Back from Eagle Country!

After 2,285 miles and 473 photos, we are back at the County Line. We spent the last week and a half driving to and from Morehead, KY, where Brent is the media and marketing coordinator for Morehead State University athletics.

While we are used to all things K-State Wildcat, we just spent some time in the heart of Eagle Country. While we were there, we got to see three basketball games - two men's contests and one featuring the women. And while I was glad to cheer for Morehead State, I was really more interested in watching the video board and using my camera's telephoto lens to peer into the press box.

From the "Eagles' Nest" at the top of Johnson Arena, Brent works the video board at each game.

He flashes up the graphics he designed for Slam Dunks, "bank shots" (promoting a local bank, of course) and other action on the court. 

We also got to see the large-scale graphics he designed this year for the upper perimeter of the arena entrances.

These are just a couple of them, but the panels feature Morehead State's All-American ballplayers - both men and women.

We enjoyed seeing his office and meeting and eating lunch with some of his co-workers. I always like being able to visualize where my kids are and put names and faces together with some of the people they talk about.

Sorry to be vague about the trip before I left. I didn't really want to advertise that we were going to be gone. I had feverishly worked ahead on my KFRM radio reports, but I couldn't get a week and a half of blogs done ahead of time, too.

I promise I won't show you all 473 photos. But we did enjoy several stops along the way, as well as touring the area that Brent now calls home. So, yes, there will be some show and tell coming up here on Kim's County Line.

We came back yesterday to a little snow blanketing the wheat fields.

Unfortunately, we left the rain behind us in Missouri. It rained all day Tuesday as we traveled through the Show Me State. Then, about the time we got to the Kansas border, it quit raining. It was discouraging. We stayed all night in Topeka for a little Kinley time before heading back home on slick roads Wednesday morning.

I got back in time to play the piano for middle school choir. Just for the record, there's no quicker return to reality than middle school choir.

Hail, Hail, Hail, Alma Mater!

Some of the best of Brent's college education took place in this press box.

On Saturday, it came tumbling down. The Dev Nelson press box at Kansas State University's Bill Snyder Family Stadium was imploded to make way for the new west addition. (My Facebook friend, Jeff Sutton, posted this video of the implosion. Thanks, Jeff!)

As a student intern with K-State Sports Information during his undergraduate years, Brent probably spent nearly as much time at the football stadium and in Bramlage Coliseum as he did in the classroom. In truth, the K-State Sports Information job was the biggest classroom of all. He got to be on the front lines when ESPN's College Game Day came to town (a thrill for a guy who lives and breaths college sports.)
He had a birds'-eye view from the press box during K-State football games for two years, where he got to see his childhood hero, Bill Snyder, return to the stadium that bears his name.

The west side stadium construction at a game this fall.

It was there Brent discovered that he wanted to make collegiate sports his career. Last May, he earned his master's degree in Sport and Entertainment Management from the University of South Carolina. And, since September, he's been sitting in a press box at Morehead State University's Jayne Stadium during football games and running the video board at their Johnson Arena during basketball games. He'll be the main media contact at Allen Field during MSU's baseball season. He's been developing graphics and marketing materials for the Morehead State Eagles.

It's all practical knowledge that he first discovered while spending Saturdays in that K-State press box and every day working with the people at K-State Sports Information.

As I read news reports about the implosion and saw the photos from my nephew, Brian, who was one of some 1,500 people watching in person, I was struck by this one sentence in a press release:

It was also fitting that following the initial blast, the 600-plus fans watching from the east side of the stadium could read only three words on the collapsed press box: "Bill Snyder" and "Family."

Family: Yes, that's what it means - whether it's the Dev Nelson press box or the new version that will rise up from the dust of the old one.

My parents, my brother's family and one sister sit on that side of the stadium, too. I'll have to use a different landmark to find them with my binoculars next fall. I've always started at the "K" in Kansas and worked my way downward to find their row. 

I know a spot that I love full well ... No matter what it looks like now or in the future.

Hill Traffic Does Not Stop

Anyone who knows me knows I find beauty all around me in Kansas. God's creative handprint is on the sunrises, the sunsets, the ditches lined with sunflowers, the windmills, in the pastures dotted with wildflowers and in the wide open spaces. I love wheat from the time it pokes the first blades of green through the brown soil, when it's encased in winter white, and when the waves of gold dance in the Kansas wind.

