To Jan from Pete on our 50th or the Girl With the Thunderbird Tattoo

    I have been thinking a lot about how I would compose this note for some time now, for at one time I had no idea we would arrive at this point in time but here we are. 50 years married to each other, who would have thought? I think I may tell a little about our time together, how we met etc..

   I first met Jan in Ormsby on a blind date lined up by some friends of mine that knew Jan from Jackson votech school. We had a get together at Bill Peterson's home in St. James that evening and I took Jan home to the family farm near Alpha. She was impressed by my 69 Mustang Mach 1 and my collection of 8 track tapes, going from Henry Mancini to Johnny Cash. We talked a lot, which is unusual for me, listened to a lot of music and rolled unto her farm about 4 am. From that beginning we dated through the Summer and Fall and I gave her a ring on Christmas Eve before church in Ormsby in 1970, to the decision to marry on Valentine's Day the next year. To us it was why wait, we love each other and want to spend as much time together as possible, so the date was set. February in Minnesota the weather can be iffy and the night before the big day, Saturday, was not nice and we had had a lot of snow to boot. Sunday dawned clear and warmer which we took as a good omen which has turned out to be prophetic. We were married at Trinity Lutheran church in Alpha Minnesota on February 14th 1971 in an afternoon service, to a reception in the basement, to a party at the farm, to the Holiday Inn in North Mankato. The next day it was to our apartment In Waconia and then to Duluth for a night in February no less. There is a lot of filler after that with a couple long bike trips with brothers and friends and weekends back home at the farm or Ormsby until we get to the start of our second chapter, our family.

    From Jan throwing up in her popcorn at the drive in in Navarre, to Waconia Ridgeview later that night, to seeing Rachel for the first time shortly there after. Life really does change forever when you have children if you are paying attention. After Rachel was born in Waconia we moved to Saint James for a job transfer for me.

The three of us did do some traveling, camping at Nemo and visiting The Grand Tetons and Yellowstone when Rachel was a year or two old. Jan, in addition to her homemaker tasks worked a couple other jobs to stay busy. In 1978 we, pretty much she, produced Genevieve to add to our clutch of children, followed in 1980 by Eli completing that part of the saga. In addition to taking care of three children and an older individual, me, she started working at Watonwan county Human Services and working toward a degree from Mankato State part time. She graduated with honors in 2008. Jan is the family record keeper and shoulder to cry on, my confidant and lover, anchor in the storms of our lives and home decorator too. You have no idea how hard it is to try and condense 50 years together into a bunch of words on a page when the most important words are stuck in my heart and I find difficult to express with my limited vocabulary. I just want the world to know that I have been blessed with a life with a woman that I never expected would ever happen to me, blessed with seven terrific grandchildren and two sons and a daughter in law that are like our own. She has put up with a husband that likes to travel, has medical problems and is forgetful of important things but not trivia. This note is more or less random thoughts that I keep coming up with as you may have noticed. We did get to Japan twice and Germany once visiting Rachel and family with her Navy husband Hans, with many trips to the Black Hills and Colorado too. I got to thinking yesterday as we were returning from getting my covid shot, how we hold hands quite a lot while I'm driving so I get to explore her hand by feel. Silly things like that. Advice like, try not to go to bed mad at each other, watch what you say because it can't be unsaid. Today, the 14th it was -16 when I got up a little cooler than in 1971 when it was 60 degrees warmer. I think that said that this is the coldest Valentines day in history. So much for global warming. I started out trying to put down a history of our time together but there was so much packed into that 50 years that I couldn't do it justice. You just had to live it, the ups and downs, but mostly ups. Our answer is to love each other and be comfortable with one another. You only get one chance at this life so you should do your best to make your partner your main object in this time on God's green Earth. Hopefully I'll get to do this in 10 years but you never know.      

Christmas 2020

   This Christmas post will be shorter than previous years for sure, with assorted surgeries and the covid  pandemic keeping us close to home for the most part. 

