Oklahoma is OK, Part Two

I left off as we were arriving at Oral Roberts University.  It was near Tulsa but a bit more outside the city.  As we approached we could see a couple tall buildings with nothing else around them.  One ended up being a casino tower along the river, and the other ended up being the tallest of a complex of three buildings directly across from the campus.  I can't adequately express how weirdly tall the big building looked here.  It's apparently 60 stories, rivaling each of the tallest downtown buildings in Tulsa and Oklahoma City.  Apparently this complex (note the pyramid at the base) was built to be a hospital and medical school for Oral Roberts, but both of those things shut down decades ago and there are medical offices and other tenants there now.  But they matched the campus with their gold accents, which we were about to discover were everywhere, and just added to the surreal nature of the entire area, as you will soon see.

As we entered the campus itself, I immediately started laughing hysterically because we both realized it looked like something out of the Jetsons!  Zoom into the picture below and you'll see what I mean.
 

We drove around the basketball arena and the similar attached building called the Global Learning Center. 

Beyond that was a relatively normal, modern looking building, the Mike Carter Athletic Center, which seems to have training facilities for basketball and other sports.  It appears to be relatively new because it was still listed as "Coming Soon" on a campus map I found.

As we drove further we saw the church, which was definitely more of that spacey 60s look.

Near one of the entrances to campus was this giant praying hands sculpture that is touted as a major local landmark.

We drove up to a security kiosk and were sad to find out that pretty much everything on campus was closed because it was Good Friday, but they did give us a pass to park and walk around.  We saw these dorms on our way to the lot.  Again, weird and Jetson-y, right?  Each of those dark corners appeared to be a tiny balcony.

On the other side there were two three-winged dorms that had this wacky chain decor on the outside of the building.  It almost looked like giant gold chain mail draped over outdoor stairwells.  I wish I had gotten a better picture.  The gold really was everywhere.

Then we saw the baseball stadium.  It was certainly less grand than the ones we'd already seen over the past 24 hours, but it too stuck to the campus theme. 

We finally parked and started getting a better view of the rest of the campus.  This building appears to be the main academic building, all 900,000 square feet of it.  It was huge and had a lot of shiny gold accents.  Apparently Oral Roberts was a prosperity gospel guy and liked the luxury the gold conveyed.  I was trying to figure out what this building reminded me of, and I think it may have been the M&T Bank building in downtown Buffalo, which has the same sort of high arches.

Near the parking lot was a more modern building, the student center.  Despite the differing styles, it still somehow worked.  I guess ultra modern has the same tendency toward weird angles, too.

The centerpiece of campus was the Prayer Tower.  I don't even have words to describe how striking and bizarre it was to see in person.  It was quite the architectural feat and about the gaudiest thing I could imagine seeing on a Christian college campus.

The gardens beneath it were amazing.  They were sunken behind the tower, and were beautifully manicured--made even better by the beautiful day and blooming spring.  I can't even express how gorgeous the weather was that day.

From beneath, the tower was quite a sight.  Appropriate we were there on Good Friday since the spikes are meant to symbolize the crown of thorns that Jesus wore.  

You can't really tell, but there is an eternal flame atop the tower, and of course, lots more gold!  Within the gardens below were benches and some art.  

This one looked like Jesus ascending and appeared to be carved out of a tree trunk. 

We made our way across the walkway above the gardens to get a better look at this oddball, the auditorium.  It looked like something that belonged more in EPCOT than a college campus. 

Around the backside of the tower there was an entrance to go up in the tower, but alas, Good Friday closed that, too.  Shouldn't Good Friday be a prime day to use the Prayer Tower for its intended purpose?!

As we continued to wander, we found this goose.  I think it was sitting on a nest.  We kept our distance, but what a strange place to nest, right next to the walkway!  

The main academic building had this funky fountain on its patio that matched the extreme point on the corner of the building.  If you look close, there's an eternal flame here too.

The grounds really were immaculate, which actually made me a little nervous when we walked across the grass.  I remember hearing of another conservative Christian school that had strict rules about that.  I think it was Grove City?  Speaking of rules, we did some research later and found out that dress codes here weren't relaxed until 2000.  Everyone used to have to dress up for class, and finally they made concessions for women to not wear skirts in cold weather, then relaxed the code a bit further to allow for business casual attire.  Jeans weren't allowed until 2006!
 

I found it interesting that the Hobby Lobby founder was immortalized on campus, until I found out Hobby Lobby is headquartered in Oklahoma City and the family bailed the school out of massive debt in the early 2000s.