It was a different kind of beauty in Morehead, Ky. My favorite spot was Eagle Lake, a picture postcard pretty place on the campus at Morehead State University, where Brent began his new job on Monday. That lake has got to be one great fringe benefit of being a student or being on staff there.

I would love to see it in the fall as the leaves begin turning and cast brilliant autumn colors on the smooth water's surface. I probably won't get to see it this fall, but maybe another year.

Morehead and Morehead State University are nestled in the foothills of the Daniel Boone National Forest. Yes, Kansas has its regions with peaks and valleys. It just doesn't happen to be where we live. Morehead was much greener than the drought-stricken Kansas we left behind.

Hills are part of the backdrop for the Morehead campus. I took this shot back toward campus, turning 180 degrees around from the lake.

In just a few weeks, the fall colors of the trees on the hills surrounding the football stadium will rival the action on the field, I suspect.

It was even pretty on a rainy, foggy morning.

Same goes for the baseball stadium and pretty much anywhere else on campus.

The hills also provided some signs we aren't used to in Stafford, America: "Hill Traffic Does Not Stop"was a sign near Brent's new home.

It wasn't exactly Lombard Street in San Francisco. But the street began in downtown Morehead and crested at the top of a hill, where there was a parking lot at one juncture and two stop signs flanking it.

Brent's backyard is mostly tree-covered hill, though there's enough room for a barbecue grill, which we put to use before the K-State vs. Miami game on Saturday. 

Brent was our chef, a nice change of pace

We were surprised by how narrow some of the streets were, especially in Brent's neighborhood. I was glad Randy was driving the Budget truck and not me. Meeting traffic was an adventure of narrow streets and hidden driveways. 

On Brent's street - The sign warns of a driveway that seems to go straight up a hill.

Next time we visit, we won't be hefting boxes and hanging picture frames, so we hope to explore more of the area. Maybe then we'll see more horse farms. It wasn't until we got to Lexington to fly back to Wichita that we saw horses grazing on the stereotypical bluegrass of Kentucky.

But there's no place like home either. Beauty: It's all around us - whether on the Kansas plains or the Kentucky hills.

Fly Like An Eagle

Practically from the time they arrive, our children begin the march toward independence. From the day they begin crawling away to explore a world outside Mommy's arms or they take their first tentative, shaky steps, they begin that pulling away process.

The first-day-of-school bus photo evolves until they are driving their own vehicle to school. All too soon, you are the one waving goodbye from the driveway as they head back to college or head back home after an all-too-short weekend.

This past week, it was a Budget Rent-A-Truck instead of a school bus. Brent no longer packs a K-State backpack, but instead a leather briefcase with space for a laptop.

He will add another school to his allegiance. Yesterday, he began his job as the Media and Marketing Coordinator for the Morehead (Ky.) State University Eagles. It's his first job after earning his master's degree in Sport and Entertainment Management from the University of South Carolina in May.

Brent's office will be in this building. Maybe we'll get to see it next time!

As Randy drove the Budget truck and I helped navigate from Columbia through the hills of Tennessee and Kentucky, the Steve Miller Band song, "Fly Like An Eagle" kept drifting through my head.


Brent is going to be an Eagle now, but it was this part that had me thinking:

"Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future."

Indeed it does.

As I walked the Morehead State University campus on Saturday, I captured a mental picture of where my "baby" will be spending his time. I took a similar walk around the South Carolina campus when we moved him there in January 2011 after his graduation from K-State in December 2010.

The campus - and for that matter, the town - is nestled in the foothills of the Daniel Boone National Forest in Rowan County, Kentucky. The 2012 edition of "America's Best Colleges" by U.S. News and World Report named MSU one of the top 25 public universities in the South. Randy and I have already added some blue and gold to our wardrobes.

The bell tower on campus is inscribed with the words Love, Service, Wisdom and Justice on each of its four sides.

Those are all virtues with which we'd like to send our children into the world to make their own way. It's an exciting time as a parent to watch your child fly like an Eagle - a Morehead State Eagle, in this case.

Tomorrow: More from our trip.

It's Clouds' Illusions, I Recall

The clouds haven't brought much rain this summer. But they have brought back some memories. Brent was my cloud watcher. From the backseat, he was always discovering some shape in the marshmallow fluff of clouds floating by.