   January was pretty normal with Jan and I attending basketball games for Sam, Gus, Leah and Aaron and several medical appointments in New Ulm and Fairmont. Jan was getting a knee replaced and I had another sleep study. Also typically this time of the year there was lots of blowing snow and cold and for us things started to go down hill. I had a loose tooth pulled which led to another cancer surgery in March, in the mean time I helped some with the Falcon project.

   February. Seems like a theme here, doctor appointments and basketball, heavy snow and moving snow from one location to another. I did get some pt for a sore leg muscle and a new cpap machine which was a huge improvement over the one I got years ago. Jan and I celebrated our 49th on the 14th and are looking forward to our 50th next February. Who'd a thought that was possible. Jan and I did kind of commute to Austin for Sam's basketball tournament for a couple of days. 

   March. I got to some more basketball games at Byron and Stewartville. On the 4th Jan had her left knee replaced at New Ulm by a doctor that looks like she could be in high school, that must be an effect of growing old, most of the doctors we see these days look like kids. Speaking of that, the doctor I'm looking at for cataract surgery has the same birthday as our youngest, Eli. Anyhow they had Jan up and walking the halls later on the day she had the replacement done. Just a couple days later I got to bring her home to stay. We were to Mayo in Rochester for a biopsy of the place where the tooth came out and it's cancer again, so I was looking at more cutting in my mouth. Eli got the Falcon painted a grey color with a black stripe, so that project is moving along. I was back to Rochester for some more tests, ct and pet scans and a meet with the surgeon. Looks like it should be an outpatient procedure so there is that. Anyhow Eli and I spent the night at Gen and Steve's so I could be at St. Mary's by zero dark 30. Took more teeth, part of the sinus, and a 20mm tumor out of my upper jaw and let me go home after noon. Had the 2 week recovery as usual, so both Jan and I are on the mend. Actually I managed to just get that done about the time that everything shut down for the covid panic. One bright spot, at least we had some nice weather intermittently in March, so there is that I guess.

   April. We are still recovering from our surgeries, slowly and with care. Jan's knee seems to be coming along nicely and she is back vacuuming with her regular schedule. I managed to get the Mustang out of the garage and do some short bike rides, but in the middle of the month we had a regular blizzard with high wind and 10 inches of snow. I did a shelf project in the basement so Jan had some more room to store things. About a week after the snow storm it was 70 degrees so we drove down to Ormsby to pick up supper at Bailey's, then went out to the old ball diamond to eat in the truck. As a child I spent a lot of time there while my Dad played and managed for the Ormsby softball team, today the fences are gone and the infield is getting weedy but the shelter is still up. I finished up the month with some riding on some of the toys.

   May. Jan and I on the way to New Ulm on the 4th saw the first corn sprouting which is about the earliest I can remember seeing this indicator of a good corn crop, assuming good conditions from now on. I trailered the GS to Sioux City for his Spring check up etc.. The next day we had everybody, excepting our east coast family, the DeFors, over for lunch, the first time we have been together since Christmas last year. Me back to Mayo for a covid test and back two days later to meet with the orthodontist after my March surgery for a check up. Why covid tests can't be done right here in town at the local Mayo facility is evidently above my pay grade. We got a lot of rain this month as is indicated by the frequency of the mowing of the lawn. In the last few days of May, after my 76th on the 25th, I rode my "Wyoming Loop" trip. I have done this almost every year lately. From home to Spearfish, to Buffalo, to Chamberlain and home the next day. I hit unusual weather in the Hills that trip, from Newcastle through Custer State Park it was very foggy and cold. 

   June. The first half of the month was pretty quiet, mowing lawn and running errands. Jan was mowing at the farm and I was mowing at home. I did take a run to New Mexico with the Mustang to visit some of the sites that the Longmire tv series was filmed at. I had intended to take a bike but a worn tire forced me to change my mode of travel. We had a lot more rain and Jan and I were out to the farm, with her mowing and me working on the Falcon wiring part of the project.

