we weren't even sure it would be legal! Can you drive a corpse over a state line without a permit?). So the funeral director is driving Stewart's body to Iowa City as I write.

Stewart was insatiably curious about everything. He would preface even the most trivial piece of information with the words, "it's interesting." I think that was a genuine feeling on his part. He was opinionated, stubborn, at times infuriating, but always interesting. And determined!  Our last weekend together, it was agony for him to walk a few steps, he was so short of breath. But nevertheless, by golly, he went out to breakfast with us Saturday morning at Richard Walker's Pancake restaurant with a group of family, went with Ellen and me and his friend Carol out to supper Saturday evening, and over to his daughter Susie's house Sunday evening to watch the Patriots get clobbered by the Ravens (as it turned out). What a trooper!

Stewart had a B.A. from Grinnell College and a Master's Degree in Social Work from the University of Iowa. He served in the U.S. Army as a part of the army of occupation in Germany immediately after WW II ended. He was a school social worker all his professional life in the Elgin (IL) public schools - working with troubled kids and their families. He was an avid barbershop singer. His barbershop quartet probably delivered hundreds of "singing Valentines" to people in the Elgin area over the years. He was a great dad - he and his family took several cross-country camping trips. He and his wife, Maggie, divorced over 30 years ago, but they remained good friends and Maggie and her husband Jerry were there at the bedside all day yesterday right to the end. All these years the family has gathered regularly at Maggie and Jerry's house for get-togethers, and that is where Ellen and I usually stay when we come through Elgin on our trips west. It just happened this time that Jerry was just getting over chemotherapy treatments, and since I had had the flu and his immune system was weak, we decided to stay with Stewart this time - providentially. I am so glad that we had those days together. Ellen even had a chance to fix Stewart a nice Sunday dinner (though she wasn't happy with the meatloaf. But Stewart liked it).

Here is a more recent photo of Stewart with his daughter, Becky.

I've lost my brother

Me and Stewart in 1952

My brother, Stewart, passed away this evening at 8:45pm at St. Joseph Hospital, Elgin, IL. I was there for the last three hours of his life, along with all his family, but even more importantly, we spent this past weekend with him and saw first hand how fragile he had become. He was a wonderful brother all the almost 80 years of my life.

St. Paul

We are in St. Paul, MN - it is COLD! Last night we delivered Cynthia's harp tp harpmaker Pat O'Loughlin in Minneapolis. It needs repairs and Pat was the original maker of the harp. Since we were going to Wyoming anyway, why not carry the harp from VT to MN?

Pat O'Loughlin, his wife and his dog - with Cynthia's harp.

So that's what we did. We'll pick it up on the way back- in what we hope will be like new condition, We're headed for Rapid City, SD today and might get to Alpine by Thursday eve, certainly by Friday, weather permitting. After delivering the harp we met our friend Arleene Sweet for supper at the Good Earth Cafe in Rosedale, MN, joined by her daughter Karen and grandson Travis. Arleene goes way back for me - to college days when she was my roommate David Sweet's girl friend, then wife. David died in 1984. Karen and her husband, Robin, both went to Lawrence where I worked back in the early 70's. I had never met Travis before - he's a handsome and talented twenty-something who works in the area of investigation of Medicare fraud. We briefly visited his very cool condo which is located about three blocks from where  went to grade school in Minneapolis, located in an refurbished Glidden Paint Factory building. Robin (who is a teacher and had to monitor a middleschool basketball.

Just got a call - my brother collapsed last night and is on life support. We're heading back to Elgin.

On another trip

We're back into the blog business!  We have just started a month-long trip to Wyoming and back. We left this morning and traveled over the New York Thruway to Erie, PA, which is where we are tonight. It was an easy trip until just south of Buffalo where we hit blinding snow. We got behind a truck and just followed his taillights, which is all we could see much of the time.

It's pretty late and we're tired, so I'll fill in the details tomorrow.