Back when the kids were little, I "retired" from working full-time as a writer-editor at The Hutchinson News, but I wrote a column for them, At Home with Kim, for several years. Here an excerpt of what I wrote when Brent was in kindergarten: 

It was one of those days when it looks like the angels are using the clouds for tumbling mats. Brent and I were driving home, and he started cloud-watching.

"Oh, look, Mommy! That one looks like a dinosaur. And that one looks like a puppy."

We found an eagle and a dragon and a cat among the whipped-cream clouds. I was thinking that even though our world changes, some things - like cloud watching - have been children's pastimes for years and years.

And then he said, "Oh, there a roller blade."

As a child, I saw dragons and rabbits, but not a single roller blade was suspended in my cotton-candy skies. 

Change is part of us - even daydreaming cloud watchers confirm that.

"Why can't I see the roller blade anymore? Where did the dinosaur go?" Brent asked as we sped down Highway 50. "Why don't the clouds follow us?"

It's moment like those when I remember an encyclopedia salesman's spiel at the Kansas State Fair when Jill was about 2.

"How will you know how to tell your children why the sky is blue if you don't buy this complete set of encyclopedias?"

After some convoluted explanation about how were were traveling down the highway at a different speed than the clouds were moving, Brent quit worrying about the things he'd lost and began finding other treasures in the sky. Kids change as fast as the clouds.

The same column mentioned the Mother's Day Tea in the kindergarten classroom, so here was my cloud watcher in action at that big event.He was one of the "violets" whose job it was to pass out mints.

Last week, I was the one doing the cloud watching as I delivered Randy from one field to the next. I was the one finding treasures in the clouds, mostly in the form of memories. (And, by the way, how smart do I look that I didn't buy that set of encyclopedias? Who could have predicted I could use a computer, type in "Why is the sky blue?" and have hundreds of explanations at my fingertips? Pretty amazing, isn't it?)

If I momentarily forget how quickly life - and kids - change, I get a Facebook reminder that a certain girl was 7 months old yesterday.

Time shifts as quickly as floating clouds, doesn't it?

I can't look at clouds without thinking about a song my sisters and I sang for a long-ago 4-H Club Day, "Both Sides Now."  Now you, too, can get it stuck in your head, if you choose.

It's OK to have your head in the clouds, I think. Imagination and memories: They are good things.

Say Cheese(cake)!

Are you ready to give the Cheesecake Factory a run for their money?

My birthday boy doesn't like cake. He never has. So, even if he were home for his 24th birthday today, we wouldn't be sticking candles into a cake.

Since he's halfway across the country, I sent him a package with Scotcheroos. Now, if he were home, he might get a giant chocolate chip cookie, like the one he shared with his buddies on his 16th birthday.

Or he might get cheesecake. I made one when Jill, Eric and Kinley were here for Easter. My son-in-law likes cheesecake. And it's always good to keep the son-in-law happy, especially when he transports the granddaughter to the farm for the first time.

This Oreo Cheesecake would be good for everything from keeping sons-in-law happy to celebrating birthdays for non-cake lovers or for honoring your Mom on Mother's Day this weekend. For this creation,  I actually combined a couple of different recipes to make the end result. I've made Oreo Cheesecake before, but added a chocolate ganache after seeing a recipe in the April/May edition of Taste of Home magazine.

I could have sent one to Brent. But I didn't think mailing cheesecake across the country was the way to go.

Oreo Cheesecake

1 pkg. (1 lb. 2 oz.) Oreo chocolate sandwich cookies (or store brand), divided
1/4 cup butter, melted
3 pkgs. (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup sour cream
3 eggs

Chocolate Ganache Topping (optional)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Place 30 cookies in food processor. Process 30 to 45 seconds or until finely ground. Add butter; mix well. Press into a large springform pan.

Beat softened cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in the large bowl of an electric mixer until well blended. Add sour cream; mix well. Add eggs, one at a time, beating just until blended after each addition. Chop remaining cookies. Gently stir the cookies into the cream cheese mixture. Pour over crust.

Bake 45 minutes or until center is almost set. Cool.

If desired, add chocolate ganache topping. To make topping, place chocolate chips in a bowl. In a small saucepan (or in microwave), bring cream just to a boil. Pour over chocolate; whisk until smooth. Stir in vanilla. Cool to reach spreading consistency, stirring occasionally. (I put the mixing bowl in a larger bowl with ice surrounding it to speed this process.)