   July. As usual we start the month with our yearly trip to Lanesboro with the trailer to "camp" and take in their fantastic fireworks show. I did manage to get to a PGR mission at the state veteran's cemetery right up the road at Preston, it was really hot that day. After we got back home, Eli, Lindsey and the kids took the trailer over to Lake Shetek for a few days. So at least it's getting some use. I took the Mustang to Mankato to replace the windshield that got cracked near Amarillo, Texas on my Longmire tour earlier this year. I think that we have replaced windshields in almost every vehicle we have owned in the last few years. We had some heavy rain toward the end of the month 4-5 inches with flooding in the area.

   August. I made a short run out to the Hills to check out the Mickelson trail conditions. After Gen and her friends walked the whole 100 plus miles of the trail last year I was inspired to try and bicycle the distance in the future so I was curious about the surface conditions, also an excuse for another ride to the Hills. Jan and I were out to the farm a couple nights for meteor showers and planet viewing, that was fun with the gang. Jan has been out to the farm mowing grass a lot lately and I actually had my XR185 out some for the first time in years. I rode down to central Iowa to check out the storm damage from the derecho that roared through that area. It was unbelievable the amount of damage, corn fields flat for miles, grain bins in pieces scattered about and groves either flat, uprooted or tipped over. I've never seen anything that wide spread or violent looking ever! 

   September. Jan and I were to Rochester for Sam's soccer game and the next day I started packing for another bike trip, for a play by play look at my previous blog. It did not turn out so well. After I recovered from that fiasco Jan and I returned to Rochester for some more Sam and Gus's soccer games. I did make a swing down to the SAC Museum at Ashland, Nebraska with the intent of going farther west out of there, but I could not find a place to stay and ended up almost back in Sioux Falls. That's one thing this year lodging has not been too difficult but scaring up a meal indoors has not been easy. Spent several meals eating on the curb or picnic tables if they are available. Phil and Laura, Jan and I did a cemetery cruise on the 29th, which would have been our Mom's 100th. We visited Mom, Dad and Kathy's grave sites at Cedar Hill west of Trimont and Mom's parents at Welcome, and our grandparents at the Galena cemetery. It was a good day to check out headstones to try and figure out who is who and what happened at that point in time.

   October. Jan and I drove up to Wadena to spend a couple days with her sister Paula. One day the girls went shopping in Alexandria and I went out to Aneta, North Dakota where I spend some time over 50 years ago inventorying the plant in that exchange and also in the West Northwood exchange which had maybe half a dozen lines at that time, it was pretty remote. Jan and I were out to the farm some, her mowing and pulling weeds, me helping with the Falcon project. Jan and I drove over to Waseca or Officer Matson's return home from months of rehab after being shot in the head in the line of duty. We visited my Mayo doctor Martin for another check and more biopsies in my mouth and another ct scan. We did move our trailer out to the farm to get it under cover for the winter, hopefully the mice will be deterred by the dryer sheets. It has been uncommonly cold during this period with high temps in the teens and snow. I got the bad news again while I was at a PGR mission near Meriden, it's cancer, no surprise anymore. This will be number 5 or 6 I'm losing track anymore. This time it's on the lower left side and will entail removing a portion of my jaw and all of my remaining teeth. Jan and I spent a day cruising Goodwill stores in St. Paul looking for a set of dishes she saw in one of her vlogs, with no luck, but we had fun. 

   November. The weather turned nice and warm with one day hitting 80 degrees. We were back to Mayo for more information on how this round will go and I'm not looking forward to this one either. We did have some regular things going on, I got the Triumph to 10,000 miles, Jan got a new phone and the GS to 50,000 miles so there is that. On the 10th I was over to Mayo for the required covid test and on the 12th it was back to St. Mary's for the surgery. After all that cutting and sawing and stitching my mouth back together they ran me out shortly after lunch. Doctor Martin said with the way the hospital was jammed up with covid cases I would be safer at home with my anti biotics and painkillers. To add insult to injury Jan had to drive me home on roads that were extremely slippery, like 40mph in falling snow, but we made it. When we got home we found the driveway blown out by Eli and Lindsey and company, that was a welcome sight. The next major obstacle is trying to figure out how to eat and speak with no teeth in your mouth. As it turns out eating is just a matter of choosing softer foods and making sure that they are mashed up. One thing that is hard for me to deal with is the idea that I will never eat popcorn, peanuts, chips etc. again, not so much the taste but the texture of these things. Speaking turns out was not that bad either not that I was some great orator to begin with, I don't think that the hands free phone calling in our vehicle knows me anymore though. I spent the rest of the month recovering. Jan and I did celebrate Thanksgiving by ourselves for the first time ever I think.

