2011 - Life in the Slow Lane

Shoreline, Washington - it should be quiet and peaceful...

18 Aug 2011

   Shoreline - with a name like that, we should be basking in the sun beside the rolling waves, right?  Well, not exactly. We are inland a ways and even though we love the shore here, it's not the warm, sandy Atlantic Ocean kind of shore. It's the beautiful, rocky, great sunsets kind. All those Atlantic people get are sunrises!

   And it's always too busy here - we have family to visit, places to go, people to see, things to do... we kinda miss the "do nothing because we are old and lazy" lifestyle, which we haven't seen much of lately. But, compared to "real" people who work, and go to Girl's Camp, and run Pioneer Treks, and take kids to swimming lessons and soccer practices and orthodontists and Walden Pond, we  definitely make the "lazy" category.

   We saw Cars2 with Thadd (sorry - his real name is just toooooo long!) - but only because silly me didn't check the release date on Happy Feet. Oops. It's not till November. Cars2 was great We think perhaps a lot of the humor is directed at adults, but that's okay. 

   As an aside, Todd & Lisa's newest exchange student is from Tokyo - and barely speaks English - I was the "responsible" person in the household for 3 days and stressed from making sure she ate and traveled correctly on the bus, and on time, and had dinner for her late at night when she returned from a long day. But I made points in her book when I found some instant miso soup for her breakfast - Big Smiles and Thank Yous!!! Anyway, back to the movie - when we returned, Saya asked if that was the movie we saw and was super excited to see it herself because a large part of it happens in Tokyo (she is from very near there.) Her fellow students had told her of the location.

   Mandy, their other exchange student - here for a full year past and one coming up - left just a few days after we arrived, for a month at home in Hong Kong. She became a favorite of mine because she posts family photos on FaceBook; it was fun to actually meet and hug her. 

   We also took Thadd to the weekly all-comers meet at the local stadium, and to his swimming lesson. It's fun to pretend to be an adult...

   He amazed us with his performances in the Long Jump, the 100 meter dash, the 200 meter, AND the mile!!! His was disappointed in his mile - only 8:51. (He has done 8:22(?) before...) No wonder he never sits still - the metabolism is astounding.

   The girls all came home hot and tired and dirty from camp, but their first task was to clean out all the dirty little corners of the van. I was proud of them! And the car said "thanks."

   For a fun diversion, our niece Tanya invited us over to her bro & sis in law's home for dinner - a scrumptious meal, AND we were allowed to admire and hold the new baby! (Dirk & Jenny's, not Tanya's!!!)

   Chris really didn't hold the baby - he just hugged Tanya...

   Eliza turned 16 near the end of July and has now entered the dating and phone-carrying stage(s) of her life. (The kids swear they are the last in America NOT to have the above privileges from birth.) AND she got her braces off yesterday. Life is good.

      We took our "boys" over to visit with Tobi, Scout and Snitch one day. They even got to sleep over!!! But we missed them so much they had to come home the next day. Tobi (the yellow one that lives with Todd & Lisa), Pancho and Pepe (the silver and black ones that live with us) all came from Texas last summer. They are all "budgies" - much bigger than Scout and Snitch, the parakeets - even if this photo doesn't show it.

   Abigail helped me make miniature cupcakes. I saw the recipe on Instructables.com and thought it would be a good idea, but maybe not... I'll try it once more and see how they turn out. Then I may have a lot of thimbles looking for good homes...

   The cupcakes were cuter and more uniform in the photo instructions... maybe we didn't fill them full enough. Nor cut off their bottoms uniformly. Nor pile the frosting high enough. Next time.

   Nothing has gone wrong in the motorhome this month! Yay! The park in Bothell "allowed" us to stay a full 3 weeks (at an ungodly amount per night!!! - we've noticed there are a LOT of vacancies, considering this is August. In the old days they were always packed and had an absolute 2 week limit. Perhaps the economy is getting to them also.) It's a nice park - too bad we can't afford to stay longer. But this is the Big City, and prices are always bad near one.

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Haven't done any quotes lately...

"Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I can remain solvent." - John Maynard Keynes

“About the age of fifty,” Freud wrote, “the elasticity of the mental processes on which treatment depends is, as a rule, lacking. Old people are no longer educable.”

 

 

 

Cleaning out the purse...

4 Aug 2011

We're sitting in the Elk's Lodge RV park near Port Townsend, Washington. What a nice place to be!

I just cleaned out a handful of credit card receipts from my purse, and laughed.

Not in any particular order:

- Restaurant in Eugene, Oregon

- KOA in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania

- Campground in Castle Rock, Washington

- Campground in Joliet, Illinois

- Visitor's Center in Fredericksburg, Virginia

- Sleepy Hollow RV Park in Wall, South Dakota

Yeah, as a matter of fact we have been traveling this summer. We're here for the weekend and then will move into Bothell, Washington for 3 weeks - one of which will be lots of time with Thaddeus and the three Knowles Birds - Scout, Tobi and Snitch. The whole rest of the family is leaving us in charge. This is a good thing. Thad is one of the youngest grandkids and we haven't had the chance to get to know him as well. Perhaps we'll have a chance to go to a movie with him - Cars 2???? Happy Feet 2??? Surely we can bribe him into going with us to one of them.

Our weekend on the Florence coast was very nice. We unexpectedly met friends from Yuma and had dinner at the Elks one night with them; we met new friends via Lynda and Howard and enjoyed getting to know them. We went out on a "fast and exciting" dune buggy ride.

Our campsite at Florence was close to the Siuslaw River... and not tooooo far from the ocean.

We call this "Lawrence of Oregon"...

We spent a couple of days in Eugene acquiring another expensive replacement part for Pugs, the Motorhome. One of the people we met there told us of owning a boat for several years and they learned to refer to "BRU"s - boat repair units - everything was one thousand dollars or a multiple of that. Our MHRUs - motor home repair units - this summer have been in the $1200 units. Guess it's all inflation. But we have a beautiful new awning!!! That works, after Chris readjusted the motor...

 

Life in Meridian, Idaho

2 Jul 2011

    We are happily esconsced in the Boise-Meridian RV park for the entire month of July... unless we decide to leave early, of course. It's the same place we often stay and is full of all the standard amenities - pool, laundry, library, lounge, patches of grass, paved roads. This time we are clear into the back corner because we are a "monthly" rent instead of weekly. Some of these people have grown roots!

    My birthday was fun - Chris took me and Eric out to dinner at a delicious new restaurant - well, new to us. In a little house in downtown Meridian. It was delicious!

    After dinner we stopped at Pam's to see her and the kids set off fireworks early.  I must be the only adult in the world that still avoids sparklers - I must have been burned badly by them sometime in my childhood.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cool! Yay for fireworks!

 

   We also met Pam's two new birds (since we were here last) Moogie is a Quaker Parrot and was rescued after her lower beak was badly bitten by a dog. She now eats soft foods and baby food. She was not all that pleased with life that night - it had been the day of the nail and wing trims. More recently Pam took in a cockatiel that she says will leave (sure...) Pam works for an emergency vet clinic in town and the household also includes dogs and cats. Not nice for those of us who have allergies.

Moogie, the Quaker. She refused to sit still long enough for a good profile shot.

    The only other major significant event this week is my decision to lose weight. Now all our lives will rotate around a silly diet plan. I think I can... I think I can... I think I can... Next week I'll get the cool computerized arm band that rats me off every time I eat wrong stuff (well, only if I confess to it) and track calories burned.  We all know the way to reel me in is to have a fun electronic toy!

    It was fun this week to talk with various members of the family as they checked in to wish me a Happy Birthday. We'll all so scattered, and don't stay near close enough in touch. However, Mike offered to cook me my very own birthday cake on Monday. Whee!!! To heck with the diet! That night we'll go over to Eric's and watch the fireworks below at Ann Morrison park.

 

Yellowstone Park

29 June 2011

Yellowstone Park, Wyoming/Montana/Idaho...