Run a knife around the edge of the springform pan. Remove rim from cheesecake. Spread chocolate mixture over the cheesecake. Refrigerate until set. Refrigerate the cheesecake at least 4 hours or overnight. Store leftovers in the refrigerator.

Cut into wedges. Top with whipping cream to serve, if desired.

You can also make this recipe in a 13- by 9-inch pan. However, in that size pan, use:

4 pkgs. cream cheese, 8 oz. each
1 cup sugar
1 cup sour cream
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla

The crust stays the same. Combine the cheesecake in the same way. If desired, you can add only 1 1/2 cups of the remaining Oreo cookies to the cheesecake mixture and then sprinkle the extra chopped cookies over the top, like I did in the photo above.

Since I was using a ganache on the springform pan version and wanted a flat surface, I just put all the cookies into the cream cheese mixture and didn't sprinkle any on top.

Farewell, My Friends ...

The cold and dreary weather has kept me on the treadmill instead of outside. But that’s probably for the best anyway. My walking buddies are gone. And it would be a little dreary without them, no matter the temperature.

Ralph and Millie were gone when we got back from South Carolina. For the first few days, I kept thinking they would just show back up some morning, bounding with energy and ready to go on our daily walk. But as days passed, we faced the facts. Ralph and Millie weren’t coming back. The next hard part was telling Brent. We waited until after he was done with finals.

Ralph was Brent’s dog. Before he left for college, he made me promise that I would pet Ralph and talk to him every day. It became part of my daily walking routine. In the beginning, Ralph always went with me. As the years passed, sometimes Ralph would wait at the back steps while I did the walking. But he was always ready for our little talk, whether he did the workout or not.

Brent & Ralph - 2006 - before Brent left for K-State

We got Ralph at the Stafford County Fair one year. Our neighbor brought a pen of puppies to the fairgrounds. The “Free Puppies” sign was more popular among the 4-Hers than the concession stand. Brent begged to bring one home. And we did. We told Sharilyn that she wouldn’t have had to drag all the puppies 11 miles to town. She could have dropped one off 2 miles north since that's where he ended up.

Our other dog, Mindy, taught Ralph all about life on the County Line. As Ralph’s muzzle turned more gray than black, we thought it was time for Ralph to be the dog equivalent to Yoda. He could teach a new puppy about barking to alert us to visitors. He could demonstrate the importance of staying around home. He could let a new dog know that cattle weren't to be chased. So we brought Millie home in June.

Jake cared for the dogs and cats while we were gone to South Carolina. He last saw them on Sunday, November 27, the day before we came home on the 28th.

Would it have mattered if we'd come home one day sooner? Probably not. But it still makes me sad. We drove up and down the dirt roads around our house. We talked to neighbors. Nobody seems to know what happened to Ralph and Millie.

I'm the first to admit it: I don't equate pets with people. I don't like to have animals in the house, and I would never refer to a pet as a child. But I sure do miss my walking buddies.

Maybe the Hutchinson Animal Shelter's application should have a line or two regarding the track record of human applicants. During my growing up years, we had a bunch of different farm dogs, probably 6 or 8 of them.

Me at 10 1/2 months

Some were run over. Some ran away. Some got sick. My dad suspects one was stolen.

(Me at 5 1/2)

As the kids were growing up, we've had six dogs. They met the same fate as dogs from my youth. It's part of the cycle of life on the farm, I suppose.

But Brent's dog, Mindy, died of old age.

And we hoped it would be the same for Ralph and for Millie.

This was a post I didn't want to write. I prefer happy endings.

BBQ Chicken Pizza

Thanksgiving is probably the most traditional food holiday around. Let's just say we turned Thanksgiving on its ear this year.

No turkey for us. Dressing was nowhere to be found. Grits took the place of mashed potatoes and gravy. The closest thing to a traditional ham was bacon.

To follow up our South Carolina shrimp and grits Thanksgiving dinner, Brent and I collaborated on BBQ Chicken Pizza for supper. A friend in his master's program had brought a similar pizza to a party. I looked at some recipes online. He tried to remember what she'd included in her version.

And we came up with a pretty tasty pizza. I'm fairly confident it will appear on his table and in the County Line kitchen again.