   December. I have managed to whip up a couple of dishes that make good leftovers like 6 layer dinner, one of my Mom's favorites and chili in the crockpot. It seems like these always get better the more they are reheated and I can just shovel them in and swallow. I thought that I would be on this extended weight loss program but it's been exactly the opposite, probably indulging in ice cream frequently isn't helping. I have taken a few drives just to compensate for being cooped up and doing some bike maintenance to keep busy. I have to admit that up until my latest surgery the covid did not worry me too much but afterwards we have been staying pretty close to home for fear of picking something up while I'm recovering. I did go into Menards this week for the first time inside a business in almost 6 weeks. Jan and I will be home for Christmas too and who knows when our governor Kim Jun Walz will allow us out of homes, maybe by this time next year? Better not be. Well, it's been quite a year for sure, but this time in mid December finds our family separated but in good health and longing to be able to touch another person, not that I'm ever getting tired of holding Jan, but you know what I mean. Maybe without all of the hoopla surrounding this time of year normally we can a little more easily pay some attention to the real reason for Christmas and contemplate what His birth means for us all? So Merry Christmas and a Happy 2021 for us one and all. I hope that this time next year finds us all in a better place. Pete Kuehl 19 December 2020.

PS The end of this year finds those of us not retired gainfully employed: Hans at the Pentagon, Rachel with a new job in Lofton, VA, Scuba managing a golf course, Gen at Mayo, Eli in his fourth year of electrician apprenticeship, and Lindsey at Baileys and the City of Ormsby. All of the grandchildren, Josiah, Annika, William, Samuel, August, Leah and Aaron are hitting the books and for the most part actually in a classroom. We are blessed with a great Family!!

 

