Home Again

After driving to Columbia, Missouri, the balance of our trip was rather mundane. The most interesting thing I could learn about Columbia was that after four decades in front of the Boone County Courthouse, a Confederate memorial is headed to the Centralia Battlefield (all cap courtesy of the local newspaper there in Columbia). The Boone County Commission voted unanimously on Thursday to move the 11,000 pound red granite rock with a plaque that reads, "To honor the valor and patriotism of Confederate soldiers of Boone County."  I support the removal, no doubt motivated by the atrocity in Charleston last week, on several grounds, but the one that comes to mind is that Missouri wasn't part of the Confederacy, so what, exactly, were those soldiers patriotic about? Oh, well.

When we awoke on Monday morning, it was raining heavily. When we checked the weather predictions, we decided to stay over another day, right there in Columbia. The accommodations there were better than average, and......well, visualize a cartoon car, driving over a cartoon road with a cartoon black cloud filled with thunder and lightening and heavy rain pouring from it, the black cloud staying above the car for the entire day....that, in a nutshell was the weather prediction, except that it wouldn't have been cartoons, it would have been us, in the real world. We stayed overnight again, and departed a touch early on Tuesday morning. We skipped a sight-seeing opportunity we'd planned, and got home about 6 PM, with no hassle. It was a good trip, and it was great to get back home and see Wendy and Rachael and all four cats and two dogs....got a lot of catching up to do though.
Cheers
Eric and Kate