If you’ve been following along lately, you know I’m having a real tough go with getting my son Jack into school. It’s wearing out my family and really wrecking us. If you don’t know what’s going on, then two things:
– Jack is my son. He’s 9, severely autistic, and we don’t have a school to put him right now and I’m pretty sure we’re getting lied to about that by people who should switch careers if they’re willing to harm kids. I wrote a blog last Tuesday and another one last Thursday about what’s going on. I might write another one tomorrow. Not sure.
– If you’ve never been here or you don’t know what Operation Jack is, check here.
Anyways, my world has drained every bit of happiness out of me lately. It’s been miserable. I don’t smile any more. The only time I’ve been happy in the past month or so is when I’ve been at work, because when I’ve been home, I’ve been so focused on getting Jack into school and it’s wearing me down. But I finally got some happy time this weekend. It was the best weekend I’ve had in a long time. And it’s a weekend I’ll remember until I lose my memory. Even then, I might not forget it.
I went to Kansas with my oldest son, Benjamin!
Now, a lot of people probably wouldn’t get all that excited about going to Kansas. But I’m a proud graduate of Kansas State University. I love the Sunflower State. I feel so at peace when I’m there. I love everything about KSU and our football team is playing really well this year. I’ve been to two football games with Benjamin (he’s 11), but never a home game in Manhattan, Kan.
We moved to the Denver area this year and I knew we were just a road trip away from the 7-8-5. I looked at the calendar and settled in on October 26-28. Game vs. Texas Tech. Good chance of it not being too hot or too cold. I couldn’t wait! He was excited, too. He had been to KSU, but never for a game.
Friday after work we hit the road for 450 miles of driving to Salina, Kan. We were staying 60 miles outside of town on the way into town.
Big milestone on the way in: Ben had his first Big Mac! You’re just not an American until you’ve had a Big Mac, right? I was super-excited when we crossed state line. KANSAS! Ben, not as much as me. But he thought it was cool.
We played a game on the road trip. I told him that if he spotted license plates from 30 different states during the trip, I’d let him and his sister Ava pick out a game they can share for the Wii that costs up to $30. I figured this would keep his attention, it would give him something fun to do that would keep him from getting too bored, plus it would give us more things to talk about. It ended up being a good idea. I’ll talk more about how it ended up later.
We ended up in a $40 motel room in Salina, Kan. on Friday night. Perfect, no-frills stuff. He wants to be a K-Stater someday. He needs to learn from me to be laid-back and low-maintenance. I’m an Econolodge kind of guy. We hit McD’s for breakfast and got into Manhattan and went shopping for K-State gear before meeting up with friends.
Lunch was at a place I used to like when I was in college called Pat’s Blue Rib’n. The name is clearly a takeoff of Pabst Blue Ribbon, one of my favorite cheap beers when I used to drink. In college, Pat’s sold 20-ounce PBR draws for 75 cents. How can you beat that?
Back on point, we had fun with a friend of mine and his mom at lunch, then went out to the stadium to watch my Kansas State Wildcats! I hadn’t been to a home game since 2007. This was such a treat, and Ben was pretty excited, too. He really wants to go to KSU, although we live 20 minutes from Boulder, so I’m pretty sure he’ll end up chasing some girl to CU in seven years. A dad can dream, though.
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Cats rolled 55-24. It was flat-out awesome. Like the good old days, back when I was in school. They’re good, we won, it was awesome.
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After the game, we got Pizza Shuttle, an institution in Manhattan. When I was there back in 1995-98, it was $3 for a 10-inch pizza, I think $3.25 with a topping. Pizza so greasy, I turned the box upside down for 10 minutes before eating it back in the day. It was the perfect 2 a.m. food, if you know what I mean. Prices have gone up — I think it was $10.75 for two one-topping pizzas and two drinks on Saturday, but still, that’s not a bad price.