Here's another sculpture in another part of the sunken gardens.  It's Jesus talking to two students.  I'll be honest, I really had to hold off from sitting next to Jesus and taking a selfie.  The half-open bench lent itself to it, but it felt wrong somehow, especially on Good Friday.

We finished up our walk and headed back to the car, super happy we came and still in shock how odd the campus was.  The drive back got a little complicated because the planned hour-and-a-half route had tolls and I wasn't sure how that would work with the rental car.  I didn't want to get hammered for a toll violation for not having a proper tag or transponder, so I had the GPS route us without tolls.  That made the trip a half hour longer and full of country roads, but we did get to travel on historic Route 66 for a bit.  Other than a giant gas pump that I didn't get a picture of (look here), it was pretty unremarkable, but I guess it was neat in its own way to go through some of those small towns that were part of early American automobile history (as I learned from my American Landscapes professor in college who studied that stuff).  We stopped to get subs at Firehouse on our way back and went back to the hotel for the night.  I watched my parents' Good Friday service online while Jacob went with his team to scout teams they were playing the next day.

We were up bright and early on Saturday for an 8am game.  The facilities were both nice.  One had three courts, the other had four.  We lost our first game by 14, went with part of the team to Chick-fil-A for a late breakfast/early lunch, and went to the other facility to watch one of the older teams.  Jacob went with his teammates for a while leading up to the second game, and I was able to grab Panda Express for lunch because they have tons of freestanding (non-mall) locations there.  I have missed it, and it was a nice change of pace from the places we'd been eating on repeat.  We lost the next game by four.  We had a long break after that and spent some time back at the hotel.  Jacob got Chipotle for a late lunch/early dinner and hung out with some teammates for a while.  Our next game wasn't until 9pm so we had time to kill.  I ended up just eating leftover pizza in the room for dinner before heading to the game.  That one was a toughie, as we were playing a team that was in the top-level Pro16 that we're trying to get to.  That looks unlikely now, as we lost yet again.  We hung with them for a bit but in the end we just couldn't finish, and that seemed to be a theme for these first two tournaments as a whole.  We put up a really good effort, but in the end something always rattles us and the other team goes on a run we can't quite recover from.

 

After the game we had a long parent/player meeting that went over a lot of things--including some upcoming additional expectations of the players, including more lifting.  I admittedly internally panicked a bit because Jacob is already struggling a bit to keep up with his homework, get enough sleep, and take care of the basketball side.  I can't quite fathom how he will do more, particularly early morning workouts.  It all sounds great to him in theory, until he doesn't finish his work, has to stay up late, and can't wake up in the morning just to get to school, let alone to lift.  I warned him that if he doesn't change his habits he's going to burn the candle at both ends and will end up doing more harm than good.  I think his ADHD messes with his head in a way that he knows what he needs to do and wants to do it, but he procrastinates and gives in to his preference in the moment to stay up or watch another YouTube video, and the cycle starts all over again.  Talking through this turned into a whole big argument that night which did neither of us any good.  In addition, I expressed my concern with how we were going to make this work for additional seasons (especially since it doesn't seem they will rank high enough to get travel covered next year) and that I worry we'll offset any good that future scholarships might do by paying all this money for travel.  I'm honestly not sure how we might continue to make it work and it worries me...which in turn worried him because he doesn't want to lose this opportunity.  It's really something I need to talk through with Craig, but it all sort of spewed out that night and made a mess of things.  I didn't sleep and he was unhappy, so we were not in a great place by Sunday morning.  My apology seemed to help a little, but I'm not sure it was enough to get his head on straight for the last game.

We lost yet another game to a previously winless team that morning, which left us winless for the tournament.  We will definitely be relegated to a lower pool for the next tournament, which is a big one.  To even have a shot at reaching an elite level, we'd have to win eight games straight.  Right now we've lost seven straight...so...not good.  To be fair, we haven't really had a full team.  Last week one kid was sick and Jacob missed three of four games--the one he played we won, at least.  But this weekend we were missing one kid who had flight issues and another who was on a spring break trip, and in the end we lost all four.  We weren't playing like a team, and Jacob only ended up with two threes in the entire tournament.  He had a good number of shots, too, but they just weren't falling.  It was hard to watch, I'll be honest.  His confidence is down and his ankle is still bothering him (more on that in my next post).  Not enough to not play, but he worries about playing without his brace and yet hates playing with it.  He doesn't get much bounce on his shots and it's throwing him off.  They want him to play for the slightly younger regional team this weekend, just to try to get back in the groove.  But he seemed to come home with a cold and was extra tired from all the early mornings, and due to various ailments and other issues he missed two additional days of school when we got home, in addition to missing the last day before break and the first day back for travel.  I won't lie, it's all been a bit of a nightmare to manage because he's just behind on everything and can't seem to right himself.  It's making me second-guess everything.  He can't ease up on school but we also can't eliminate basketball because keeping his grades up for scholarships is his main motivator right now.  But I wouldn't be against pulling back from this team and going regional, just to take a little of the pressure off.  I'm sure he won't be down with that, but I'm not sure how he's going to get back on track because something has to give.

