Family Gathering

Gerry and I spent the afternoon and evening visiting with our daughter Barbara and her family.  Since they knew we were coming, they invited our grandchildren over for a cookout and some s'mores in the evening.  Jared and Hannah arrived too late to have their picture taken but they were there for dinner.  They bought a new Jeep and also picked out a dog for Hannah, so they had a good excuse.

We arrived in time to play a game of corn hole with Barb & me standing Henry & Gerry.  Since I didn't know the rules and we were playing to 11, I thought we'd won when I scored a direct hit and scored 3 points giving us 13.  Henry scored one point and their score was 11.  Since he scored 11 exactly, they won the game.  I think I was scammed.

 Henry is taking his best shot and winning the game.  I guess I need to understand the rules before we play again.

 Grandson Sean and Taylor showed up right after the corn hole game and joined us around the outside bar. 

 Taylor immediately woke up great grandson Griffin as soon as they got there and he took to Aunt Taylor real well. 

 Grand daughter Stephanie showed up next and looked beautiful as usual.  Her husband Shawn had made plans to spend the weekend with his mother in the mountains so couldn't join us.

 Uncle Sean and Aunt Taylor were teaching Griffin how to catch a ball.  He actually did very well for a child less than 2 yrs old.  Maybe he will be a wide receiver or something when he grows up.

 Barbara and grandson Ryan (father of Griffin) posed for a nice shot even though the sunlight and smoke were behind them.

 We had a great dinner of hotdogs, hamburgers, potato salad, grilled vegetables and other fixings.  It was cooling off outside by this time and some of us ate inside and those who had jackets or sweater decided to brave the cold and take their meals outside.

Later on we had some pumpkin marshmallows, crackers and chocolate (s'mores) to top off the day.  They were prepared in their fire pit on the patio and that helped keep us warm also.  We all were stuffed by then and tired out from the days activities. 

We had a great day and enjoyed seeing all the gkids, ggkid and families.  Great, but a tiring day and we left fairly early in order to catch up on some rest.

Our friend Dee questioned why we aren't bringing our bikes this year.  The bike rack doesn't fit on the Honda and due to time running out we decided to leave them at the cabin.  We hope to be able to buy a couple old bikes at a yard sale or the flea market and leave them once we leave the park next year.  That's the plan, now to make it work.

That was our exciting and fun day, how was yours?

On The Road Again

The clock alarm went off and sounded terrible this morning and it was tough getting out of bed.  We knew an early start was important so we forced ourselves to start the final loading of the motor home for the trip.  The car was also loaded to the gills with stuff heading for North Carolina. 

Cassie came by and helped us with all the work and also to visit and chat with us as we worked.  There were only small items to load and then we started work on winterizing the cabin.  There were lawn chairs to be stored, bikes brought inside and other small tasks to perform.  It was time to turn off the water pump and the outside electricity for the motor home. 

Our neighbors, Ken & Diane came over and helped us clean the leaves off the slideouts and then helped with guiding the motor home out of the tight spot it was parked.  It took a couple tries and we were finally on the road.  That's after I negotiated the narrow lane leading away from the cabin.  The entrance to the cabin has a couple really narrow spots where the trees are next to the road and also leaning over the road.

Gerry and Cassie followed me down the mountain and we hooked up the car in the Food Lion parking lot.  It was my first try at connecting the new hitch to the Honda and all went well.  Gerry did the inside part of the connection with the Brake Buddy and running the tranny through it's gears.  A quick light check and we were on our way to Chesterfield, VA for the night.  It was sad to tell Cassie goodbye, but we can't even begin to think about staying in the cabin over the winter.  We will chat with her often and keep up with the happenings of the girls and Jack.  We miss her already.

It was an easy drive except for a few miles where the wind buffeted us around a little.  I wasn't sure if the tail lights were working and wanted to get to the Pocahontas State Park before sunset.  I almost made it and only had to use the lights for the last 10 minutes of the trip.  As it turned out, the tail lights worked fine and I was concerned over nothing.