    We drove through Yellowstone Park today - almost without stopping and without Passing Go. I felt guilty! But it was a blustery windy day and it was not conducive to touristing. We just kept on truckin'. We did admire the growth of young trees, and recalled visiting here in 1992 - just 4 years after the big fires, when it was still black and ugly. But it's for sure trees don't grow very fast in this country! They are barely up to the proverbial elephant's eye.

I've been immersed in genealogy again lately - for the first time in practically a year. I just dropped out for a while. But now it's calling me again.

There were several triggers:
> The weather has been so unfriendly ever since we left Yuma that I've been unable to gourd - it's an outdoor sport, y'know.

> A new Kissin' Cousin (KC) turned up - one of the Martins from Maysville, Kentucky and it was fun to share info with her, but it demonstrated to me how much work and organization nees to be done on that line.

> Being around Nancy in Minnesota helped because she is gung-ho and lets me help with her stuff - we visited the Minnesota History Library to dig up death certificates and obituaries, as you will recall.

> I began tracing from one old, old ancestor in New England both up and down the family tree and found info I'd never realized. The Woolseys did not come on the Mayflower in 1620, but they did arrive just 3 years later on a jouney from England to Amsterdam to NYC (New Amsterdam.) Had I known some of this I could have done research in the West Point area instead of just sitting around. Oh, well.

> I occasionally get inquiries from people who read postings I've made in forums in the past, or on ancestry.com. This week's was from a Kissin' Cousin of my former husband. Their arm of the Henderson family went from Scotland to Australia in the mid to late 1800s, abaout the same time the Mormon-related arm came to Utah. There were a bunch of brothers and sisters who never saw each other again. I don't know if they stayed in touch, but the family group sheets I've seen don't list the younger members of the family - the ones that went Down Under. We were up until 2 am chasing names/dates/places and reasons for the migration(s). Chris got into finding the reasons people left Scotland in that time period - do you know the history of the potato famine in Scotland (it wasn't just Ireland) and the Enclosure Laws the evicted people from their homes?

> And then another "KC" had a FaceBook link to the San Joaquin County Historical people who are looking for volunteers to transcribe old obituaries. Ooops, here's another project I've volunteered for.

So life is picking up. Now if I could just get some gourding in also. I did spend several hours in the nice sun in Casper working on Howard & Lynda's sailing ship...

 

Custer, South Dakota

26 Jun 2011

Custer, SD

    We were here once, many many moons ago - it must have been in 1999 because my digital photo library begins in 2000 and doesn't show it. On that trip we drove in from Devil's Tower on the west and left through the Custer State Park on the south, but spent several days in and around Deadwood and Sturgis and the Badlands in the car. Our camping spot then, picked at random, just happened to be in Custer. And right out our big picture window in the front was the Crazy Horse sculpture on the mountain. It was fantastic. Now I have to locate the original photos, cause when we visited this week, it turns out the face was officially opened to the world in 1998. We must have visited the next year. 

    We made the connection with Jean and John at the Beaver Lake Campground this week (you remember we both drive Beaver motorhomes, of course...) It was a strange camp - little spots carved out of the wilderness in random order and with little access and less flatland. Our only complaint, however, is the spot we reserved as good for satellites had a huge evergreen right between us and the satellite(s) in the sky. No TV; no internet. Max, the nice guy from the office came over and made the cable TV work at least.

This photo doesn't show it well, but the picnic table has about a 20 degree list - makes keeping things on the table a difficult task.

Yes, that tree is directly in line with our TV and internet satellites... You like the picnic table?

    Jean and I visited the Woodcarving Museum just down the road while Chris helped John reinstall his TV satellite dish (which had a great connection!) We had a good $2.00 hamburger and/or cheeseburger and/or beer night at a local pub with them the first night. And we all - separately - wandered over to see the Crazy Horse museum and mountain. Other than the impressive mountain thunderstorms that beat down on us both nights, the visit was terrific. Day times were warm and sunny.

    Today we are in Caspar, Wyoming. I looked at the campground on a google map and saw that it was in the bow of the North Platte River, so I called ahead just to check they weren't under water - as most of North Dakota, Minnesota and some of South Dakota are. I was assured it was not problem. In fact, when we checked in, we were again assured it was no problem - they've been here for 30 years and never flooded out. In fact, if the river gets 4' higher, the tent camping "might" flood, but we'll be okay! Hmmmm. 