The Bucket list ride from Hell

    This is one of those motorcycle trips that turn out to be a whole lot more entertaining in the middle of the Winter when they are retold. I had been planning this longer trip for most of the Summer, mostly figuring that it would be cooler in the Fall, boy was it ever! This was going to be a long loop across Wyoming over the Uintas, across Utah to ride the Moki Dugway, to hit northern New Mexico to revisit another Longmire site that I couldn't get to earlier this year. After New Mexico, the plan was to head up through central Colorado and back home by one route or another. I spent some time watching the weather and things looked good for the areas I was heading to, just a little cool in the mountains. The first day was home to Hot Springs, South Dakota and it was 106 degrees from Rapid City south. Next day was Wyoming, with Casper hazy with smoke and busy too with the Labor Day weekend, to Rawlins and I 80 to Evanston for the night. Evanston was jumping with the first rodeo of the year. Riding by the arena it looked like the state fair was on. Oh ya did I mention that I had forgotten my cooler and it's contents in Hot Springs which kind of made the whole trip kind of a bummer? I headed back East the following morning with lots of trucks and the Union Pacific for company with a tail wind to boot. I stopped in Wheatland for lunch and fuel at a station that has a sign on the door that says "This is Wyoming assume that everyone is armed", I love that one. Anyhow headed north toward Lusk I noticed a cloud bank in the north west and the wind was coming up and the temperature was dropping off. Now I started to believe the information signs along the interstate that were warning of high winds and heavy snow the next day, when it was 85 90 degrees when I first saw them! North of Lusk when I made the turn toward Edgemont it started to rain and it kept it up all the way back to Hot Springs. I got checked in and dried off and asked if I needed to could I stay another day, because I could see that the next day would be iffy, with snow in the Hills etc.. Well it rained most of the night and when I checked the Weather channel they told me about the eight inches of snow in Custer, which is right up the road but a higher elevation than Hot Springs which did give me some hope. After a couple of hours doing some soul searching I made the choice to try for home, luckily or call it foresight, I had virtually every item of cold weather gear along, which I struggled into before I made my break for home and hearth and Jan of course. I have ridden in cold temperatures before but nothing like this cold and distance. Going up to Rapid City it was 34 degrees with snow on the shoulder of the highway and the Hills were white. I didn't worry too much about slippery road conditions as I figured with 100 plus temps just a day or two earlier the pavement would still be warm enough. From Rapid East I cranked Fritzy up to 80 and set the cruise and motored on home, with a few stops along the way, arriving about 8 pm. Looking back, if I had gone on from Evanston I would have been stuck in high winds, cold temps etc., etc., and would have had to swing as far south as Mexico to get around that front that roared in out of Canada. I look at weather today and the plains are having plenty of rain now too, I guess that I am lucky that I left that cooler in Hot Springs ultimately, because I came back for it and got out of the west before the record setting cold and snow rolled in. A post script here too, I 80 in central Wyoming was closed due to heavy blowing snow and I had just cruised that section the day before in nice weather. And another thing, I was surprised to see lots of bikes heading west on I 90 as I was heading home, maybe they aren't paying attention to the weather either. Hopefully they did not plan on going west of the Hills as I am sure I 90 in Wyoming was not good. Anyhow I made it home in one piece vowing to never try that again but knowing that by later this Winter I'll be dreaming up another adventure and Jan will be urging me to check off another road on my bucket list rides.

For my Valentine on our 49th

    This will be just a short post instead of a card for my girl. Knowing what a procrastinator I am I have waited until the day of to peck this out. So anyway, here goes.
   I wish that I could think of something more impressive than "Wow 49 years, who would have thought it possible!" So it has been a great 49 years of my life that I never expected to happen to me all of those years ago. I go through several scenarios and wonder what would my life have been like? More than likely not as good as this one that we have put together. With that I believe that I will sign on for one more year and make it a nice round 50. Thanks for the good life you have given me.
                                            Love Pete

Christmas 2019 post script

   Our Christmas get together in Edina at the Homewood Suites has come to an end for this year. I think that we all agree that it went very well all in all, with plenty to do and an unusually nice string of above average weather. Everybody on Jan and my side of the family was here including my brothers and spouses. Hans, Rachel, Josiah, Annika and William from Burke, Virginia. Steve, Gen, Sam and Gus from Rochester, Minnesota. Eli, Lindsey, Leah and Aaron from St. James. My brother Phil and wife Laura, brother Paul and wife Marcy spent some time with us. One morning I drove my beautiful daughters around to some Goodwills and a book store. It was fun with little traffic and a used book store that I scored at, I think they did okay at Goodwill. That afternoon the kids all went skating somewhere not too far away. Monday night was football and typically the Vikings looked lost against the Packers, at home to boot. We were in the main area at the motel and had a fairly wild time and picked up a guy from London that joined in for a beer and some of Marcy's chili. He had a very interesting history, born in Angola, scuba dives for fun and looks like he may be a corporate head hunter. Yesterday was nice in the morning and sad too with everybody heading out in different directions at once, Hans and Rachel and their gang back to the airport to drop the rental and hop the flight back to Virginia, Steve and Gen and theirs to Rochester, Eli headed off to Hancock to pick up some coal at Laura's family farm, Lindsey and theirs to St. James. Paul and Marcy off to Hector and Fairmont, Phil to Hancock, Laura to her Mom's and Jan and I to the bike shops in Lakeville and home to St. James. Our three, Gen, Rachel and Eli.

