Thoughts and prayers on being a husband and a father
[Follow our road trip here using the tag Road Trip 2019 ]
We left Eureka Springs in the morning and headed for our next destination: Kentucky! I don’t know why we decided to go there, really, I guess we just hadn’t been before.
We found a small farmhouse outside of Lexington. Beautiful and peaceful, and a big yard looking out onto farmland.
[Follow our road trip here using the tag Road Trip 2019 ]
tl;dr: 5 stars! Come visit and enjoy!
This is a review of Gaskin’s Cabin Steakhouse, which we visited on our first night in Eureka Springs. (See “A Week in Eureka Springs” for details on that leg of our trip.) I have never written one of these before, but I was quite impressed and if I’m going to do this ever again, I believe should begin on an up-note!
A small place on the side of a dark road, we missed it at first in the dark. By the time we arrived, unpacked the children, and made it inside, it was 20 minutes to closing. We asked the host “are we too late to get a table?” The response was heart-warming: “You’re right on time!”
We often get second glances when we walk into a restaurant, especially an upscale one, with three small children in tow. I didn’t sense any of that here. (Our children are generally well-behaved, but I have no reason to expect others to know that.) We were taken quickly to our table and the staff was friendly to us and to the littles.
I ordered the Burgundy Mushroom Soup, and it was so fantastic that my wife decided to order her own after tasting mine. Even the girls liked it! I would return for this soup alone.
When the main course arrived, I met one of the best steakhouse rib eyes I have ever encountered. Prime, tender, and cooked perfectly, every bite was better than the last. I was stuffed at the end but I still wanted more. I took a bite of the garlic linguine that we had ordered for the children to share, and I was similarly impressed.
Simply put: I will go out of my way to return here someday.
[Follow our road trip here using the tag Road Trip 2019 ]
It was time to leave the AirBnB we were staying at, but we weren’t sure where we should go next. So, we found a place just an hour or so away, just south of the Arkansas border; a little town called Eureka Springs.
On the way in, we passed a steakhouse that caught our interest. As soon as we found our new place and dropped off the dogs, we headed back out. I’m glad that we did, as it was a fantastic meal. (See Gaskin’s Cabin Steakhouse for more.) It was a bit tough to find in on the dark roads, but it was worth the search.
The next morning, we drove into town. Eureka Springs is a beautiful little town, with lots of shops and places to eat and walk. It is not terribly child-friendly, though. We didn’t see many other families with so many little ones (and a stroller) in tow. The sidewalks are narrow and there are random steps up or down. All the action is along a single street, and there are trolleys that can help you get around, so we were able to overcome those obstacles without too much trouble.
We ate a late breakfast at the Mud Street Annex, located on the main drag. Loved the ambiance and the food. It was situated directly over a creek, with a window in the floor looking down into it. You could tell the tourists versus the locals by who stooped down to look through that window. (Of course, I had to take a look, and a picture!)
[Follow our road trip here using the tag Road Trip 2019 ]
We have been in Springfield, MO for a week and a half now and have decided to extend our stay another few days. Kenieshiear and I really like it here. Also, we’re not sure where we want to go next.
We’ve taken a look at a few houses for sale, and even made an offer on one. That offer fell through, but it’s pretty surprising how much I’m ready to find something. There is a house that I really like and it’s probably in our price range if we finagle a few things. The timing might not be right, though.
[Follow our road trip here using the tag Road Trip 2019 ]
Leaving the central Texas area turned out to be much more difficult than we anticipated. It was as if we had been trapped in a gravitational well or something. It took us an extra couple of hours to get the car packed up, even though we had just packed it to stay at the condo a few days earlier. The plan was to stop by the house to pull some things out of the garage for our tenant; that took longer than anticipated. We didn’t get far until I realized that I had lost my keys; we had to go back to the house to track them down.
Our clan finally got to the highway around 4pm. I had hoped to be on the road by 11am. It meant a night drive and a late night arrival in Springfield. The girls didn’t want to sleep because they were worried about missing out on passing into Missouri, even though that was hours away. We still had to get out of Texas and go through Oklahoma first! We had 9 and a half hours of road time, and every stop added at least 30 minutes on top of that.
It took a while to get out of Texas and into Oklahoma. By the time we crossed the border, it was dark. Kenieshiear had hoped to stop by a little Amish shop off the side of the road, but they were closed. We did get to see the casinos all lit up in their garish fashion, though.
Driving through Oklahoma was long and boring. Not much to look at during the day, and less at night. It did give me an opportunity to think and mentally compose this post. My family slept and I thought and drove. I think the worst part was the low speed limit. Whenever we drove through a small town, the limit would drop to 45 or less for a mile or two and that threw off pace by more than I expected.
There is an Interstate that would have avoided these issues. That would have had us swinging out of the way and wouldn’t have saved any time. We wouldn’t have had the opportunity to laugh when the lady at Taco Bell commented “Spending that FAFSA money, huh?” It wouldn’t have been as much fun.
After several hours in Oklahoma, we finally made it to a toll road with decent speed limits and were shortly after that entering Missouri. Just a couple of hours to go! At this point, everybody was asleep, though Kenieshiear would wake up and ask me if I was okay every time we hit a bump in the road.
I was pretty tired, so I don’t remember too much to add for this leg of the trip. We safely made it to our airbnb around 3ish. By the time we got the children and dogs and stuff out of the car, it was 4ish. The children work us up at 7ish.
More updates to come.
[I know my last post (from December!) was about a road trip, and I have a never-published recap of that trip, but I really intend to do a better job with updates this time around!]
[Follow our road trip here using the tag Road Trip 2019 ]
We are off on another grand adventure! We are really going all-in this time, too. We have leased out our house and are in the process of buying a condo not too far away, but that hasn’t closed yet and will probably not close for another month or so. In the meantime, we are going nomadic, packing the dogs, children, and all of our necessities into the family car.
Our first stop will be Missouri, but that’s about the end of our planning.
At the moment, we are spending a few nights in the condo we have put an offer on. The views are magnificent, and I have been working from the balcony. We will be packing up and heading north soon!
I previously wrote that we were going on an impromptu road trip. I was planning on doing updates here as our road trip progressed. That didn’t work out as planned. We kept so busy and I didn’t end up pulling my laptop out very much at all. The one memorable time that I did was to edit my wife’s first podcast episode! (I’m so proud of her.)
Kenieshiear and I were up the entire night before we left. We packed up for ourselves and the children, and then packing up the car. We drive a huge boat of an SUV, with three rows and a large cargo area (even with the third row up), and we also had a pod on the roof for more stuff. The car was packed to the brim. A crate for our dogs took up a lot of space in the back.
The plan was to get on the road around 5 am, but we were way too tired to leave that early. We ended up getting hitting the road closer to 10 or 11. The first leg of the trip was to Springfield, MO, where we had an Air BnB waiting for us. Total on-the-road time was just over 10 hours, but because we had to stop often, and every stop lasted at least an hour, the drive took much longer, and we arrived quite late.
The children were fantastic, though. They were so well-behaved, and they had a lot of fun listening to music, playing games and such. As it got later, they all slept well in their car seats. The dogs did well, also; there were several times that I forgot that they were even back there.
Next week, we’re packing up the children and the dogs. We are heading out on a grand adventure to see the winter. To begin, we’re heading north into the plains. We will spend a week at a house in Missouri. I will be working from there, because I don’t have any PTO left. It is not the best scenario, but I will make it work!
It is the first extended trip we’ll do as a family since my youngest was born, and it is the first ever with the dogs. I’m still iffy about the dogs, to be honest. My wife thinks it’ll work out just fine, though, and I trust her.