July 29, 2026
On July 23, weleft Jeanne’s (from A Jeanne in the Kitchen) to head home. We made a detour to stop at a LaMar’s Donuts. I have missed getting LaMar’s Donuts as a special treat since we left the Denver Metro area.
If you like donuts and have never had a LaMar’s Donut, I am sad for you. No other donut even comes close. Ah, the perfect pillowy bite of the original glazed donut, such a masterpiece of delight! The new styles of donuts, while interesting and even tasty, are all about the toppings and not the basic donut.
So many people stopped in for a pickup while we ate our donuts in the restaurant. I happened to catch a time between pickups.
Then, we were on our way. I didn’t want to go through Kansas City again, so we headed towards Wichita, Kansas. We stopped to get something to eat in Wichita and decided to stay the night.
On July 24, we headed to Poplar Bluff, Missouri. This route would allow us to avoid Memphis, Tennessee. We also got to see some of the Ozarks Mountain Ridge. We drove through the Mark Twain National Forrest on our way to Poplar Buff.
We stopped at Poplar Bluff and got supper. We checked into the Comfort Inn there. The rooms smelled awful on the first floor. We tried two rooms on the first floor. The room on the third floor only had a faint sent of the odor and Bruce couldn’t pick it up, so we decided to stay. All this yuckiness to avoid paying an extra $20 for a better hotel. To be fair, we’ve never had a problem with a Comfort Inn before.
On July 25, we made the last leg of our trip. Just outside of Kenneth, Missouri, Bruce asked me to take a picture of the gas mileage. This mileage was since fill up.
We drove through Jackson, Tennessee then to Corinth, Mississippi. At Corinth, we switched over to US 72. US 72 almost drops us at our doorstep. We live 11 miles away from US 72. It was great to be home.
We arrived safely and found a jungle. Bruce had turned off the water before we left. After the car was unloaded, Bruce crawled under the house and turned on the water. It was raining, so I wanted to get the pepper brigade outside to soak up the rain. Of course, the rain stopped just after I got the peppers outside. I had to water all of them. I happen to get wet, moving all those peppers outside.
We unpacked the suitcases and sorted the laundry into piles. We nested the suitcases similar to nesting dolls. Once the suitcases were nested, we put the suitcases away.
We took a tour around Blackberry Homestead. We knew there would be cleanup, just not how much.
Blackberry Homestead 