2019 Letter at Christmas time part 2

   Following convention July should follow June where I come from. So here we go with the second half at my attempt to bore you readers to tears. I had to rebuild the clutch slave cylinder on my 94 Ducati, probably spending entirely too much time in the garage doesn't help with age problems even for motorcycles. Jan and I headed down to Lanesboro with the trailer and a bike after spending that morning early, running to New Ulm Menards for sump pump parts. Our time down there is usually fun with one of the best fireworks shows we have seen, and I get a little riding in, heading over to Wisconsin for their back roads. Jan had a cousin pass away shortly after we got home so we had a funeral to attend in Jackson. At our age it seems like funerals are getting more common and are the only time we see a lot of people. I suppose that if we can hang on a while longer grand children will be getting married and start having families, so the cycle continues. I managed to get to some more PGR missions in the area, and Jan and I putzed around on some projects out at the farm. Even though it seems like yesterday, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing this year. Looking back now with what I have learned over the years, that was a incredible achievement that we would be hard pressed to duplicate today. I did my annual Big Horn mountain loop over to Wyoming later on with the new Triumph Tiger.
   August finds me catching up on some homestead projects, doing some maintenance on our deck and hitting a few PGR missions. Jan had a go around with that medical procedure that everybody hates, it turned out okay. We got caught in the heaviest rainfall I have ever attempted to drive in, while the radio warned us of a tornado near Bingham Lake which happened to be the town we were driving by. We wanted to do some shopping in Windom but all the stores were shut down due to the tornado in the area. We live such an exciting life I can hardly stand it. Jan and I drove up to the Cities to make our reservations at the hotel that we are going to celebrate Christmas at with the whole family in just a few days from now- December 19-. I actually got the bicycle out of the garage and put on some miles before we headed for Ridgway, Colorado for a few days. Jan gets to hang around the motel, which has just gone through a big remodel in the lobby, cruise the thrift shops and I go riding in the San Juan mountains. We got home in time for Labor Day, but that's another month.
   September, now we are getting to Vikings football and Leah playing volleyball with the St. Pauls team. Thunderstorms are making several appearances along with a tornado in Sioux Falls. Also Gus and Sam are busy with Fall soccer games at many different locations. Jan and I traded our Escape for a new Edge, mainly because we wanted a better riding vehicle with heated seats and steering wheel. One thing that I have noticed is that we can have a conversation while driving down the road without raising our voices much. The end of the month I tried heading down to New Mexico to try and find some sites that were used in the series "Longmire". The weather was kind of chilly and regardless of how warmly you dress, after a while you get cold, discouraged I headed home from near Cheyenne, maybe next year. I am working on putting a new wiring harness in Elis' 64 Falcon a bit at a time, so far the testing has been coming out good, so wish me luck.
   October starts with more heavy rain, it's been a wet year so far. After an online course at the University of U-tube I replaced the rear brakes and rotors on Jan's car. Next up is the fronts, maybe next Spring. A couple days later I hit another deer, that makes four, and I hope that it's the last. Jan and I flew out to Washington to visit with the DeFor family for a few days. Rachel's job with a local contractor has her running all over the area moving supplies etc. around and I rode along a couple of days, I had a good time flying around northern Virginia- I think, most of the time I had no idea where we were. One of the stops in Arlington had us close to the Air Force Memorial so I kind of know where that is. Jan and I flew home on the 16th and we had a 70th birthday get together at the Schells Brewery on the 19th for the tour, imagine our surprise when Rachel and Gen showed up! They had orchestrated the whole thing, our three children Rachel, Genevieve and Steve and their two boys Sam and Gus and Eli and Lindsey and Leah and Aaron, Jan's sister Paula, my brothers Phil and Paul and their wives Laura and Marcy. I don't think that I missed anybody, but it was quite a day for Jan and I.