    And then we parked at the end of the row and took a look at the river. You will note this camp site - less than 100 yards from us - has "water" (lots of it!) and electric - campers will recognize the power pedestal just right of center. We can't quite see if the sewer connection is there...

 

 Below is a longer range view...

And we saw some other great campers on our way here...

The bathroom is probably quite small ;0)

They are raffling off a motorcycle at Crazy Horse - of course it's an Indian, silly!

South Dakota!

23 June 2011

    We finally pulled up roots and left Minnesota. It was a good visit - thanks Nancy and Don!

    The extra day we stayed in order to avoid bad weather didn't work - we had torrents of rain all the way down Hwy 169/60 clear to I-90 heading West. But of course that was only part of the problem - the wind was sufficient to blow small cars over tall buildings, but at least it was steady and consistent, not just gusty... (that was a joke.) We started worrying about fuel on the way, but calculated and recalculated and decided we could make it to a truck stop along the freeway with a cover over the pumps at least. And we did - but we only put in a minimal amount.

    However, the subsequent blockages in the fuel filter might not have been worth the cost of the shelter from the rain. An hour down the road we pulled into Flying J and filled up completely - hoping to dilute the nasty stuff in there, but it didn't work. The Loyal and Faithful Droid came to the rescue by locating the nearest Cat service center - just a mile and a half away - at which location we met nice servicement who replaced bad filters and sent us merrily on our way. Well, at a small cost of course... I mean, how much could someplace charge for just an easy little job like this? We have the world's easiest and most accessible fuel filters - right in the side bay. Well, they could charge $155.00... and did.

    We may it without further problems and at respectible speeds into Mitchell, South Dakota for the night. The lady at the front desk at the RV park recommended a few places to eat, as well as giving us directions to the Corn Palace. We'd never been here before - we had to visit the Corn Palace. Actually it's kinda cool - the exterior murals, which are changed every year - are made of corn cobs! Just like a giant paint-by-number, with naturally colored corn varieties. Way Cool!

Did we have a photo taken by the impressive Corn Palace? No way! We took the funky corn cob photos. If I were talented, I'd photoshop these together into one...

  

    Tonight we're in Wall, South Dakota - another of the great tourist destinations! We wandered and looked at all the Marifas, but the only purchases were a great jigsaw puzzle we'll later share with others, and a new book. All will be sorry about the book! It has a fantastic collection of great western movie quotes. (Western Movie Wit & Wisdom)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

    Western Wit:

    Doc: Are you especially attached to that leg, Sam?

    Sam: Well, it's sort of attached to me.

    Dr. Noah Banteen played by Carl Benton Reid and Sam Granger played by John Pickard in Stage to Tucson (1950)

    "And that's the way it really happened, give or take a lie or two."

    Epilogue in Sunset (1988)

Just keep movin'

22 Jun 2011

   This is unfair! I started an entry. I saved the entry as a draft. So where is it???? I should have known, when it wouldn't let me put in photos...

   Back to the drawing board. We left Indiana. We left Illinois. We passed Dubuque with scarcely a whimper of wanting to visit the John Deere factory. We didn't even turn up the road to return to Dyersville and the Field of Dreams (and Ertl outlet...)

Yep, that's Iowa...

   The little town I picked to stay overnight was Independence, Iowa. Great little town!! Nice muni park with 50 amp hookups and big pull throughs - for $15 a night!!! When was the last time we saw prices like that??? Right there on the banks of the Wapsipinicon River. (Love that name.)  The town was interesting - streets lined with huge houses from the old days - not Victorian, but old. On our way out, I finally pulled out the Droid and looked it up - most of the money didn't come originally from the huge agricultural fields it is surrounded with - it came from horses! Trotting horses! Cool. And us just back from visiting the museum... More cool.

     The next day, as we headed north, we stopped for lunch at Nashua, Iowa - home of The Little Brown Church in the Vale! How many of you sang that song in your childhood? I couldn't resist stopping.