Anyway, the tournament was over, but we still had some trip left.  That last part definitely wasn't our finest moment, but I tried to make the best of it.  Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion, coming soon...

Oklahoma is OK, Part One

I'm not going to lie--hopping back on a plane two days after getting back from our epic 15-1/2 hour roadtrip was a LOT.  I sometimes go five years between airplane trips, and this time it was less than a week.  It was mentally exhausting to go back through my luggage and edit the leftovers from last weekend for this next trip.  As much as I have been eager for this trip in particular, my brain was really struggling to get on board.  I think the exhaustion, the work stress, missing Carter (again), and the unknowns with Jacob (both his ankle and the teenage attitude) all conspired to make it hard to work up the energy for this round.  We had another late night before our flight, which only made matters worse.  Jacob had his year-end dinner for Varsity basketball at 6pm, but it was a bit of a flop because he couldn't eat at the restaurant, parents weren't invited, and he could only stay a little while anyway because he had practice from 7-9.  Once he got home from practice, he still had to finish packing, ice his ankle, and do his leg therapy with this giant boot contraption he uses.  I knew getting him up would be hard, and it was.  But even I struggled to drag myself out of bed...but I guess that's not unexpected at 3am.  

We got going a little later than would have been ideal, but still got through security just fine.  This plane was our smallest yet, with one seat on one side and two on the other.  Jacob really had to duck to get into the plane and he was seriously unimpressed with that flight because the plane was tiny and didn't have WiFi.  That first flight on our last trip--with screens and WiFi--really spoiled him.  We took off before dawn, and this was the view once we were up in the air.  Thick blanket of clouds and the approaching sunrise.  

Those clouds were the leftovers from yet another rough round of weather.  It rained a bunch in Rochester the day before, and there had even been a tornado threat that day, but it ended up being just a lot of rain.  The rest of the midwest got hammered again, but luckily it had passed by our route by the time we left.  It was a little hard to get my bearings once we were in the air because of the clouds, but then we caught sight of the Great Lakes as the clouds began to clear.  I saw both Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, but I think this was the eastern side of Lake Michigan.  It looked so huge and ocean-like from above.

As we approached Chicago, I caught this shot of the pink moon.

I could only grab a picture of Chicago itself from across the aisle.  It always amazes me how big it is.

We ended up having a slightly longer layover than expected.  Our flight was never listed as delayed, but it took off more than a half hour late.  That flight was a bit of a mixed bag--it was two seats per side, so a little bigger but not big enough for Jacob's tastes.  It did have WiFi and entertainment options, but no screens, and it's pretty uncomfortable to look down at your phone that long.  I managed to watch a movie I've wanted to see for years, "Crazy Rich Asians", so that was cool and it passed the time nicely.  But I was really eager to get off the plane, get our car, and get this show on the road.

This cowboy statue greeted us as we left the airport and headed to the rental car lot.

There were also oil wells on the airport property en route to the rental car lot, so it was pretty clear we were officially in Oklahoma!  We were fortunate to get an upgrade on our car due to a shortage of smaller cars (GPS, SiriusXM, and a sun roof!) and headed out for lunch in our new ride.  We once again did Chipotle, this time in Norman, OK.  We picked that one because it was down the road from the University of Oklahoma, which we decided to check out while we were down in that part of the city.  

That campus ended up being really impressive.  The stadium was huge!  This is just one angle but hopefully you can see how high the seats go.  

The training center across the way was also huge, and they had statues along the road.  

We passed the basketball arena...

And marveled at how giant the baseball stadium was.  It looked like a minor league stadium!  Even the smaller softball stadium was impressive.

This was the other side of the football stadium.  So huge!

The campus as a whole was interesting.  It was very well branded...right down to the water tower!

There were a bunch of older buildings, a bunch of newer ones, and a handful of in-betweens.  The older ones were lovely and looked a lot like this. 