We had supper in New Ulm and cocktails later. The next day was Vikings football here and it was nice enough to put the tv out on the deck which has always been a great way to enjoy a Fall afternoon. Routine things kind of filled the rest of the month, but it had been a great one getting to celebrate the 70th birthday of the woman I love.
   November where Fall goes to die and Winter really begins. Jan went up to Wadena to spend some time with her sister Paula and a couple days later I went there too and we came home together to find four inches of new snow on the ground at home, and so it begins. Leah and Aaron's school had a nice veterans day program that I attended. Got the Mustang's oil changed and put it away for the winter in a corner of the garage, now Jan's car gets to be indoors till Spring. We had an assortment of doctors appointments, one a pre-op for me for that unmentionable procedure and one at Mayo with my guy. As long as we keep getting good reports from him it's always a pleasant visit with doctor Eli and nurse Dawn, even if it's not good check up we still chit chat about things like the sky dive in May and how the riding is going among other things. We put snow stoppers on the roof the day before we got another 8 to 10 inches of wet snow, so the timing worked out that time for me. Thanksgiving was at the Theobalds in Rochester again this year. During the pre dinner festivities I had the thought that occurred to me before in of all places the Target in Burke "I'm really going to miss this when it's over". Life I'm pretty sure what I meant. I was also making some progress on the Falcon wiring project, so there is that.
   So December begins with the ugly the bad and the good. Colonoscopy prep, actual procedure and the news that a small polyp was okay, and now for the good part, at my advanced age I don't need another one-ever! Then a weekend of basketball with Leah and Aaron at Redwood Falls and Sam and Gus at Northfield. A lot of driving but I have never complained about driving unless the weather is totally impossible. Jan says I'm like a black lab, just mention going somewhere and I'm out in the car waiting. About this time the temperatures took a turn for the basement with daytime highs at or below zero with snow and high winds. We had three National Guardsmen killed in a helicopter crash near St. Cloud, one of whom was a St. James graduate. I did make one of their funerals at St. Johns abbey. This funeral was almost like the Killed in Action funerals that I have attended in the past. Lots of military, tears, ceremonies, flag presentations to his family ending with a dual helicopter flyover. I shook a lot of hands after that including our governor Walz. And that about brings us up to date. I have been putzing around with the bikes but I have to save myself for the depths of Winter when I will really need something to do besides read. Jan and I will be heading up to the Cities to spend a few days with our family in a hotel near Southdale. Sometimes a person has to take some time and sit back and consider what the root cause of all of the hustling and bustling, depression, fear of not having everything exactly right, need I go on? Remember Christ is the reason for the season. That sounds a little trite, or still minimizing the real part of that slogan...Christ. I'll leave you all, or the couple that actually read this, with that.
                                                     Pete Kuehl    20 December 2019

