Around My Area

Click on the map to enlarge

You hear me talking all the time about my comings and goings...going here, or going there, so thought I'd let you all see exactly what I'm talking about. I appologize that I couldn't get the map a little smaller, without distorting the words.

So, guess you can see Columbia...lol This is where we live. It's a town of about 86,000, but that always goes up each fall when school starts, and our major university, Missouri University, starts, as well as 2 other colleges in town. When that happens, Columbia's population soars to well over 100,000,

Lee work right down town...smack dab int he middle, just almost precisely where that red star is. My work...well, if you'll go just a bit west/left of that star, to where you see the two roads intersect, that is where I work. Lee and I both work on Broadway, the main street that goes through the middle of town. I, on the West side, and him in the central location.

If you travel North on 63...this is where you'll find our house. We're just about where that Hwy 63 sign is. We are exactly 4 miles north of the I-70/63 intersection. Now, if you begin to travel south on 63, through Columbia, you will soon come to the small town of Ashland. This is where I'm headed, alot of the time, as you're well aware. You've heard me speak about going to Ashland to get Landon, on more than one occasion. Ashland is 16 miles from Columbia. So...from my house to Landon's is a total of about 20 miles.

Just east of Ashland...you'll see the little town of New Bloomfield. Lee and I lived there for a few months, while Lee was working in Jefferson City, which is just about 10 miles south of there on 54.

Now, if you go way back up to the north west corner, you'll see the town of Fayette. This is where we first lived when Lee took his job in Columbia. We lived there for 4 years. This is where Landon met Amanda. It took Lee about 45 mins to drive from Fayette to Columbia, to get to work. Once he was diagnoised with his lymphoma, we felt it best to be closer to columbia, his drs., and the hosp.

While I've got this map in front of you, I have to tell you a story. Another one, of how God sent angels to guard over Lee, when he needed them most. We were living in Fayette, and I was working for a convenience store chain, called Fast Lane. We had a store in Fayette, several in Columbia, and also one in Kingdom City. You can see it East of Columbia, on I-70, on the map. We had two cars working then, or for the most part. Lee usually left for work around 8 or a little before. I didn't have to be in to work till 12:00, so lots of times I got up at my leisure. I believe I had this particular day off, and wasn't real pleased when the phone rang, waking me up, and it was my boss. I could hear it coming, ....I bet he wants me to come into work. But...that wasn't the case. Marlon, my boss, asked me if Lee was there. I said, "no", "he's at work". To which he replied, "are you sure?" Well, he should be, at least that's what I thought he was doing that day. Well, it seems that the manager at the Fast Lane in Kingdom City, called Marlon, telling him that she had a man there who claimed that his wife worked for Fast Lane in Fayette. That he said his name was Lee, and she wanted to know if Marlon knew this guy. Well, of course Marlon knew him. Apparently, Lee had a low sugar attack, and for one reason or another, never went to work....just kept driving down I-70. The only thing that stopped him from continuing for God only knows how long, was that he saw the Fast Lane sign at Kingdom City, and it triggered something in his head, about that was where his wife worked. Luckily, the manager was familiar with low sugar problems, since her brother was a diabetic. She did give Lee some juice, and then told him to just take it easy for awhile. That's when she came to call Marlon. At one point Lee got up, told her he was better and left, but she had told Marlon that when he got out to the road, to pull out of the parking lot, that he just sat there for a long time, like he didn't know which was he was suppose to go. Finally he left. She was really afraid that he wasn't fit to drive, and from the way she talked, he definately wasn't. She was really scared that he might have a wreak and really hurt, or possibly kill someone, or himself. So, she called the highway patrol, and let them know about the situation. They said they would keep their eyes out for him. Well, the highway patrol never found him, but he did eventually show up at work. What little bit of food the lady at Fast Lane had given him, was enough to keep him straight until he got to work, and could test his sugar, and get a little more to eat. So, as you can see from the map, Lee took a pretty good little drive that morning, with angels all around him, there is no doubt, for him to make it that far, and then back to Columbia again, safely.

Oh well, guess that's about it for our little area. Just thought I'd show you where all these places are that I talk about quite often. Now you'll be able to picture a little better in your mind, for future reference.