    But we finally made it to Prior Lake - the home of the Mystic Casino and RV park. It's one of our favorite parks - good location (close to Don and Nancy), great level spots (even if the side by side hookups get a little too friendly if the park is full), nice front desk people, terrific landscaping, and a free shuttle to good food. Not to mention they have an official Storm Shelter. Yes, we are still in Tornado Alley. We forgot to deposit our offerings at the slot machines this visit...

    We spent two weeks hanging out here - we had some good times with Don and Nancy, our great friends from Yuma, as well as doing just 'real people' kinds of things.

Like getting a new washer/dryer installed at Camping World...

Pugsley visits Camping World...

    And Chris installing our new inverter so we can dry camp again... and he did a fine job!!!

Work in progress...

    And I got the kitchen chairs recovered, with help from Nancy and her trusty staple gun. We found almost matching ultraleather at an outlet in Elkhart.

The new, beautiful and well-padded ... the old, ugly, stained...

    And we visited the big Junk Festival (honest, that's what it was called!) and bought lots of goodies, but not much from Don & Nancy's booth...

That's Don, in the Big Hat...

    And looking for old dead people at the State Historical Library with Nancy - honest! - well, we were looking up death certificates and obituaries of her relatives. And it was fun! We found all kinds of good things. The view from the Library windows is terrific.

I occasionally remember to send state postcards to my niece's boy, who likes getting mail. This one is at the Library/Museum - I couldn't pass up a photo op!

    And we admired the vehicles scattered around the campground - obviously this was also the weekend of the huge Street Rod show at the fairgrounds. We went to this with D&N a few years back.

Somehow, it just doesn't look like a tow car... besides, the pink one was cuter, but I can't find the photo - you'll have to go to FaceBook to see it. Ha! Found it.

    And we ate. and ate. and ate... We had some fantastic hamburgers in Jordan. We had some delicious German food in Stillwater (and drove thru Wisconsin on the way back). We had scrumptious fall-off-the-bones ribs at D&N's. We helped the downtown Prior Lake pub re-open with their famous Broasted Chicken... oink, oink, oink.  It's time to leave while the clothes still fit.

    We hung out an extra day whilst the nasty storms passed thru - they were saying the "T" word about northern Nebraska and southern South Dakota... but tomorrow (today) we hit the road again - destination: Boise. We may catch up with friends John & Jean (remember them? we traveled from Tucson to Vicksburg together way back when) - they are on I-90 somewhere heading our same direction. Last night they were at The Corn Palace. Aha! - guess where we'll stop?

 

Indiana... Illinois... Iowa... Minnesota... road time...

11 Jun 2011

   Another huge gap in the calendar. FaceBook takes up too much of my brain energy and I forget to keep my journal going. [Note: and after saying that, I only half-finished this entry, saved it as a draft and forgot about it... Well, it's being published as is!]

   Indiana:

   - We spent several days in Elkhart, where we hadn't visited before. What did we do?

   ^We crashed the inverter... now we're thinking there may have been a problem at the campground? Our next door neighbor also reported electrical problems.  [And something we haven't seen in a while - there were 4 of us MotoSat-ers in the camp.]  So Chris spent lots of computer time finding a new one and checking with Howard & Lynda - who were out of Verizon range, unfortunately - on how to install the new beast, including potential problems.

   ^I visited the Amish countryside. It was fun seeing large numbers of horses and buggies along the roads, and in the yards, and filling the garages. When you are third in line at a left turn light and the first one is a horse & buggy, you know you aren't in California, Pepe!

   ^I also cruised the Huge Flea/Antique Market at Shipshewana - but didn't buy anything... bad consumer. Well, I did have some homemade ice cream.

   ^We visited the RV Hall of Fame/Museum - it was fantastic! This was the reason for our stay, and I'm glad we did. They have a large collection of old and authentic and restored RVs from tents to bigger rigs. I'm sooooo glad we waited for the BIG rigs before we started living this way!!!

You can barely see it in the rear, but this one has fins - just like the 60s cars!!!

Chris swears he was NOT shopping for a new RV, nor a gourd trailer...

