landed in monmouth illinois with four dogs, two cats, a teen, two moving vans, two cars. one of the cars started showing a check-engine light toward the end and we towed it instead of the other one with the tow wagon on the moving van. but that turned out to be not a problem; both cars are fine. i suspect that with the old honda, that showed the check-engine light, either it was because she was running air-con full blast with the windows open, to indulge the pets, or because she kept using the cruise control, and something was wrong with that. no telling. in any case, we are here in monmouth.

monmouth is a tiny town maybe four square miles. it has a little roundabout in the center and then the two main roads, broadway and main, go out about a mile in each direction. our house is about two blocks north of downtown and it's just barely big enough for all of us, but they were ok with the four dogs and two cats and we moved right in. we were careful not to make too huge a scene in front of it, as it seems to be prim and proper, everyone concerned about their lawns and appearance.

the prim and proper may come from its presbyterian roots, as monmouth college is the presby college in the same division as knox and cornell, where i went. the town reminds me of mount vernon, a town in iowa where i lived for a few years, as it's full of beautiful old houses and many of them are very well taken care of. but they use roundup like water here, and i don't trust it a bit. one lady told me to keep my dogs away from it - yes, but it's going right into the ground with every rain, right? someone's making a killing selling this weed killer, but, someone else is being killed, i'm pretty sure.

not to put a damper on the experience. the rain, the grass, the green, the trees, the lush gardens with flowers blooming all over the place - all this is new if you've been in new mexico long enough, and we're enjoying it. the dogs are enjoying it too. the kids are not even wandering out the front door.