Jon Laging, Sports Columnist

Our professional and college basketball teams are not doing well. The Timberwolves are playing .500 ball and Monson’s Gophers would be happy to be doing as well in the Big Ten. Neither seems on the verge of a dramatic improvement.

What to write about? I’m tired of the Vikings; of their season, their old coach and their new coach. It’s a pleasure not to worry about them for a few months. As far as analyzing their new coach, I’ll leave that to others and await the results of next season.

As I sit here and look out the window, thoughts of sunshine and soft breezes and travel to the south come to mind. Not that its been a harsh winter, far from it, but winter sports are suffering: skiing, snowmobiling, skating, etc. Many people are thinking: If you’re going to have winter, let’s have it, not this Illinois version of winter. Looking out at this gray drizzle and given the state of Minnesota sports, maybe a travel story is good.

One son had gone to Texas to make his fortune after his freshman year in college. He had friends in Houston and with a high school buddy journeyed south to Urban Cowboy country. Our other son joined him later. We heard from them from time to time and while they didn’t join John Travolta on an oil rig it sounded as though things were going well.

I was in the midst of a stressful period at the hospital and both Kay and I needed to see the boys. We made up our minds that we would head south to be with them around Christmas. Went east to spend Christmas Eve in Spring Valley and then to Houston.

During the first two days I felt I had to make two calls back to the hospital. Not too obsessed. I really needed to get away. I had never traveled south by car and it was fun to watch the land as the white turned to brown and the weather became warmer.

I had gotten our Olds Toronado tuned up in hopes of getting better gas milage. I guess it did. The car got 14 miles to the gallon. Not great, but in those days gas was only about 35 cents.

No storms and the temperature slowly became warmer as we motored south. It wasn’t the Bahamas, but it was better than South Dakota. We tried to find a scenic road in Texas with no luck. Miles and miles of jack pines, buzzards and telephone poles.

We arrived in Baytown after finding our way through Houston. I’d never seen so many cloverleafs. We were very happy to see our boys. They looked good. We were proud that they were doing well on their own. We had Christmas together and spent a great deal of time catching up on each other’s news.

One thing about traveling by car on a week’s vacation is there isn’t much time left at your destination. Perhaps the nicest day together was spent on Galveston Island on the Gulf of Mexico just a few miles from Baytown. The sun was out and the temperature close to 70 degrees. We waded in the Gulf, watched some fisherman and beachcombed. I found a packing crate lid with a New Orleans address on it. It had come quite a distance to get to Galveston.

Before we left, I bought a case of Lone Star beer to be given out on our return. The Texas clerk had difficulty recognizing there were places in the U.S. that didn’t sell Lone Star.

We headed back to the snow and cold. After staying overnight at a Kansas motel, we awoke to rain. Oh, oh, we thought and we were right. Soon it started snowing as we went north and we were in a blizzard by the time we hit Sioux City. We made it home, plowed through the drifts and found all our snow shovels.

If we could go back in time, we wouldn’t hesitate a minute to do it again.