Jacob was somewhat obsessed with the frat houses because they all had basketball courts outside!  Some of the houses near the campus were impressive, and the area around it was an older but classy part of town.  We considered trying to find other colleges that afternoon, but figured out they were all too far away, so we headed back north to our hotel.  Once again we stopped at a nearby Walmart to grab snacks and kill time until check in.  We settled in for a bit and then eventually tackled the dinner decision.  We decided to go to a pizza place down the road that had great gluten-free reviews.  They specialize in Detroit-style pizza, which was a new one for us.  We started with some breadsticks which were surprisingly good...and they were so filling that once our pizza came we could only eat one slice each!

Pretty sure Jacob can't remember a crust this thick, ever!  It was soft and fluffy in the middle, with a perfect crisp on the edges.

The pizza was different with the sauce being on top, and probably not our preference, but it was still amazingly good.  Crispy pepperoni, and a crust that defied its gluten-free state.  Plus, we got to write a review on the gluten-free app and get a free order of cinnamon breadsticks to go!  Those were really good, too.  The place was cool--one of a few places surrounding this little courtyard for outdoor dining and lawn games--and the owner was so nice.  He has Celiac himself and was determined to do good pizza.  What a cool find...and a nice break from our usual top four!

The next morning we planned to get a good breakfast because Jacob found a place that had gluten-free French toast, a rarity.  The place was just a little bit down the road, and we were shocked how busy it was when we got there.  It was Good Friday, so maybe more people had off, but the place was packed.  We had to wait about 15 minutes for a table, but it was worth it!

The food was amazingly good.  I had an eggs benedict, and Jacob had really lovely French toast with fruit, whipped cream, and maple cream.

We loved our meals and wished it was feasible and affordable to go there every day!  As we sat there, Jacob said that he decided he wanted to go to Tulsa after all.  Originally if we had stayed the full week we were going there on our way to OKC.  When our plans changed I figured we probably couldn't go, but once we got our Sunday schedule I figured it might be possible to cram it in after our only game that day.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was probably better to do it Friday, because we had more time and it wouldn't leave Jacob sitting idle in the hotel room for hours after our planned shorter day in the city.  It was a huge sacrifice/risk for me, because I have been hellbent on getting to my sightseeing spots on this trip--even booking us an extra day--and putting it off could potentially put that in jeopardy if things didn't go as planned for the remainder of the trip.  But I decided to just have faith and give it a shot because Jacob finally showed an interest in something touristy!  So, we wrapped up breakfast and hopped in the car for an impromptu drive to Tulsa!  

We went via Stillwater, about 50 minutes away, which is the home of Oklahoma State University.  Once again, there was an assortment of impressive stadiums.  This was the baseball stadium.

This is the football stadium.  It was not quite as grand as the University of Oklahoma's, but it was still really huge and nice.

The basketball arena was attached to the back end of the stadium, effectively blocking the open end of the stadium.

The rest of the campus was less interesting.  Not too many fancy buildings or statement pieces, but still nice.  One of the cooler things about the town was that two locations of a collision shop on either side of town have giant 20-foot Transformer statues outside.  One was Bumblebee, one was Optimus Prime.  I didn't get pictures but Google it!  So cool!

We moved on to Tulsa, and stopped first at the University of Tulsa.  This campus was...odd.  Part of it was bland but pleasant.  Similar looking buildings, sort of boring but very nice-looking nonetheless.  Almost a little Stepford-wife-ish, if that makes sense.  The front quad was immaculate.  

The stadium was the least impressive we'd seen, but still not small.

The basketball facility could have used some branding or wraps outside the building.  Jacob was shocked at how little Tulsa branded stuff there was.

This building appeared to be a performing arts building, and it was pretty grand with the arches. 

The most interesting part of the campus were the two streets of Greek housing that looked like they had been plopped there randomly.  Each house was different, from little cottages to mid-century to more modern split levels, each one a vastly different style than its neighbors.  It was sort of quaint but Jacob found it unimpressive (of course).  

This was a pretty view near the chapel on our way out.  

We stopped for lunch at Chick-fil-A after that.  There was one nearby (of course) and we needed to eat before our big stop--Oral Roberts University!  Jacob has followed Oral Roberts basketball for a while and he really wanted to see their campus.  That one really needs its own post, as this one is already pretty long and that campus was out of this world (almost literally...you'll see what I mean).  Stay tuned for more!