Our friends Carolyn & Mann dropped by the campground and brought a couple pizzas and some beer and we had a nice feast.  It was greatly appreciated after our busy and tiring day getting ready and being on the road.  We spent the evening chatting and discussing plans for them this winter and also our plans for the winter.  They are heading for Florida and we are going to Arizona so we won't see them until next summer.   It would be nice if we could convince them to make the drive to Arizona, but that isn't in the cards at the present time.  We bid them a fond farewell and are finishing up with some chores and then heading to bed.  

That was our day, how was yours?

Farewell Dinner With The Gang From Maryland

We are planning on leaving on Thursday and decided it was time for another Ott House fix before we leave.  Cassie, Jack, Elizabeth & Bella joined us there for a very enjoyable evening.

I ran into an old flame of mine who was sitting at the bar and decided to drop by and talk to her.  I must have waited too long since she had changed a lot since I last left her sitting at the bar.  I can't imagine what happened to her since I've aged so well.  I think I will keep Gerry.  What do you think?

I did manage to find two pretty girls that were willing to sit next to me.  That is, until I started teasing them and it was difficult keeping them there.  Once the food was gone, they were ready to hit the road.  It was fun while it lasted.  I sure do have a weakness for redheads.

As you may notice in the picture above there is a display case full of pins.  The Ott House caters to the National Fire Academy attendees and is full of fire fighter memorabilia including patches, pins, helmets and other associated stuff.

  
 The case contains almost 180 beautiful pins from fire houses all over the U.S.  Behind the bar is a beautiful plaque donated by a Bag Pipe group in New Jersey.  The colors were vivid and even if you weren't into fire fighting stuff you would be impressed by this decoration.

  
Wednesday is trivia night at the Ott House and you must have a reservation if you expect to get seated.  Pitchers of Yuengling draft at $5.75 also must bring in a few patrons, including me. The large group sitting at a table next to us all had matching shirts on when the trivia session started.  Since the girls had school in the morning, we decided to not play trivia this time.  We bid them a fond farewell and headed back toward the cabin.

It was a long day with an early start and lots of work packing the motor home for our trip that will last until next summer.  We spent 2 1/2 months taking things out of the motor home to use in the cabin and now have to return it all in a couple days.  It has been very tiring running back and forth and carrying all the stuff back and then finding space to store it.  But it is worth it.  We get to spend the time visiting with Cassie and family and then when it gets cold, we head south.

That was our busy and tiring day, how was yours? 

Where Was I 31 Years Ago This Month?

Rather than bore you with our preparations to leave our cabin in a few days I thought I'd show you the results of a small task I've been working on the past week or so.  I used to use Seattle Film Works to develop all my film and they produced prints and slides at the same time for a small additional cost.  Over a couple years I accumulated around 1,000 slides and misplaced the box they were stored in.  Well, I found it and decided to digitize all the slides.  Boring!

At the time the slides were taken I was traveling all over Africa on business and wound up in some scenic places.  Back then many countries would confiscate your camera if you took a picture of bridges, buildings, military installations and other sensitive spots.  I managed to take a few of these illegal pictures and as far as I know it didn't cause the collapse of the country.  Even though, I was in different countries a number of times where they had a coup just before I got there or had one while I was there and a couple times it happened just after I left.  Fun times!

One of my favorite places that I spent a little time in was Kenya in 1983.  I was there about two weeks and managed to get some time to take photos of the wildlife and scenery around Nairobi.  It was a little dangerous to travel to Mombassi at this time, so I skipped that part of the country.

The first special trip was to visit Treetops over night and photograph the wild animals at the water hole nearby.  Princess Elizabeth of England received word that her father (The King) had passed away while she was at Treetops that evening and she came down Queen Elizabeth.  I went up a Foreign Service Office and came down the same the next morning.  Nothing exciting like that happened while I was there.

"For the first time in the history of the world, a young girl climbed into a tree one day a Princess and after having what she described as her most thrilling experience she climbed down from the tree next day a Queen …..."

