Tag, You're It -AW Blog Chain

So, I've been reading all the blogs in the chain this week, wondering what on earth the topic was going to be like when it got around to me, the last player. My task is to relate this rambling to the previous post by Chaos and also the the very first post by Towerkel. All the prior writers had done a really good job, but I was sweating it a little with the 2 posts in play. At last, I got the Tag, you're it notice.

I should have this much luck in all the other areas in my life! Yippee!! I'm doing the Snoopy happy dance about this combination. You see, I have the soul of a gypsy and there is not much I love more than taking road trips. Get in the car and just go.

Chaos tells us about trips with her father and seeing her first oil rig in Oklahoma. I've been through lots of flat, brown places too with lovely, but deceiving names like the Painted Desert. After a while you'll stop at anything, even a huge meteor crator in the middle of nowhere, just to see something that's not flat. It was still rocks and brown, but it wasn't flat! We found the crater almost by accident as we were leaving Winslow, AZ, which had been the focus of that day's mileage. How could a die hard Eagles fan be in AZ not go to Winslow? By the way, do not blink or you will totally miss it. The rest of that trip for another day.

So how does the oil rig get into this story? Well, I saw my first oil rigs in Oklahoma, just like Chaos. It was on a trip which originated in Odell, NE and ended up in Mineral Wells, TX. There is a whole bunch of nothing between the two places, but you will see some oil rigs as you pass through OK. Everytime I see a tall one, I can't help but think of the Beverly Hillbillies. I am a child of the 60's, after all. They should remind me of my grandfather, whose life was dramatically changed after an oil rig accident in the 1920's or even of the ultimate Texas oil movie, Giant. But Hillbillies it is.

I have a new association with oil rigs now. Since I have lived in TX, they aren't so unusual. I was unaware of the distincitve noise that can be associated with them until one night on my first cemetery after dark ghost hunt. No one told me there was an oil rig pumper jack near by and the noise, coming out of the total darkness, really freaked me out!

I'll bet you're wondering how this is going to end up back at Towerkels blog entry, about Dunkin Donuts and MA? I'm getting there. It really is a small world, and this blog project is so much like a PBS show of the past, Connections.

Here goes.... I was in the noisy haunted cemetery with Blue Texas, who is a AW writer and my daughter. She led me to AW where I have joined the blog chain. The blog chain started with a post about Dunkin Donuts being everywhere, which they are in New England but not in Texas, and about drivers in MA. I grew up in southern CT, lived in NH and commuted to Lowell MA for a number of years. I can testify first hand that MA drivers are the absolute worst in the US. And that Dunkin Donuts will beat Krispy Kreme every time, especially when you get a DD cup of coffee, which by the way, in MA will be with cream unless you specify otherwise. And to get right to the point, cause you've all been bored long enough now, yesterday I was working on my digital scrapbook project, and came across some photos of The Kid sitting in front of the famous seafarers statue in Glouseter... you guessed it, MA.

And that is how this blog entry completes the circle.

awchain