2024 Midwest Trip - Day 2
After attempting to get a good night's sleep (after a 17 hour day of travel!), it was a day of getting mom out of the house!
During Iowa's recent snowstorm, my sister, had been unable to get the snowblower started. (It's almost a necessity to have a snowblower or some type of snow plow to clear your drive! After wrestling with the snow blower for a time, I was able to get it started. (Although, they don't need it now! Isn't that Murphy's Law?!?!)
Our first stop - which was for lunch - was to eat at one of my favorite places: Maid-Rites. While I would attempt to explain what a Maid-Rite is, it wouldn't make any sense unless you've actually had one (or two). My order? "Two wet ones with everything and a strawberry malt." Allow me to translate:
"Wet one" - on the greasy side of things
"With everything" - A traditional Maid-Rite only comes with the following: pickles, mustard, and onions. They have, over the past 20+ years been "perverted." You can now order them with cheese. They have also placed ketchup at the counter if you desire to "desecrate" them.
"Strawberry Malt" - While this is fairly self-explanatory, these malts are still made the old fashioned way!
I had a good laugh with my mom while we were eating. Now, Maid-Rites cost almost $6 a sandwich (Notice the sign above - $8.75 for a meal.) but I remember, when I was a kid, how my dad would "complain" about how expensive Maid-Rites were...at $1.75 a sandwich! Ah, the good 'ole days!
Then, it was off to Great Clips! When I asked my mom what she wanted to do, the only thing that she actually requested is that she go and have her hair done. I gladly obliged. We were in and out of Great Clips fairly quickly and on with the rest of our day.
I won't bore you with the details but we got all of her grocery shopping done at Hy-Vee where "there's a helpful smile in every aisle!"
When we left WalMart (after picking up batteries for mom's smoke detectors), I was reminded of how harsh the Iowa winter months are on vehicles. I was parked right next to an almost identical Chevy Colorado. Look at the pictures below. Notice the difference?
A number of years ago, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources reintroduced bald eagles to the Marshalltown area. On the way out of town and back to my mom's house, we spotted a bald eagle sitting up in an old tree. It seemed as though he was keeping an eye on the ground below waiting for lunch. They certainly are beautiful and majestic creatures.
One of our other stops during the day was to Thompson's True Value hardware store to pick up the supplies I need to repair the hinges on a couple of pieces of my mother's antique furniture. My parents brought several pieces, including the buffet in the picture below, home with them from Germany after my father's Air Force deployment there was completed.
Until next time...
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