These now famous lines about the accession of Queen Elizabeth II were written in the visitors' log book of the "Treetops Lodge" by World renowned hunter Jim Corbett.

The original "Treetops" was built in 1930 and hosted many different famous people over the years.  That version was burned during the Mau Mau uprising and it was rebuilt once again a few years later.

The structure below was the present day one that I spent a night in and didn't get any sleep at all.  They have a salt lick near the building and the animals come out at night for water and to use the salt lick.  Also, the building was made out of wood and had small rooms and narrow hallways.  The windows had bar on them to keep out the animals and I didn't feel comfortable trying to sleep there.  Plus, all the action was on the veranda high up in the building.

Note the guide with the large rifle.

Water hole

Rhino near the building

There were rhinos, elephants, cape buffalo, hyenas and numerous other animals which came to the water hole that night.  My camera didn't take great night pictures so they tend to be grainy.

The next day we went to the Nairobi National Park right outside of Nairobi to check out the animals there. It was necessary to drive through the park in a car since it was so huge and there were a number of animals there weren't respective of our position in the food chain.  

I wanted to get a nice photo of the two 13ft long alligators sunning themselves by this water hole.  When I walked down closer I only saw one alligator and my friend Ron yelled that the other one was trying to circle behind me.  Thankfully I was still fast on my feet in those day and I scurried back to the car and safety.  Lesson learned.

 These hippos were just hanging out together in the old swimming hole.  Hippos are a very dangerous animal and don't take kindly to people disturbing them and I respected that.

 There were larger herds of these animals, but I wanted to only capture a few of them on film.  They didn't seem to mind us being there and ignored us for the most part.

This ostrich must have thought we were going to feed him and decided to walk up to the car.  They can be a little testy if they aren't fed and we continued on our way.

I thought the zebras were a fitting way to say The End to this blog for tonight.  

I do have a number of other photos and slides from the trip, but don't want to overwhelm you with them.

 

Brake Buddy Installation & Millenicom-Verizon

Well, I am still able to get on the internet and still don't know for how long it will work.  I spent over an hour today talking ( mostly on hold ) to Verizon staff regarding the demise of Millenicom and what Verizon is going to do with their customers.  Nobody at Verizon could help me with this.  I was passed from one group to another and eventually was cutoff.   Finally I gave up and decided to wait and see what happens.  In any case, the issue will be resolved in a week or so since the double data special for ATT & Verizon ends on October 31.

Jack came up to the cabin and we (mostly Jack) installed the brake buddy on the Honda.  We had to run two wires through the firewall with one going to the breakaway switch and the other to the battery.  The battery wire supplies 12V power to the brake buddy and the break away one applies brakes to the car in the event the car becomes disconnected from the motor home hitch.  It rarely happens, but it would ruin your day when it does.

Yes, that is me laying on the ground working on the breakaway switch on the car.  We had just tested the brake light, turn signals and the tail lights on the car with it connected to the motor home.  Everything worked except the tail lights and that will require some more testing to see which wire isn't where it should be.  I can drive without the tail lights as long as it is daylight hours so it shouldn't delay us getting out of here on Thursday.

The Blue Ox you see above is the new tow bar which stays on the motor home.  The old tow bar had to be removed when I needed to back into a campsite and it seemed to have gotten heavier each year and more difficult to store in the car.  All that is past us now and should make it easier to get on the road in the morning when we are traveling.

The Saturn required us to remove a 30amp fuse when towing and then reinserting it to start the car.  It wasn't a big problem, but the new wiring system on the Honda makes all that a thing of the past.  We are looking forward to seeing how it all works out.

Luckily we had a couple days of dry weather and were able to finish the job before the rain started tonight.  So far it is just showers and if it doesn't rain any harder, we shouldn't have a problem with getting stuck in the mud.  The parking spot is gravel but I have to angle the motor home back and forth to make a hard right turn and avoid some trees.  Tricky, but doable.

That was our exciting last couple days, how were yours?