Change of Plans

The night I published my last post, I was laying in bed pondering this whole crazy mess of a trip, still trying to figure out how to make things work--whether it was finding a way to come home in the middle or to feed and chauffeur Jacob as needed if we stayed the week.  Both seemed equally impossible.  I mean, I try really hard to be flexible and make things work, but Jacob...does not.  Expecting him to eat sandwiches for lunch every day and knowing our dinners would be the same handful of places on repeat, I just wasn't sure how we'd make it work to his satisfaction.  It was a long time away, and either way it would be expensive.  As I laid there, something popped into my head: if I was doing a one-way car rental from Springfield to Oklahoma City, why couldn't I just do one from Springfield to Rochester and drive home?  I did a few quick searches, and it turned out that the rental would be pretty comparable what hotels would cost if we stayed the week, the flights we'd have to book to Oklahoma City would be about equal to the week-long car rental, and the cost for the other weekend car rental plus gas to drive home would be in the realm of what food would likely cost for the week.  So, in the end, it wouldn't be significantly more expensive to come home, and it would win points with Jacob and take off some stress on me.  It was ironic that originally the long trip felt like a stress relief to not have to worry about two sets of flights, but in the end, this solution felt like a reliever of its own.  In the end the one rental ended up more expensive (Travelocity is corrupt and posts low prices only to suck you in and raise the price as you're trying to complete the transaction--happened twice!), but it was still worth it.  Especially considering how the weekend actually went.  But more on that in a bit.

The downsides to this plan, however, were the extra long drive back and the fact that it completely crushed my plan for work.  I had planned on a full work day Monday from the hotel to finish some data that was due at the end of that day, but instead that was now going to be a full day of driving.  I'd get two full days at work before we left for our next trip Thursday, but that was too late for that deadline.  I'd also have a boatload of emails to sort through after all of these full days off instead of a bunch of half days like I planned.  I was just going to have to commit to working as much as possible at the hotel to get everything done...but even then it was a crapshoot if I ran into issues or our hotel time didn't work out as planned.  My boss told me to do what I had to do, so I booked it, unpacked half my suitcase, and worked through all of the new plans in between two long days of in-person work, complete with on-campus events that prevented me from getting further on the work I needed to do or working through trip details on my lunch.  It was too much to do in a very short period of time.  I worked late at home on Thursday to get myself the head start I needed, which meant less sleep before an early flight, but Jacob had late practice anyway so it probably would have happened that way regardless.  

Oh, and I forgot to mention that in the middle of all of this, Carter had some mystery ailment going on.  He'd had a cold for over a week and the congestion was just hanging in there.  Around Tuesday we noticed something that seemed a bit like a rash between his mouth and nose, but it looked more like pimples.  But they were multiplying.  First there were three, then there were a few more the next day, and then four more tiny ones showed up after his shower that night.  All I could figure was that when that area got mucus from sneezes and nose blowings, maybe it was irritating it.  We treated it with hydrocortisone, but it didn't seem to help.  When a couple of them sort of crusted over overnight with pus (like a really bad whitehead pimple) I worried something was up.  My Google search results went from all "perioral dermatitis" to "impetigo" so I called the doctor and we got him in.  The doctor wasn't sure but thought it looked enough like impetigo to treat it that way.  He gets really dry skin in that area so my new theory was that there was a tiny crack in the skin and bacteria happened to make its way in.  I was worried my parents may not want to keep him for the weekend while Craig was traveling because it can be caused by staph and I didn't want him spreading that to them, but the antibiotics and ointment worked quickly and everything was fading even by that first night.  But yikes.  I'm glad we caught it.  Now he just has a couple spots left that need to fade a bit more.

We were up around 3:15 to leave for the airport around 4:15.  It ended up being about 4:30, but not half bad.  Carter had to get loaded into the van fresh from bed so we didn't leave him alone while Craig dropped us off.  Poor kid...and he'll have to do it again this week and again in three weeks.  Sorry dude.  We got through security smoothly (other than Jacob forgetting a water bottle in his bag from the night before...oops!) and we were in the air by around 6:30.  I tried to get a trip-starting selfie, but this was all he'd give me.  Teenagers are great.

The first plane was amazing.  We had our own screens and WiFi, and everything seemed really nice and new.  I watched "You've Got Mail" on mine, then watched the flight tracker for the last few minutes.  Jacob watched an ESPN documentary.  It was so nice!  Our first leg went into Atlanta, which was our first time back there since Jacob was four.  We only had an hour layover, but by the time we got off the plane, went to the bathroom, walked to the next terminal, stopped into Starbucks to get snacks (I had to skip coffee because the line was so long to fulfill orders), our second-to-last boarding group was already boarding when we got to the gate.  Ugh.  But there was room for our bags and we had seat assignments, so all was well.  Except that the plane was not nearly as nice--no screens and pretty old.  But at least we only had two seats on our side, so no strangers next to us.  But of course Jacob was bored.  He listened to music and tried to sleep but he did not enjoy that flight very much.  I was very relaxed as I listened to music and rested my eyes, chilling out for the first time in what seemed like days.  We did get to see this view of Atlanta, though, complete with the odd-shaped football stadium on the left.  I'm pretty sure I saw what used to be Turner Field where we saw the Braves play, but missed the picture.  It has since been converted to Georgia State's football stadium.