   ^We did loads of washing in the campground laundromat. I hate them (laundromats), but when you have lots of time to sit and contemplate life whilst waiting for the load to finish, you realize the cost of a new washer vs the very low cost of most campground laundries makes it difficult, from a financial point of view, to justify the purchase of a new $1,000+ machine. And then again, that lengthy contemplation time also reveals more truth-in-life facts: I don't care what the cost is!!! The new one is on order!

   ^We wandered and wandered through the back rooms of RV surplus stores in Elkhart. This area is/was the center of the RV manufacturing industry - and you can tell from the empty stores and warehouses how badly the economy has been hurt in the past few years. They have multiple stores chock-a-block full of the cast-offs and excesses and left over parts and fabrics and fittings and stoves and awnings and chairs and sinks and toilets and... Just like a toy store, y'know? We bought some fabric and cushioning to recover the kitchen chairs.

Illinois

   And then on to Joliet, Illinois - through the freeway mazes south of Chicago. I chickened out and routed us south of Chicago and over to the west before the turn north to Minnesota. But we did the metropolitan trip during the middle of the day on a Sunday, and it was a breeze. Why do I get so uptight about anticipating the mess? And, finally, we were out of the toll-road business. What a rip-off - it cost us over $35 to get across Ohio and then there was Indiana... We could have taken the non-tollroads, but it is so much easier to pay the money... story of my life.

  Welcome to Illinois - I have a large collection of these "welcome to" state signs. They're fun.

    We stayed at the Hollywood Casino in Joliet. They have a water & electric campground that is quite nice. They weren't overly busy - the joys of traveling in the off-seasons - and had nice people. We wandered down to the Casino and gave our requisite offerings, had dinner and walked back home.

The campground wasn't too busy...

 

 

Pennsylvania... Ohio... we're heading West!

1 Jun 2011

   We finally pulled up stakes and headed down the hill, over the river, through the woods, and across the vales. For states that have incredibly large populations, Pennsylvania and New York have incredibly amazing thousands of acres of green trees, green grass, rivers and little streams - traversed by huge concrete and asphalt highways that cut across the Appalachian Mountains with great difficulty.

   We laugh at the Easterners and their "mountains" - the highest summit sign we saw was in the neighborhood of 1200 feet... But, they sure acted like real mountains! The hills up and down were impressive, and occurred often, and kept repeating, and repeating. Give me a break - it was clear across Pennsylvania. Most of the traffic seemed to be big rig trucks - grinding the gears down to go up the grade and then cutting in the air break to go down the other side. Over and over and over. Made us wish for the Blue Mountains in Oregon. They might be higher, but once you get on top, you go on to other scenery! Most of which doesn't involve more green trees, green grass, rivers and little streams...

   Last night we stayed at a very nice KOA near Penn State - not our usual kind of campground, but it was nice! We met a very nice owner, got an open spot for the satellites, with 50 amps and only had to pay $58!!! Another reason we don't stay often at KOA...

   This morning our 12-year old motorhome whose washer/dryer gave up the ghost last week had another component go out... the inverter sparked, smoked and quit working. Just like that.  If this is what Pugs does as a 12-year-old, think what he will be like as a teen-ager!

   So tonight Chris got on-line, did his research, called Howard and begged for info (Howard recently had to replace his), took it all apart, put it back together, and sighed. Would you believe an inverter costs almost exactly the same as a washer/dryer? 

   After that we took the park manager's advice and went out for dinner at a classic old restored diner downtown - that's downtown Hubbard, Ohio. The building was fantastic. There was a classic car show - well, there were a few cars... - going on out back. The music was loud - just right - and from the 50s and 60s. The food wasn't bad - we had hamburgers and fries and a BLT.

