Day 12: Callin’ Home the Hogs
by Andrew JohnsonSiloam Springs is only about an hour or so away, so we took our time getting up there. We stopped at the University of Arkansas to impress Annie with our knowledge of Razorback sports facility identification – in other words, we showed her where we went to the Arkansas/Tennessee basketball game while waiting for Alex to be born. There was a game about to start, so we had our 3rd opportunity to go to a Div. I men’s ball game. But we passed.
It’s amazing how much we remember about getting around this area. We went to the same Atlanta Bread Company that we first went to almost 4 years ago – and knew exactly where it was. We drove into Siloam Springs using the same route we got know to like the back of our hand – the antique shops (including the one where we got our flat tire), the paintball grounds, “the” Wallmart – but alas, Mike Mulligan was no longer there. We instinctively took the right streets to the house. Max and Mattie (the Dobermans) remembered us like it was yesterday. It’s always a good thing when big Dobermans like you. We showed Annie and Alex her “first home” – the little guest house we lived in for 5 weeks. Everything was the same: the furniture, the layout – it was very comforting being in this place again. So many memories came back.
Unfortunately, Gloria and Mike were not able to be there when we came through town – they were out of town and couldn’t change their arrangements. We were really looking forward to seeing them again but sometimes that’s the way things go. We walked around downtown Siloam Springs a little, visiting the same shops we frequented before. The photographer who almost did our portrait when Alex was born (but we balked, not wanting to jinx the revocation period at the time) remembered us! We made an appointment to actually do this time, but we eventually cancelled again – this time because we wanted to get on the road again sooner than we had planned. We had about 20 pounds of take out barbeque back at the “big house”, broke out one my computer systems and actually did some work for a client back in Syracuse.
We watched the Boise St./Nevada (Reno) football game on ESPN and learned that Reno had 8 inches of snow this day! It was all over the Weather Channel, how much snow Reno got. I thought we left all that stuff behind?! We’re going 3000 miles for this? They always say you should take a little something with you to remind you of “home,” but this is ridiculous.
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