Both flights had a bit of turbulence, because oh, I forgot to mention there were massive storms working their way through the midwest overnight and into the day.  I was slightly panicked about that, that we'd either end up stuck or in a dangerous situation.  Fortunately, the storms avoided us, but other areas weren't as lucky.  There were a bunch of tornadoes over the course of Friday, some deadly and devastating.  That was sad to see, but even more meaningful because of where we were staying.  More on that in a bit.  But this cloud was one of our views from the plane.

Luckily the less luxurious flight wasn't that long.  We landed in Springfield, and I found it a bit odd that there was a flamingo on this welcome sign.  

The airport was small--only a couple inbound flights per hour, according to the arrivals board.  They had a lot of nature-themed decor--windows made to look like fish in a lake and floors with the design of the region's lakes and rivers.  The baggage claim area was nice, with local artists' work and two old-style planes suspended above.  

We picked up our rental car (which was luckily not delayed like some others) and headed off to get some lunch.  Jacob was really antsy as I was trying to figure out which Chipotle we should go to, and I realized one of our fundamental challenges to traveling together is that he just wants to GO, and I take a little longer because I'm trying to make sure I'm doing the right thing and being efficient.  I wanted to pick the Chipotle that was closer to our eventual path to the hotel, and he just couldn't figure out why I wasn't going to the first one we found.  That was a theme of the rest of the trip as well, so we need to keep working on that.  The drive to the hotel was about an hour.  Jacob napped for part of it.  It was a lovely, warm, windy day--up around 80 degrees with 50mph wind gusts, but mostly sunny by the time we got to our hotel.  It was so nice to have a little taste of spring--the warmth felt so good and it was nice to see trees starting to bloom and get leaves!  The wind was pretty brutal--we could barely close the car door at the hotel--but at least the weather was otherwise manageable.  We couldn't check into the hotel for a bit so we did some shopping at Walmart down the road, then Walgreens for something we forgot at Walmart.  We finally got into the hotel, which was really nice.  We settled in, I caught up on emails, and Jacob napped while we waited for dinner.  

I went down quite the internet worm hole in the meantime.  See, we were staying in Joplin, MO, which is mostly known for having a terrible EF5 tornado destroy a huge portion of the city back in 2011.  I had tried to figure out a couple weeks ago if the damage had been in the area where we were staying, but it seemed like it was close but not quite there.  But then I searched again and found an in-depth description of the path, and sure enough, there was the name of the road we were staying on.  When it mentioned Walmart, Home Depot, Academy Sports, and a nearby Pizza Hut, all of which I knew were just down the road, it became clear that the tornado wiped out most of the area we'd shopped in that day.  The Walmart had been destroyed, with fatalities.  Then I found Google Street view images of the stretch from a few weeks after the tornado, and it was so sad and sobering.  Debris piles, blown out signs with empty concrete pads behind them, buildings torn to shreds...most of that stretch was desolate and destroyed.  The area of our hotel was probably a quarter mile or so away from the edge of the damage, but those images made it very clear how much life had to have changed for that area for years.  It's very nice now, but the contrast was shocking.  At the time I never imagined I'd visit, that's for sure.  But on a day where other areas were having severe weather, it was a very graphic illustration of life in tornado alley.

We grabbed some dinner down the road that night, and settled into our room.  I did hours of work while Jacob met with his team, and back at home, Craig has successfully transferred Carter over to my parents in Batavia, and Carter was off for an epic weekend of playgrounds, an Easter egg hunt, his first hibachi dinner, and entertaining my parents with his viola and magic tricks!

We were up bright and early on Saturday, and Jacob met his team to ride to the gym.  I drove separately.  The facility had four courts and looked relatively new.

I felt like it took a little for Jacob to settle in, but he did get a three plus two foul shots. 

And then, near the end of the first game, I saw him limping off the court.  Nooooo.  Sure enough, he had sprained his ankle stepping on someone else's foot.  I gave him ibuprofen, tracked down ice, raged a little that a tournament of this size and stature did not have an athletic trainer present (we're not in well-regulated New York anymore, I guess!), and drove to the tiny but effective Super Walmart around the corner to find supplies to treat it.  He taped it for a bit and tried three different braces over two Walmart attempts.  It improved quite a bit over the course of the day and weekend, but he didn't end up playing any of the last three games.  His team won that first one and lost the rest.  He definitely would have helped, so that was a bummer.  It made for a frustrating 24 hours trying to treat it and sit through the losses.  The only other highlight of our time there was that I got to try Raising Canes chicken for dinner!  Texas Toast and chicken with good sauce in the same combo?  Yum!