   The most entertaining part of the night was the owner?/manager? - a very large and not very well dressed woman who was in the process of conducting an employee review and/or "dressing down" - in front of all the customers as we walked in. It had to have been a normal and timely thing because she told the girl she had to sign it and would receive a copy for herself.  Not exactly what I was trained to do as a professional, y'know? I mean, the public part of it. The girl being raked over the coals handled it much more professionally than the Big Lady. Agreed. Disagreed. Gave reasons. Agreed to sign it. Kept her cool. By the time the girl got to our table to take our order I had managed to shut my mouth, which had been hanging open. I asked her if this was the "professional" way of doing stuff in Hubbard. She said "yeah, but usually she likes to yell besides..."  Okay.

   However, the best story from Hubbard was told by the park manager, and was the reason I believed her about where to go eat. (Park managers have been known to direct people to friends, not to good food, y'know...)  She swears every word is the truth and I had no reason not to believe her.

   A couple of years ago a couple came in from the Deep South (way deep southern Georgia) - the wife had never before been in Yankee country. The husband was some kind of traveling salesman - the good kind. They checked in and parked in the spot right across from the office. The wife was a rather large woman, but a true Southern Belle, with the accent and manners to fit. Nice lady! Sometime later that first day, the husband called - somewhat agitated - and asked where the nearest grocery store was. He drove away, and returned, and nothing more was said.

   Until a day or two later when he happened to stop by and tell her "the rest of the story..."  His sweetheart "Miz Dorothy" had not only never been in the North, she had never been in Tornado Country before. Like I said, she was from the Deep South. Well, she read up on it and realized Ohio is in "Tornado Alley" and she started to worry a touch. It was Tornado Season, after all. In all the descriptions of how to know when a tornado is coming, the phrase "and it sounded like a freight train..." was always used. Well, this is an RV park, and we all know that RV parks are attracted by train tracks - how many have you ever stayed in that didn't have some nearby????

   So, when the freight train just up on the hillside from the park went through, poor Miz Dorothy almost had a heart attack!!! Now, even if I stop right here, this is a funny story. But that's only the beginning. Not knowing what else to do, Miz Dorothy stuffed her oversized body into the itty bitty shower in the trailer to hide from the tornado. Unfortunately, when her husband discovered her and what she had done, he was unable to extricate her... The phone call, and the trip to the store, were to find three bottles of baby oil to lubricate the extraction process! The manager said she almost wet her pants laughing. Fortunately, Miz Dorothy also had a sense of humor and told her the story herself a few days later, so they could laugh together. Miz Dorothy could hardly wait to get home and tell her friends of her adventures in Yankee Country.

 

 

In Old New York... the state, that is...

25 May... or so... 2011

   I've neglected my journal. Sorry.  We remained camp high atop "Mt. Florida" - hidden from the world, enjoying the solitude. We had a neighbor or two, but no one that disturbed the silence much.  We enjoyed this.

   We did venture out a time or two. One day was spent in the West Point Museum. While playing with Trevor we didn't have enough time for that. So we went back. It's terrific. An amazing number of one of a kind, only-here-will-you-see stuff. I mean, where else to gaze upon George Washington's personal pistols, the pen used to sign the Japanese surrender, Hilter's personal weapons, original cadet uniforms, Napoleon's sword (given by Pres. DeGaulle to Gen. Eisenhower)... it was full of history and maps and huge miniature soldiers in battle formations and art work and armaments.  Well worth the time!

   Another day we ventured a whole 4 miles up the road to Goshen, New York and visited the Harness Racing Hall of Fame and Museum. When I was a little girl crazy over horses that read every single book ever published, this would have been a pilgrimage. Now it was just a fantastic museum - much larger and more complex that we anticipated. Out back is the race track where they used to run the Hambletonian - the premier trotting race in my memory. Named after the horse, of course. But you knew that.

   For Memorial Day we meant to venture out to one of the little towns - Florida, or Goshen, or even Central Valley - and watch the parade, but instead we came down with nasty little head colds and just stayed home. We ventured out for dinner and found the only place open was an oriental place that had really mediocre food. Their California Roll was good - should have had two and called it dinner.

   This was the week our washer/dryer decided to roll over and play dead. Just 'cause it is 12 years old and has given good and faithful service all these years, it thought it could just refuse to work any longer. Boo. Hiss. So we found a new one at Camping World and will have it installed when we arrive in Minneapolis in a week or so. I hate laundomats!