Rough roads, horses & Anniversary

   Happy 9th Wedding Anniversary Cassie & Jack!

Gerry and I had to run some errands today and decided to take a mountain road that we hadn't been on before.  You know, where does that road lead to?  As usual up here the roads are decent for the first 1/4 mile and then get progressively worse.  That was the case today and this road really got down rough and dirty.  We had the Tom Tom GPS and it kept saying "turn around", "turn around as soon as you can" and wouldn't shut up.  That isn't a good sign.  We were down to about 3mph on sections of the road and even that was too fast.

We came to a fork in the road and it looked like the direction we wanted to be headed in and made the fateful turn.  Bad move!.  We started going down a steep grade with the road consisting of large rocks, ruts, drop offs and downed trees all over the place.  We came upon a cabin out in the middle of nowhere and it had seen better days and that must have been a long time ago.  It was about this time that we heard the "Dueling Banjos" song and started praying that the road wasn't a dead end or gated.  If it was, I wasn't sure we could drive back up that hill without 4-wheel drive.  

There were some nice scenic parts on the drive and we came across this little bridge back on the better part of the road, just nice enough to encourage us to continue on the drive.  The streams in the area are up high and running fast due to the last three days of rain which is heavy at times.  Did I tell you that I am sick of the rain and humidity?  Well, I am!

There is a small farm near us that had three horses in a barn near the road.  It was raining so much today that even the horses were staying under cover.  The white horse is almost always in the pasture eating his day away and the others less frequently.  We managed to get a picture of two of them today and I guess the third was even farther back in the barn keeping warm and dry.  Smart horses.

Oh, by the way, we didn't have to go back up the road.  About 2 miles from the crushed cabin there was a good asphalt road and civilization and some old houses. 

Labor Day & Hospitals

We had a nice Labor Day weekend with Tom & Darlene joining us for a cookout on Sunday.  They live in Annapolis, MD and made the long 2 hour drive up to the cabin for my great hamburgers.  Some people are easy to please.  They stayed until almost 1130pm and made the long drive back in the rain and bad weather.  

Last night we drove to Cassie's in-laws in Mt. Airy, MD to spend the night with them since we were taking Cassie to the Univ of MD Medical Center for a procedure.  Mt. Airy is about 35 miles from the hospital and saved us an hour driving time in the morning.  We got up at 430am in order to make the drive to the hospital.  The doctor just came out and said she was finished with the procedure and all is well.  Now the fun starts for Cassie with the pain medicine and such.

The pictures below and to the left are of the Emerson Bromo Seltzer tower in downtown Baltimore.  The waiting room at the hospital overlooks the tower.  If you look closely you can see Bromo Seltzer written around the clock numbers. 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Emerson Bromo-Seltzer Tower

The Emerson Bromo-Seltzer Tower was erected in 1911 at the corner of Eutaw and Lombard Streets in Baltimore, Maryland. It was designed by Joseph Evans Sperry and was constructed by Bromo-Seltzer inventor "Captain" Isaac E. Emerson. It was the tallest building in Baltimore from 1911 until 1923. The design of the tower along with the original factory building at its base was inspired by the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy, which was seen by Emerson during a tour of Europe in 1900. Systems engineering for the building's original design was completed by Henry Adams. The factory was demolished in 1969 and replaced with a firehouse.

The building's most distinctive feature are the four clock faces adorning the tower's 15th floor on the North, South, East and West sides. Installed by the Seth Thomas Clock Company at an original cost of $3,965 US, they are made of translucent white glass and feature the letters B-R-O-M-O S-E-L-T-Z-E-R, with the Roman numerals being less prominent. The dials, which are illuminated at night with mercury-vapor lamps, are 24 feet (7.3 metres) in diameter, and the minute and hour hands approximately 12 and 10 feet (3.7 and 3.0 metres) in length respectively. Originally driven by weights, the moving parts are now electrically powered
From street-level to rooftop, the tower stands 288.7 feet (88.0 metres) high and was originally adorned with a 51 foot (15.5 metre) tall Bromo-Seltzer bottle,^] glowing blue and rotating. Weighing 20 tons (18.1 tonnes), it was lined with 314 incandescent light bulbs and topped with a crown. The bottle was removed in 1936 because of structural concerns.
The tower was virtually abandoned in 2002, but in early 2007 the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts began renovations to transform the building into 33 artists' studios. The Baltimore Fire Department's John F. Steadman Fire Station, which opened in 1973 and is situated at the tower's base, houses BCFD Hazmat 1, Airflex 1, Medic1, Medic 23, MAC23, Engine 23, Rescue 1, and formerly Truck 2.

I hope we can stay awake for the 1 1/2 hour drive back to their home.  To say we are sleepy is an understatement.  At least we didn't have to contend with the Indy Car road race held this past weekend in Baltimore.  They say the traffic was terrible around the race area.  We got here in the dark this morning so we didn't see any evidence of the race.  I wonder who won?   

Note: Reader Al said that Will Power won the race in Baltimore.  Now the question is:  Who is Will Power???  
William Steven Power (born 1 March 1981 in Toowoomba, Queensland) is an Australian motorsport driver, who currently competes in the Indy Racing League IndyCar Series, driving for Team Penske.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Power

Labor Day

Happy Labor Day to all.  

When we were working it great to have a day off just as school was starting and we could go camping for the weekend.  Those were the days when you could pack up Friday night and drive to the campground and get setup in time to build a campfire.  No reservations and the campgrounds always had a spot for you.  Those days are in the past now and every one makes reservations months in advance for a campsite.

We didn't do much today other than odd chores around the cabin.  Tom & Darlene left very late last night and we slept in a while and then were dragging around the rest of the day.