We didn't get as quick of a start back on the road on Sunday as I'd hoped because we stopped at the facility the older teams were playing at to catch the end of another game.  That led to a long coaches' meeting and then a meeting with the players, and then we had to backtrack 20 minutes to get Jacob a suitable lunch, which itself took two tries because Chipotle was jammed.  We settled for a Jersey Mike's a few minutes beyond that.  We finally got on the road around 3:30 or so, but took a short detour through the Missouri State campus. 

Stadium

Soccer field

Basketball arena

We also drove past the minor league ballpark there, which is home to the St. Louis Cardinals' AA affiliate.

Back on the road, we were seeing these absurdly funny signs for the Uranus Fudge Factory.  Their slogan was "The Best Fudge Comes from Uranus".  Seriously?!  So silly and strange.  The place actually looked pretty fun but we didn't have time to stop. 

In fact, there were a bunch of random roadside things I would have loved to stop and see.  This place called Ozarkland apparently had barrels of taffy, fudge, candy, chocolate, toys, and all sorts of gifts.  They had signs all over the place as you approached the exit.  There was another thing called the "Precious Moments Chapel", which ended up being more or less what I expected, but yet so much more.  I didn't go there, I just Googled it, but I wish I would have had time to stop.  Not because I'm super into Precious Moments, but because the sheer amount of themed stuff they had--sculptures, stained glass windows, gardens, a mural, and more, all featuring the Precious Moments characters--blew my mind.  There was a place called "Risen Ranch" that billed itself as a Cowboy Church and Arena.  There was a classic diner-looking Steak 'n Shake in Springfield with old signage.  There were monuments and memorials and the "World's Largest Gift Shop".  I wish we would have had time to stop and see everything.  We did manage to stop at a candy store next to the World's Largest Gift Shop because I needed to get gas, and I bought Carter a souvenir there--candy cigarettes and bubble gum cigarettes.  Yes, I know that probably makes me parent of the year, but I loved both as a kid and we were talking about them a couple weeks ago.  I was trying to explain to him the difference between the two and why I liked them (the gum's puff of smoke was cooler, but the candy tasted better).  Even if they feel super questionable these days, I wanted to bring him back a little something and that felt like a good fit.  He loved them both!

We stopped outside St. Louis for dinner so I could plan a hotel for our overnight stop.  As we were driving down the road to get back to the highway, I looked over to the side and saw a familiar cross logo.  Sure enough, it was the headquarters of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, the church I have belonged to my entire life.  What are the odds?!  After that, we ended up driving right through St. Louis, which got me really excited for our trip there in May.  The Arch is HUGE.  It was really close to the highway, too.  You can't really tell here how close it looked, but it was really amazing to see in person.  We also drove past Busch Stadium where the Cardinals play, and I also got a good look at Six Flags St. Louis, which made me wish we had time for Carter and me to go there, but I think we'll have plenty of less common things to fill our time on that trip.    

I was so distracted by the Arch I barely processed that I was driving over the Mississippi River!  It was really cool to see everything, so I hope the trip there in May works out well.  

Two other things that stood out to me from the drive were the number of cows in Missouri and the number of roadside churches through most of the states.  Missouri had SO many cows.  And not dairy cows like we have here, or at least, they didn't look like ours.  They were mostly brown and had giant pastures.  I couldn't help but wonder if they were destined to be meat since that area is closer to that whole industry.  Oh, and diesel fuel was so much cheaper there--at least $1.50 less per gallon than here, which I assume is also a geographic thing.  But the roadside churches...holy cow.  They definitely ran the gamut from a tiny one room church to gigantic mega churches, but there were so many of them.  They were across the highway from one another, each one grander than the last.  I guess that is really a thing there.  Oh, and we saw a few of these giant, probably 200-foot tall crosses along the way, too.

