Life’s not a picnic…  but today it was.

I love leisurely mornings.  Wake up, shower, go to the little diner on Main Street. Check out the small town grocery.  I’ve been spending time while I’m here “joking” about a move to Neligh, NE.  I know that in our lives now, it doesn’t fit, but, it’s still fun to consider.  Neligh is just a slower kind of normal.  I highly recommend you find yourself in this type of small town environment.

Today… we picnic’d in Plainview, NE.  Enter Aunt Diana’s bologna spread.  I think I could have easily sat down with the tub and a spoon and just whiled away the afternoon.  It was an easy day.  No entanglements, didn’t have to be anywhere at anytime.  I also highly recommend one of those days in your future.  If you don’t have one, find one.

One of our lucky finds today was the Klown Museum at Plainview.  They boast a collection of 7000 clowns and have very few “duplicates.”  Another thing to toss on your bucket list.

Dinner tonight at the “dine-in” Pizza Hut.  There aren’t many of those left at home…in fact, as I write, I can’t think of one. Taco Pizza… and just hanging out with family.  Back to our little house for the week and Angel Food Cake with strawberries and blueberries.  Remember my post yesterday about small town and heart of America.  It. Lives. Here.

Hours of talking with my Aunt Diana.  She’s one of those remarkable women. From the time I just met her when I was maybe 10, I knew there was something special about her.  While I don’t know that I could put a word to it then… and maybe still the right words won’t come to me now, I can tell you that she’s kind.  She’s accomplished, has been a partner to my uncle for nearing 50 years and a mother to my cousin Nancy that sometimes I flat out envied.  She’s taken that job as seriously if not more so than any boardroom CEO.

Tomorrow looks to be another low key day.  Touring all things Neligh –Neligh Mills Museum, Antelope County Museum, Neligh/Oakdale High School… buy some fireworks, because it isn’t small town Fourth of July without explosives.

A 19th-century flour mill with all original equipment intact is on display at the Neligh Mills State Historic Site.

Dinner tomorrow.  Big dinner with as much of the family that is here.  We’ll be missing Joe, he’s actually in our home state of Colorado working on the rail road all the live long day.  Uncle Steve, I am guessing will also be absent due to his early morning date with the surgeon and his Rotater Cuff injury.

I wondered if we’d find ourselves board…lacking things to do and places to go.  It has yet to happen. So cheers to another day and the picnic life today.