As my husband drove, we (me, the hubby and our two dogs Sweet Pea and Hank) settled into what turned out to be a thirteen hour monotonous adventure, punctuated by outbursts on FB regarding the things I observed along the route. What follows are my thoughts and remarks.
Sometime early on the morning of May 6th, on highway 54 east of Liberal, Kansas:
"Driving down the road with DK, SP and Hank. Going to look at a boat. DK has decided that we can get better mileage out of the motor home if we have some drag."
I stumbled upon this field of wind turbines as we raced towards our objective. Note that we were moving far faster than those spinning blades as I rushed to grab this pic. The old man wasn't stopping to see the results of wind power.
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| Somewhere in SW Kansas on a May Morning |
Of course, once I posted it all I could think about was a different word for "tall". So I updated that to include possible replacements of Gigantic, Delicate and Billowy - and billowy only came to mind when I tried to figure out how to spell willowy - for which my spell checker did not approve.
A bit later, after stopping for the dogs to stretch and pee (along with the old man) I spotted a gaggle of turkey (is it gaggle - no that is geese - crap now I have to go look it up). I did. You won't believe it - as we plowed past Meade Kansas and the Dalton Gang hideout - the name for a group of turkey is a Posse or a Gang! You cannot make this stuff up.
Anyway, we made it to the location of the antique pontoon boat (right? anything older than 25 years is an antique - so sayeth my dad), but the guy wasn't home. For the fifth time that day I asked my husband, "did you talk to this guy after he sent you that email this morning?" NO!, but only after DK, in a slightly raised voice, showed me how he spoke to him the day before, and I, in a slightly raised voice, showed him how the guy emailed after they talked - sigh - did we realize the dude wasn't going to show for at least two more hours. We hauled our taters nearly 300 miles and he wanted us to hang out in Brookville Kansas (look it up - we had to) waiting for him to get home and show us what a great boat he has for sale. So DK called, and the guy said we could look at the boat. We tracked it to a makeshift shed, and DK could barely restrain his enthusiasm as he scrambled (as you become acquainted with DK you will learn these are two adjectives that usually do not describe the man) up the rickety ladder to walk the deck of his future possession. I, on the other hand walked slowly around the boat, looking for every ding and dang that would concern someone about to dole out a lot of money for a prized antique - you know - looking for those marks that indicate value or devaluation - and started to worry. I knew the seller wanted to be there so that he could navigate around those concerns, and I was glad he wasn't.
Less than five minutes of inspection I asked "What are you thinking?" and he responded "I am going to offer $4000." Gulp. "Honey" I said gently, "take another look around this boat. Really LOOK at it. Think about how much work you were planning to put into fishing, and how much work you were planning to put into dry dock repairs; because, honey, I think the latter is in your future."
Another 20 minutes and he called the guy up and made him an offer I am grateful to tell you the guy refused.
Implement Plan B:
Okay, so now we are headed to Stockton Kansas north of Hays to look at another boat, cause DK's wife had a bad feeling the only good thing about this one is the picture. Don't need to be towing a white elephant was my comment upon inspection of this "great buy".I think I will leave everyone hanging with that teaser, because you don't want to miss the next installment of The Great Boat Quest.
