'Luke, how did you get up there?'

McDonald's in Acton, Calif.

You might remember on Christmas Day I told you the story of how we always used to joke about the horse that was atop a McDonald's in Acton, Calif.

When you were 4 years old, if we drove by the McDonald's, you'd say, 'Luke, how did you get up there? Not again!' as pretending to be Sheriff Jack, one of our Old West cowboys (I always was Sheriff Jack's sidekick, "The Deputy"). Luke was Sheriff Jack's trusty horse (You even had a horse that you named Luke in your set of cowboy figures.).

Playing the Deputy, I'd suggest all kinds of crazy ways of getting Luke down, like "We could get a crane and lift him down" or "We could fly one of them newfangled air balloons over the McDonald's and lift him down" or "We could divert the river and flood the whole town so that Luke could swim down from the roof."

Anyway, here's a picture of that famous Old West-themed McDonald's with Luke the horse atop it!

Some places we built some memories of

Yesterday, I saw a lot of places, probably for the last if not for a long time, where we once spent time together. The Twin Cities where you now live offer its own great sights and events, yet it was with some melancholy that these places of our past our not vanquished to memory alone.

There were the famous "Kirk Rocks," as you liked to call them, where Captain Kirk fought the famous Gorn. It's really Vasquez Rocks County Park, and we went there quite a few times (the picture at left is from April 2011), hiking the same trails Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock did, often playing our own "Star Trek" and later cowboy adventures.

Speaking of cowboys, do you remember the McDonalds in Acton that had a horse atop it? Everytime we drove past it while making up cowboy stories, we'd joke about how it was Sheriff Jack's horse, Luke, and say "Get down from there, Luke!"

And as far as McDonalds go, we stopped many times at the one in Santa Clarita next to the new Kohl's along Hwy. 14. Whenever heading into Los Angeles, it was a certain pit stop for a snack or bathroom break.

Maybe one day we'll be able to go back to all of those places again. I hope we don't have to wait so long that you will have a son of your own who we take on the trip - though I can't wait to meet my grandchild!