I figured I could make it to Indianapolis that night, though it would be a challenge.  I needed to, really, in order to make it home on time on Monday.  But when I realized we'd likely get back to Eastern time by then and it would be close to midnight when we arrived, that wasn't awesome, but we'd been on Central time for a couple days so I figured I'd make it.  I was tired (but not sleepy, really) and Jacob fell asleep in the last hour.  We hit a couple construction zones including one detour (darn you, start of construction season) that slowed things down, plus a bathroom stop, and we arrived at the hotel just after midnight.  I did get to see downtown Indy at night, and marvel at the giant size of Lucas Oil Stadium where the Colts play, which perked me up a bit, but the end of the drive was pretty brutal.  We checked in to our room of two king beds, and I hopped on my work computer briefly to email my boss an update for the morning and see if I could get any work done.  But no, I was tired and by then it was nearly 1am.  Ugh.  Luckily the last bit of work was something really easy for my boss to do, so at least I got it to that point.  I figured out that to get home at a reasonable time, we'd have to leave by 7:30 or so, which meant a 6:30 wakeup.  That one hurt.  I was so tired and felt like I had a mere nap when my alarm went off.  By the time we enjoyed our Holiday Inn Express breakfast (yay!), got gas, and stopped at Starbucks for Jacob snacks (I had a bottled coffee already from the Walmart run on Friday), we didn't really get on the road until 8:30.  

That drive was LONG--through the second half of Indiana, east into Ohio through Dayton and Columbus before turning north toward Cleveland.  We stopped outside Cleveland for lunch - Chick-fil-A for Jacob and Culver's for me (that was a first, too--fried cheese curds are good!).  We bypassed Cleveland and got on the 90 around 1:30, and I knew how the trip goes from there since we just did it in December--an hour and a half to Erie, an hour and a half to Buffalo, and about an hour home.  We had one gas and bathroom stop outside Erie, and then met my mom just off the Thruway in Buffalo to grab Carter.  We had the rental car totally filled up by that point (there was not a lot of cargo space in our Hyundai Kona), and headed home to unload before driving back to the airport to drop it off, which was confusing but uneventful.  We got back around 7pm, I made an easy dinner, and then collapsed in my chair.  I was exhausted, just completely spent.  Of course, the evening flew by trying to download phone pictures and get Carter to bed, and I didn't end up getting myself to bed until after midnight, at which point I had a hard time falling asleep.  Of course.

Today was a tough one, not just because of work but because I had to take Jacob to the other side of Rochester to his strength trainer (to work on his ankle), go to Wegmans, and do some laundry.  Tomorrow I'm working in person (at least I get free lunch) and need to repack.  Jacob is supposed to have his year-end school basketball dinner, but we just found out about it yesterday and it's just the players and coaches anyway.  He has practice at 7pm and probably can't eat there, so that probably won't go too well.  Because of practice, it will be another late night before an even earlier flight.  We're leaving a day early because we had the hotel booked that way anyway (because of the basketball team block) and I wanted to get my sightseeing in one way or another.  Jacob still won't be into the sightseeing, and honestly, his ankle injury may mean I give him a free pass--especially if he can hook up with his teammates for the day--but for me, I need to do this.  Springfield wasn't a terrible trip, but other than the photos I posted above, I felt like the trip was no different than any other basketball trip we've ever taken.  We could have had the same experience in Albany or Buffalo or Massachusetts, but yet we had to fly (and drive) almost halfway across the country.  That was not ideal, and I'd have felt like it was much more worth it had we gotten to see more of the roadside stuff or done additional sightseeing.  I hope someday Jacob understands that and embraces it, because I feel like he's going to miss out on some fun and culture along the way.  As a side note, there were some things about the tournament and the circuit we figured out along the way that we don't love, and Jacob's team is getting gutted this week to help an older team (mostly so we don't lose our sponsorship).  It could be a rough season, but we just have to make it work and hope the better competition makes him and his team better in the long run, even if they don't win a lot or get a lot of attention from scouts.

So, this week is basically one massive sleep-deprived blur.  I'm trying to play catch-up in all areas of my life and there aren't enough hours for any of it.  If I work late I won't finish dinner early enough for Jacob to go to practice, and I need the time for other activities anyway.  I need time to relax, time to pack, and time to sleep, and they're all getting the short end of the stick right now because I'm tired and am trying to catch up on home stuff, too.  Craig is equally squeezed for these two days because he's shuttling Jacob between doctors, training, and treatments to fix up his ankle, while also needing to do his work.  Carter is home, too, which complicates things further.  He and Carter are excited for their time together, but their Easter will be abnormal, too, though likely not as bad as ours.  I'm still in denial about missing the holiday, to be honest.  More on that in another post, I'm sure.  

Anyway, I'm relieved one leg is behind us and aside from the ankle thing, it went relatively smoothly.  The drive was brutal, but we made it work.  It's given me a tiny bit of confidence for round 2, but I'm still nervous because...well, I'm still myself.  One more day before things get moving again...wish us luck!