Coffee at Hastings

Blogging from the bookstore coffeeshop.
I drove Maria to work this morning and then headed over to Hastings to return some rental DVDs, get my morning coffee and use their free Wi-fi.
Maria's daughter Morgan is coming to visit next weekend and it looks like she picked a good time to burn the gasoline to drive down.
A gallon of regular was down to $3.45 at Kroger yesterday. Assuming this isn't just a northeast Arkansas anomaly, it will probably be about $20 cheaper for Morgan to drive here from Bloomington at current gas prices, compared with a month ago when regular was around $4 a gallon. Even so, the 822-mile round trip will cost about $120, assuming she gets around 24 mpg.
I may have to make a run to Thorntown one of these days to check on the house. Our Realtor emailed last week to say the lawn is getting mowed, but there are tall weeds growing next to the house that detract from the curb appeal. He also suggested we consider dropping our asking price again and maybe think about having the trim painted. Ouch.
But this albatross is bleeding us of $1,030 a month and the sooner we can stop that financial drain, the better.
So much for whining about money. It is what it is.
Among the rental DVDs I returned this morning was "The Big Trail," a movie chosen mostly by chance. We watched it last night and were blown away.
Director Raoul Walsh shot the film in a widescreen 70mm format in 1930. Walsh discovered prop boy Marion Morrison and renamed him John Wayne because Walsh was reading a biography of Revolutionary War hero Mad Anthony Wayne. It was John Wayne's first film and he looks almost painfully young in it.
The acting is broad and exaggerated in places, an artifact of the silent films many of the actors had worked in. The movie follows the progress of a pioneer wagon train from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Northwest, taking a curious detour through Momument Valley in northeastern Arizona. Wayne plays a wagon train scout whose life bears more than a passing resemblance to the legendary Kit Carson. "The Big Trail" cost a ton of money, being shot at various locations across the American west and was a financial failure, but it was ahead of its time.
The wagons and equipment and harrowing scenes of river crossings and descents into canyons have a look of authenticity that is striking compared with similar films from the 1950s and '60s.
If you're a film buff or just enjoy a good western, give "The Big Trail" a look.