The 2019 Letter at Christmas Time part 1

   I find myself less interested in putting out this letter every year, call it what you will but from my point of view it's really only interesting to us. So there, I have that out in the open. Maybe it is the weather system that just literally just blew in this morning. Jan and I were heading up to New Ulm at 6am for a doctors appointment and the visibility in blowing snow and falling temperatures forced us back to town for breakfast at the Home Town. Wait, this is supposed to be the Christmas letter so I better get back on subject.
   January like most Januarys in this part of the world was cold and mostly nasty, snow, cleaning out after, more snow, digging out ad infinitum. Jan and I did manage to get to follow the Theobald boys basketball season. I spent a lot of time re reading a couple series of books in order and we watched a lot of tv series on dvds. I also had a few projects to keep me busy in the garage and doing some finishing work in the basement. Really bitter cold by the end of the month, -26 at night and high temperature of -16 oof da.
   February starts out with me and a cold that got worse as time went by, eventually Jan got it too. Jan and I were down to Ormsby to the bank to finish up some paperwork to get my Mom's bank accounts closed out finally. She had her ducks in a row financially thank goodness, not like my sister who had not until my brother Paul and wife Marcy got a lot of it in line a few years ago. Jan and I celebrated our 48th anniversary at Bailey's in Ormsby when they had a special for Valentine's Day, our anniversary date. In checking my notes I see that we got 5-6 inches of snow about every few days with a blizzard with 50 mph winds thrown in, somehow we did manage to make a couple of routine doctor appointments.
   March started with what else but more snow and wind and below zero temperatures. Jan, Leah, Aaron and I did manage to get to Rochester to watch Sam and Gus play basketball in a tournament on a day between storms. We did spend some time in Menards finally getting a gun safe and a really nice electric fireplace that Jan, showing some of her Jewish dna, got it for about half the regular price. Actually toward the end of the month I managed to get a couple bikes out for a run, so things are starting to moderate some. Also the Mustang came out of cold storage for the Summer and I did manage to get to some PGR missions in locations in southern Minnesota.
   April, I have got to think of a better start to a month than using a variation of the word start. Anyhow, I managed to get the BMW in for it's Spring checkup at the dealer in Sioux City before the next round of nasty weather hit. Jan and I did trade in the Triumph Bonneville in for another Triumph Tiger, the 2012 Tiger was purchased by Eli. Jan and I were to the Theobalds in Rochester for Easter and it was 85 degrees that day, and 45 the next with rain, wow only in Minnesota. We did keep an eye on Leah and Aaron while Eli and Lindsey made a run to The Hills.
   May. I had a PGR mission down to the new state veteran cemetery at Preston and mowed the lawn at the beginning of the month. Jan and I were up to Sleepy Eye to watch Leah and Aaron participate in the track meet for all of the Lutheran schools in the area. It's really fun to see all of those young people, Lutherans all, by the hundreds I think pretty much having a good time. I replaced the stool in one bathroom with a new Kohler super dooper model recommended by a close expert. And the soccer season starts with trips to assorted fields in southern Minnesota and a check up with my doctor at Rochester Mayo. Got a clean bill of health again PTL. Made a bread run to Sioux City and one to MSP to pick up Rachel who had come home for my 75th birthday-Memorial Day festivities. May 25th was an extremely big day for me and our family, We had our usual get together at a park in Owatonna and Eli and my first ever parachute jump. The weather was great, we had brothers Paul and Phil with their wives Marcy and Laura, children Rachel, Gen and Eli with their spouses Steve, boys Sam and Gus, Lindsey children Leah and Aaron. Rachel was here by herself as the rest of the family was home in the D.C. area. One at a time to 10,000 feet a little free fall with at least 10 minutes under the canopy. For me I guess it was more of a check off on my bucket list but Eli loved it. I got to thank my wife Jan for coming up with it, lining it up and for the kiddos for chipping in. Quite a day all in all. I looked out the kitchen window one day after a heavy rain and saw a buzzard sitting on the back of a chair on the deck right outside. It was there all afternoon and eventually flew off. I think it got caught in that heavy rain and got too soaked to fly. Weird looking up close but unique.
   June. I finally made it all the way to Elko, Nevada after a couple of aborted trips in past years. Last year it was smoke so thick it was hard to see more than a mile or two. This year the weather was nice, a little warm around Salt Lake and the salt flats and breezy out there. Elko was kind of surprising in that it is a busy growing place in what looks like the high plains. I spent some time touring around the Ruby mountains. Got stopped by snow banks going up the Lamoille Canyon and then made a long circuit to Ely. The run from Ely to Beaver, Utah was a pleasant surprise, green- this time of year- rolling valleys between mountain ranges when I expected dry desert type terrain judging by the maps I had been studying. From there it was a run through northern Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota and home. So I have that one checked off the bucket list. Having no desire to head east on a bike I do have some other destinations to look to in the future. In the middle of June the DeFor clan stopped by on their way home, so to speak. They had had a good trip west as far as Craters of the Moon in Idaho. We had Rachel home over my birthday the last of May and now she and Hans, Joe, Annie and Will spent a couple more days here. Jan and I were making some soccer games for our grand kids, out to the farm on projects and doctor appointments. The 20th there was a tornado east of town that hit the airport and the turkey barns along hiway 60, it was quite a mess. The turkey barn still is missing most of its roof and the hanger destroyed has not been replaced. I managed to attend several PGR missions during June, so it's been a pretty busy month. I will post this half and finish the rest a little later.