Brent's apartment kitchen isn't what we would call spacious. Counter space is at a premium, and let's just say that his pantry isn't quite as diverse as mine. We purchased a refrigerated pizza dough at his neighborhood grocery store. (His sister will be glad to see that we got whole wheat.)

Using the prepared crust was easy and tasty, too, but you can certainly make your own homemade version. I probably will, since my grocery store doesn't have handy, dandy bags of pizza dough (plus it's easy to do with some flour, yeast, water and salt)!

Serve with a green salad or some fresh vegetables, and enjoy!

BBQ Chicken Pizza

2 tbsp. olive oil
1 pound chicken tenders
1/2 to 1 whole red pepper, diced
1 bunch green onions, diced
4-6 slices of bacon, cooked until crisp, then chopped
Approximately 2/3 cup barbecue sauce of choice (We used Sweet Baby Ray's)
1 pkg. refrigerated pizza dough (or make your own homemade)
Approximately 2 cups shredded cheese (We used a fiesta blend with cheddar and mozzarella)
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
3 tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro leaves

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Chop chicken tenders into bite-sized pieces and saute until golden brown, about 12 minutes. Remove from heat; set aside. Toss with about 2 tablespoons of barbecue sauce.

In the same skillet, cook diced peppers and onion in oil, sauting until tender. (We cooked the bacon in the microwave, but you could also add the bacon to this step, cooking until browned and crispy.) Combine the vegetables, bacon and chicken; toss together until ingredients are evenly distributed.

In a large pan, spread your pizza dough out evenly. You can use a large pizza pan or a 15- by 10-inch rectangle pan.

Top with remaining barbecue sauce. Spread chicken mixture evenly over the BBQ sauce. Top with shredded cheeses and sprinkle with Parmesan cheeses. Sprinkle minced cilantro leaves on top.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until cheese bubbles and is slightly browned. Cut into pieces and serve.

Notes: If you really wanted to make this easy and you live in a larger town than I do, you could use a rotisserie chicken instead of browning your own chicken. You could also get peppers and onions from a salad bar so you didn't have to chop. The grocery store where Brent shops doesn't have a salad bar, so we did the chopping ourselves.

We were in South Carolina, so we didn't have Curly's BBQ sauce, which is what we usually use. But Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce was good, and I did see it's available in Kansas as well. Also, we didn't actually measure. Just spread a thin layer of BBQ sauce over the pizza dough. I got the measurement from another recipe because I know some people don't like the whole "use your own judgement" recipe notes!

Thoroughly Modern Millie

Yesterday, I left my baby behind in South Carolina. After an overnight stop at the Ladd bed-and-breakfast (plus supper!), I'll leave my other baby behind in Topeka.

It doesn't seem like a fair exchange, but later today I'll be home to see my other baby. Millie the Dog seems to have skipped through the baby years and scurried right into adulthood - at least in appearance.

I suppose it's a metaphor for life. Sometimes, when you're winding up the swing to try desperately to get the baby to sleep, you think that it will never end - the sleepless nights ... the diaper changes ... the piles of laundry... figuring out yet another meal ... the toys littering the living room ... the teenage angst.

But then it does. And you miss it. And you wonder where the time went because it just flew by.

Perspective is a funny thing indeed.

Maybe Millie has been a good reminder of the fleeting nature of time.

Here she was in June. We had just discovered that she had dug up the petunias at the front of the house. She'd been living with us about a week at the time.

June 10, 2011
(Even Ralph looks rueful!)

And these days, she's nearly as tall as Ralph (though she has a tendency to still act like a kid most of the time).

November 2011

She's discovered artifacts in the netherlands of the farmstead. This faded K-State ball appeared in the backyard one day.

It was probably lost at some point in time by this cast of characters. Its arrival made me smile and remember all those backyard games and the boys in the basement, playing yet another round of Xbox.

Millie has been my own personal archeologist, helping dig up memories from my own backyard.

And, as we approach the birth of our granddaughter in January, Millie has reminded me again of the fleeting nature of time. She's been proof positive of how quickly babies change in that first year of life. She's been the reminder of how toddlers turn into kindergarteners and how high school seniors soon pack up their cars and drive away to new adventures.

That's the nature of life. We need to enjoy the moments - especially the moments we thought would never end as we were living them.

(More to come this week from our adventures during Thanksgiving week. We traveled to South Carolina to spend Thanksgiving there with Brent.)