It has been raining all day and the humidity is unbelievable up here with all the trees and sticking to the leaves.  Benadryl has been the pill of choice today for us and it doesn't seem to be working it's magic yet.  Hopefully it will kick in real soon and we can get a good nights sleep.

We are taking Cassie to the Univ Of MD Medical Center on Tuesday morning very early.  Since it is a 2 hr plus drive from Cassie's house we are staying with Jack's parents for the night in Mt. Airy, MD and that will shorten the drive in at 5AM down to 45 minutes or so.  Who in the world schedules procedures for those terrible hours?  They must be sadists.

It will be an in/out the same day procedure so hopefully we can get out of Baltimore before the traffic builds up in the afternoon.  We (Gerry) will be with Cassie until Jack get home and she will prepare a meal for them.  Assuming Cassie wants to eat something, if not, then it will just be for Jack & Lexa.

The tropical storm Lee that hit the Gulf Coast is making it way up toward us.  There has been an unbroken line of rain from New Orleans up toward Montreal, Canada all day long.  It looks like it will take a couple days to clear up this rain and humidity.  I am glad that none of our friends from Tucson came to visit with us during this period.  They would just get on the first plane out of here and head back west.  Too bad we can't divert this rain to our suffering friends in Texas.  What a summer this has been with heat, hurricanes, tornadoes, and even an earthquake.  What the H^%$ is that all about?

My plans to split firewood were doused by all this weather so hopefully we can get on it this weekend if it doesn't snow or some other natural occurrence.  I also have a lot of branches to burn and that has been put on hold also.  Hope it dries out in time to get the above finished before we leave on our Fall trip.

Barbara, Henry and crew left for a cruise to the Bahamas today and hopefully Hurricane Katia will stay far to the east of them.  If not, I hope they have jars of dramamine with them if it get rough.  Say a little prayer for them.

Alaska Trip 1995

Gerry and I knew we wanted to buy a RV in 1994 and started looking for the perfect RV.  It soon became apparent that the "perfect RV" was out of our price range.  While we had been tent trailer campers for 20 years, we weren't sure about the motorhome, 5th wheel, trailer style of camping.  We finally decided on a motorhome and it came down to a Winnebago Adventurer or a Fleetwood Flair.  The Flair won out for various reasons, even though they weren't all sound reasons.

We bought the Flair in 1995 and decided that a trip to Alaska would be a good way to start.  We took the Flair to a MD state park campground about 45 miles away to see if we could work everything and get everything to work.  It was a perfect weekend to try it out since it was cold at night ( furnace ) and hot during the day. ( A/C ).  We only had electric so we got to test the water pump, freshwater tanks, black/grey tanks and even the dump station.  Everything worked so we were good to go.  

Up until that time my experience driving a motorhome consisted of test driving a unit about 5 miles on a country road where I almost took the side of the unit out.  It was funny to see the salesman sitting there with bug eyes.  He failed to see the humor of the situation.

We then set forth on a 15,000 miles journey that took 90 days.  We packed the unit with food in case we couldn't buy any ( big mistake ) and left the house around 1pm heading for Illinois.  After a drive of 450 miles we pulled into a campground at 1030pm and got a site.  Grandpa's Farm in Indiana was the stopping point and grandpa himself directed me into back in site 27.  Gerry was on the other side of the MH directing me into site 25.  Of course this is all in pitch black darkness.  That was where I learned to only pay attention to Gerry when backing  in or getting directions.  We stopped in the same campground 3 years ago and the son was running the campground.

I won't go into the travel dialogue but want to tell you about another learning experience.  We stopped in Laird Hotsprings in Canada and I was wondering how hot the springs were so I took my thermometer that was glue to a metal back with me into the springs.  It worked very well and when I picked up the thermometer I noticed the glass part with the mercury in it wasn't attached anymore.  A frantic search of 15 minutes ensued and we found the glass part.  HINT.  Don't take old fashioned thermometers into a hot spring.

There was a very large moose near the boardwalk into the springs and we got a couple pictures of it.  We began to notice that we would only see one animal at a time and we joked that they were the "resident" animals put there by the tourist office.  Well, this resident met up with a grizzly bear about 2 days after we left and they were looking for another resident and what to do with a well fed grizzly.

Roofing Contractor

It's been about 20+ years since we had a new roof on the cabin so we called a roofing contractor to get an estimate for a new roof.  We are getting two estimates since we both like the looks of metal roofs, however they tend to be more expensive to buy.  He left us some materials to look at and decide which color of metal roof or which shingle of the traditional roof we are interested in.  It will take a couple days for the estimate to come in and then we will decide if we want to have the work done before we leave in October.

It looks like September is going to be another busy month for us with visitors, work on the cabin, medical appointments and such on tap.  In addition there is Cassie & Jack's wedding anniversary, three birthdays and other events in store for us.  Time will fly by and it will be time to head out west again.

We called and made a reservation at the same park in Tucson we've stayed in for the past 5 years.  We were getting tired of the routine out there and wanted to find a change.  The new park managers have taken a new approach to entertainment, activities and such for the upcoming season so we thought we'd try it once again.  We won't be there until early December and will leave March 31, 2010 and explore some more out west at that time.  That is a nice thing about a motor home, you can pick up and take your bed with you.

Our daughter Barbara and her family are scheduled to leave on a cruise out of Charleston, SC on Sunday.  Hurricane Katia is heading in their direction and may interfere with their plans.  The cruise line says if they can leave port before the storm, then they are good to go.  I am happy that we didn't agree to join them on this cruise since I don't get along very well with stormy seas.  I have a bad enough time on a boat in calm waters, let alone rough seas.   I hope it works out for them and they have a great time.  

Not much else is going on around here and it is very quiet  Very quiet.

Take care out there.