From Very Near and Not Too Far

Winter is over.  The buds on all the flowering trees are finally adding color to the landscape.   And our visitors, as usual, are adding color to our days at Afton Station.   They aren't coming from all over the world just yet, but they're coming in comfortable numbers.  Of the 24 visitors on this Saturday, the four from furthest away were these two couples from  Bolton, Ontario, Canada.   (My camera is being cranky again, so excuse the fuzz.)

These two folks (below) will have an interesting job this weekend.  They are official judges for the state of Oklahoma's Barbecue Competition which is being held at Buffalo Run Casino today and tomorrow.    They patiently answered all of our curious questions about what it's like to judge barbecue, and they observed that they weren't much in the mood for dinner on the nights after tasting hundreds of morsels of meat.  This is a gigantic production with over 100 teams, and is open to the public if anyone is looking for a fun activity for tomorrow.  These folks travel all over to do their judging, but they live in Omaha, Nebraska.  The grand prize is $10,000, so I'm thinking it might be time for me to work on my sauce recipe for the future!

A couple from Springfield, MO arrived in their 10th Anniversary '79 Trans Am, a rare car with only 1817 having been built.   It's a beauty and looks like it would be great fun to drive!

Our other visitors came from Bartlesville OK, Pryor OK, Claremore OK, Tulsa OK, Choctaw OK, and Broken Arrow, OK.   It was definitely a day for Okies to get on the road.  Ron M. was with me as usual, and our friend Joe Meeks came along for the fun today

I believe I mentioned before that our dear Phil has returned from California after almost 2 years caring for his aging mother there.  He'll be home for at least another week, and as you can see, Robin is very happy to have him back for a while.  We all look forward to the time when he can return permanently.

Afton now has a walk-in clinic and we're thrilled that they've named it the "Route 66 Health Clinic".   The more things with the Route 66 brand the better, and Afton citizens can really use  a nearby facility that can take care of their ailments.