Gypsy girl crosses old paths...

July 29, 2010:  Driving up I-44 just past Springfield, Missouri, (my birthplace) on our way to the funeral in Ohio, I realized that we were getting ready to drive by Marshfield, Missouri.  I attended school there... twice.  Not two days, two different grades... half of kindergarten and half of second grade.  It was a very dark night both ways when we drove through Marshfield so I didn't really see anything I recognized.  The 76 service station that I remember being at that exit is either gone or changed to something else and completely unfamiliar.  As I drove by in the dark, still not believing that I was really driving to Ohio, I realized that by driving through (by) Marshfield, I had driven within 22 miles of all the schools I ever attended within the last 30 days.  Big deal, right?  Actually it kinda is.  I attended 5 different primary schools and one college in my life time and two of the primary schools I attended twice, like Marshfield. 

July 5, 2010:  When I left Des Monies, Iowa, after my grandmother's 80th birthday party and drove up to Austin, Minnesota, I was within 11 miles of the Southland school district where I also went to elementary school in Rose Creek two different times... the other half of kindergarten through the first half of second grade and then again in fourth grade.  I was also 22 miles from Grand Meadow, Minnesota, where I attended third grade.  I will always remember that the teachers went on strike when I was a third grader and we got to stay home.  That was very cool.  It seems like it was about 3 weeks, but for all I know it could have just been a week.  The odd thing about being in the Austin area is that every time before when I visited, I would also visit Dexter which would have gotten me even closer two those two schools... within 6 miles, but this time I didn't go there.  When I left Austin and headed north to my aunt Barbie's house near Alexandria, I drove through Minneapolis and came within 12 miles of Prior Lake's Five Hawks Elementary where I attended most of fifth grade before moving to Oklahoma, where I finally stayed put and graduated high school and still live today.

Sometime between July 12-23, 2010:  I even drove right by the campus of Northwestern Oklahoma State University, my alma mater, this summer when I went and hauled a load of gravel to an oilfield location northeast of Alva, Oklahoma, with my husband one day. 

So really, with all these schools being in about an 800 mile stretch north to south and not on a direct route to anywhere that one would normally pass through on a single trip, that really is pretty amazing that I was within 22 miles or less of each one of them this July.  I did feel a bit like the gypsy girl of years past this summer in all my travels.  I am just so glad to be rooted down with no plans to move.... ever again.

Trivia question:  have a guess of how many houses I've lived in during my 37 years?  Hint: I've lived in three different houses in my 15 years of marriage and six different places the five years while I was in college... 

I'll post the answer in my next blog.

This isn't actually one of our moves from when I was a kid,
 but I'm betting that some of those "short moves" where probably very similar.... lol.