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We hit the road and headed west, eating our pizzas in the car. We went about 150 miles to Hays, a moderately-sized town surrounded by not a whole lot of anything. I’d been there in college a few times. The Ramada marquee said $49.99, but when I got inside, they told me that was the weeknight rate and it was really $69.99. I didn’t take too kindly to the bait-and-switch, so we went across the street and spent $39 at the Motel 6.
Ben thought the place was nice. That’s the low-maintenance sone I’m raising! We watched ESPN for a little bit and then crashed pretty hard. No alarm clock Sunday morning!
We got ready and hit McD’s for breakfast again. Third trip to the arches in 36 hours. For Ben, that’s living the high life. For me, that’s how a laid-back vacation should be. Ben found a wedding ring on the bench in the booth we sat at, so we turned it in to the manager. Hopefully its owner eventually reclaimed it.
I refilled my coffee, then we filled up the tank and I bought another coffee and we hit the road. My wife Tiffany gave us a 4 p.m. curfew on Sunday afternoon. We were looking at getting into town before 2. Me and Ben have season passes to the Six Flags amusement park in Denver and it’s only a few miles out of the way on the way home, so we were hoping to drive straight through to catch a couple of roller coasters.
Ben started the morning with 18 different states in his license-plate game, needing a dozen to get it done. I knew it would be close.
One interesting thing about the drive (well, interesting to me) … we were in western Kansas and I was flipping through radio stations. At one point, I heard a George Strait song. And then the very next song was Empire State of Mind by Jay-Z. That doesn’t happen anywhere other than Kansas. That’s yet another reason that Kansas is the greatest state in the country.
We made it back to Denver by 1:30 and I was able to get a hold of Tiff. She gave us the green light for Six Flags. We were at 28 states when we got into the city. Ben was bummed but I told him that we were close and still had a good chance — we hadn’t seen Wyoming or New Mexico, our borders to the north and south. We saw Alberta, but I told him it had to be states, not provinces. Then a friend of mine texted me a picture of a license plate from Maine. That didn’t count, either.
While we were parking at the amusement park, we saw Wyoming. 29!
We went in and rode three rides. I hink I got four concussions. I’m not as young as I used to be.
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We headed home. Finally, after more than 1,000 miles of driving over the weekend, the navigation was down below 10, which is when we see decimals. So close, so close! At 7.0, I saw a license plate a few hundred yards ahead with colors that didn’t look familiar. I learned from the trip that every state has a ton of variations, so Ben didn’t have his hopes up. I got a bit of a lead foot to catch up and when we got in close, we saw that it was New Mexico. 30! Lucky kid. He was pretty excited and I was happy for him.
We were home less than 10 minutes later, 47 hours after we’d left. It was an awesome weekend. He had fun, I had fun. And in 30 years, he’ll have a son and tak a road trip with him and think back to the Motel 6 and the license plates and the roller coasters and the McDonald’s overdose, just like I still remember when me and my brother and my dad went from Southern California to Calico and then Las Vegas (Circus Circus!) back in 1982.
I’ve been so busy with so many things his whole life, but for once, I finally spent some really good quality time with him. I couldn’t tell you the last time I’ve had a weekend like this. But I can assure you next year we’ll be doing this again.
7765577 (you know the tune)
Love this post and so glad you were able to get away for a positive, fun filled weekend. At 27, I still can bust out the biggest smile thinking of road trips with my family as a kid. Despite the shenanigans, snafus and (as we got older) the arguments, best memories ever. He’ll remember this always!
Great catching up, buddy! Glad you were able to have a weekend of escape, and that Ben enjoyed Manhattan so much. EMAW all the way!
Coming from a family that prides ourselves on being low maintenance, fun road trippers who also ride roller coasters, (actually preferring the old rickety wooden ones over the new ones) I completely enjoyed reading this post. I’ve kept up with your posts for the past couple months Sam, and want you to know that while we don’t know each other, I have a tremendous amount of respect for your family and am glad that you had such a neat weekend trip.
maine is pretty rad…that totally should have counted!