Well, buckle my bible belt! That's a WHOLE lotta Kansas.

Where to begin?  I'll start my Thanksgiving road trip in Phoenix, where I was violently ill the week before Thanksgiving.  An anaphylactic reaction to something I ate inflated my face like a Macy's parade float and gave me hives all over my arms and face, which not only got flushed and raging hot, but excessively itchy (of course), so that my top layer of skin was cooked like a Thanksgiving Day turkey  The swelling went down by Thanksgiving, so that I only looked a little bit pudgy, but my arms are still massively itchy.  I'm starting to suspect sulfites in wine/champagne.  I've been down this road before, and I think my next stop will be a return to the allergist/dermatologist to track down whatever is trying to kill me.

Meanwhile....I packed up the doggies and all my sh..stuff, plus some stuff for my sister and took it all the way to Missouri.  Yes, I did.  I made the mistake of thinking it would be more relaxing if I went slower and made it an adventure, but I don't think slow and adventurous is in my nature -- I just wanted to get into my car and get to my destination -- dragging it out didn't help.  

Lola visits NoWhere, MO: lock up your cows.

 Ate, laughed, drank through Turkey Day, then got back in the car and zoomed West.  Way West this time -- 12 hours to Albuquerque.  And we (me and the doggies) are all pooped and even crankier than usual.  Okay, mostly me.  (Can we talk about idiots that sit in the left lane and SLOWLY creep up on the trucks going .1 mph slower in the right lane, so that when I need to get over to pass, I can't?  Okay, I'm done.)

 

And one of my favorite things: Yes, it's my very own town!  

I've always wanted one.   

Today, a small part of Missouri, 

tomorrow, the WORLD!!!!!  

Mmmmmmwwwwhhhhhaaaaaaa!

Me after 9 hours of KS.

I spent about 9 hours of today's 12-hour drive in Kansas.  The land of Oz is about 8000 miles across if you go diagonally.  (Luckily, US 54 goes all the way across Kansas, 10 seconds of Oklahoma, about an hour of Texas, and right into New Mexico.) 

Yes, Kansas all looks pretty much like the photo at the right here -- a whole lotta flat.  I missed some of my favorite you'll-go-to-Hell-if-you-don't-find-Jesus billboards (it's hard to work my phone camera while blasting down the highway at 75ish and trying not to rear-end semis), so I started taking silo pics (they're easy to spot WAY ahead of time, so I could turn on the camera). Plus, they're about the most exciting thing in the landscape.

 Gimme a "K..."

Gimme an "A..."

Gimme an "N..."

Gimme an "S..."

(Okay, so I was still rushed at times.)

Gimme an "A..."

Gimme an "S...."

Yes, that's a WHOLE lot o' KANSAS!!!!!

I ran out of letters before photos.

But wait, there's more!

And MORE...

And more...

Yep.

Still more.

And trust me, that ain't the half of them.  

You know, when you look at them all together like this, I kind of like them.  The bug juice is a bonus.  (I'll clean the windshield later.)


Shoot, I forgot two of my best photos!  Here they are.

Tractor line up.

And cattle call.  Hard to tell from this photo, but there were acres and acres of cows.  Really.  HUGE.  Everything from the fence to the horizon is cows.  In, where else?  Texas.




So I finally get out of frickin' Kansas and through Texahoma (seriously), and enter New Mexico, Land of Enchantment, where, after hours and hours of two-lane highway 54, I was rewarded by this view for about 1.5 hours:

New Mexico - Land of I-Can't-See-the Road

But then, thankfully, darkness fell and I had this view.  Much better, yes?

 

Anyway, I'll be home and itching at my own house in Phoenix tomorrow.  The doggies and I will be super happy.  (Lola is currently guarding all of us at LaQuinta by alternately pacing and staring really hard at the door, so she's probably going to be tired.)  Speaking of which, I'ma go soak.  We'll talk about the whole getting-back-in-shape thing later.

Where my massage at?

Post script:

Well, the drive from Albuquirky to PHX was interesting.  It started out WINDY.  Then we went through cloudy with blowing snow.  Then it was beautiful and sunny with fluffy white clouds -- see the last-described weather at left.

 THEN, I ran into a blizzard and a line of traffic that crawled along for about 20 miles and delayed me more than an hour....see right.

Follwed by...you guessed it:  gorgeous sunny weather as shown at right.  All within a few hours.  I love Arizona.

Persistent sub-q squidge and how it must die an ugly death.

I've had the blog-ity-blahs again.  Just not feelin' it for a while -- busy and feeling very un-funny.  But, here I am in my new PJs on a Sunday morning (nothing makes you feel better than some new PJs and about 10 hours of sleep), and I'm ready to blog.

112.6 today, and it's been, what, about a month on the WWJWD program?  So it's not a fluke and I've been holding my own pretty well.  Halloween is always a b!tch and there are still some mini Snickers calling me faintly from the dining room.  I think I ate like 5 last night -- kind of lost it.  I tend to do better at Thanksgiving and Christmas than Halloween -- those holidays are more quantity issues and less sugar.  But then you can't work out for two months because you're so busy going to parties and buying gifts, making gifts, wrapping gifts and delivering gifts....  Oh, and let's not forget the holiday letter and photo shoot, etc.  Dang, I'm stressed just writing about it now.

Where was I?  I still have a lot of old-lady squidge on top of my P90X muscles, but I'm workin' on that.  When Ena is not available to Bring It (Canyon rafting trips and back problems have put a temporary kaibosh on Bringin' It), I have been Skyping strength training workouts with my sister, who, it turns out, doesn't even complain about 60 push ups, 60 lunges, and 100 Mason Twists (it's a P90X move) in one work out.  And we can go through everything pretty quickly without Tony's P90Yackin', and be done in about 30-40 minutes and move on to a glass of champagne and a chat while we surf the web for shit-we-don't-need.

So that's it for the squidge-loss program -- you are up to date.  I'm still deciding on the proper banner for the blog at this point.  I no longer need to lose "10 pounds" of mid-life squidge, but I still need to lose more squidge, because it persists, kind of all over.  I lost lots of the belly fat, but, as I mentioned last blog, still have a layer of sub-q squidge (possible new banner?: "Losing that last sub-q squidge."?) making me look very middle frickin' aged.  So I'm still a bit unsatisfied and still determined to get rid of a little more of it.  I think I'm on the right track, though, with this whole, eating right and exercising thing.

I'ma leave you with some Halloween happiness.