Little Miracles: Back to Utah

As we planned our trip home, we were super excited to drive through Kansas and visit a little place called Humboldt, where David's grandpa grew up. One of my favorite things about visiting with Grandpa is hearing about growing up on the farm, but I never imagined I would be able to visit Kansas and see it for myself.

On the way up to Kansas, we went through Norman. Oklahoma and stopped for a few minutes at the Oklahoma Sooners Football Stadium, of all places. As we pulled in, David joked that maybe we would run into Landry Jones (I had no idea who this was, but assumed correctly that it was a Sooners football player). Well, we got out of the car to walk around a bit, and lo and behold, the football team filed down the sidewalk into the stadium, right before our eyes. That was a treat for my football-loving husband.

A few hours later, we rolled into Hometown Country, Kansas. David joked that it must be called that because the only reason people ever go there is because it's their home town. The more we got acquainted with Chanute and Humboldt, the more I agreed with him. I loved it!

We had no idea how to get a hold of Grandpa's family who still lived in Humboldt, as no one had any contact information. So, we pulled into a gas station, found their name in the local phone directory (yes, those still exist), and rolled down the country dirt roads to the farm. Google maps led us to a small bridge rather than a house, so we had to call the house to get directions. The directions they gave were things like "Pass the cemetery on the left, cross the blacktop, and pass two telephone poles and there we are". Well, apparently telephone poles are different from regular electric poles, and we ended up driving around for about half an hour before the got in their truck and came to meet us.

It was great to see Uncle Willy, Grandpa's brother, and his niece and nephew who own his brother's old farm. Paisley especially loved the farm. She had so much fun there that by the end I felt like a terrible mother taking her away from it, like I was taking her out of her true element to a bland and barren city. She marveled at the real cows and horses, hugged and kissed the dogs, chased the cats, oinked at the pigs, lifted the feed buckets (or tried to), collected the rocks, climbed the tractors, explored the little playground, and ran from one wonder to the next taking in everything she could. She screamed when we had to get back in the car again.

Paisley had fun playing with Uncle Willy.

When David was small, he and his cousins took pictures on this very same tractor.

Watch out, Paisley will mow you over!

Uncle Willy, Christy, Rick, Paisley, and my lesson to stand up straight for pictures.

This is the farm where Grandpa lived while he went to high school. Unfortunately this one has since been sold, so we could only get pictures from afar.