July 12th: We returned to Metropolis, Illinois, 25 years after our first Superman Celebration. We were a bit late for this year’s.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Two geeks met in 1987 in high school German class, somewhat out of sync with the ordinary folks around us. Divine timing would keep our unplanned parallel paths intertwining over the years. Everything led up to our determinedly simple wedding in 2004, by which time we best friends had already started traveling together after growing up in families and lifestyles that didn’t lend themselves to much of it. All these years later, our story continues together through ups and downs, highs and lows, chuckles and tears, aches and pains, and mountains and valleys both figurative and literal.

We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

Through thick and thin she’s put up with me all this time, even as new challenges come up — the scattering of our respective families to the four winds, the effects of the aging process and snacks on our bodies, the financial burdens of maintaining two paid-off old cars and a suburban shack, and my least favorite $25,000 Pyramid category, “Things Containing Politics”.

In exchange, we’ve been side-by-side for happier moments that make all the tiresome adulting worthwhile. As of tonight we’re still recovering from our 2026 road trip, a 10-day drive from Indianapolis to Austin and back again. We traversed 2,819 miles across seven states and walked several cumulative miles through near-100-degree heat-wave gauntlets. We visited three Civil War battlefields, three state capitol buildings, two Presidential burial sites, two comic shops, and two Buc-ee’s. We saw one bear, a few bats, several loud birds, quite a few daring squirrels, multiple museums, nearly two dozen giant roadside objects, and construction sites for two more Buc-ee’s coming soon to Arkansas and Louisiana. Soon that rascally beaver shall be everywhere and rule them all!

Though our fireworks-based plans were rained out, we spent the rest of our extended July 4th holiday immersing in Americana, relaxing on the open roads, thrilling to Texas’ 75-MPH speed limits, side-eying the occasional Confederate monument, relishing all the barbecue brisket, and watching Gilmore Girls morning reruns in our various hotel rooms on the Hallmark Channel, which censors all the TV-PG cusswords in case any impressionable elderly folks accidentally tune in.

Someday I’ll get around to posting about all that here at length, but I’m still running a few years behind on travelogs. For now, please enjoy this advance mini-gallery of every moment from our vacation when other human beings were gracious enough to offer to photograph us together. We were more than happy to return the favor, and we hope they enjoyed their travels and their companions as well.

July 5th: We walked Bathhouse Row at Hot Springs National Park, west of Little Rock.

Also July 5th: We rode to the top of the Hot Springs Mountain Tower, which affords a 140-mile view of the surrounding countryside.

July 6th: The 14-foot squirrel statue and inflatable soccer ball (holy World Cup tie-in!) at Berdoll Pecan Candy & Gift Co. in Cedar Creek, Texas, south of Austin.

July 9th: We returned to the Dr. Pepper Museum 21 years after our last visit. Features added since 2005 include a giant Dr. Pepper bottle and some post-merger Keurig co-branding replacing most of the old 7-Up references. Maybe Dr. Pepper should take lessons from us on how to find the right partner.