Blog post 2006-06-02
Its more interesting to blog from vacation… I guess I typically don’t feel that I have the extra time or that much interesting to say.
In any case – it is surprising what lengths one will go to to find an internet connection – I guess half of it is the adventure of it all. today I am in the jeep, outside of a comfort inn... by far the most solid connection I have had. Im here about midnight, after the girls have gone to sleep.
My condolences go out to the Andrews family, especially my brother in law Wolfram. His dad has been getting older and having some difficulty… but was well taken care of wolframs mom until when they just found out that she had cancer all throughout her body… in any case, she is on her deathbed, and he just passed away yesterday… it is so amazing how fast someone passes away once there is no hope… it just surprises me how much HOPE keeps one ALIVE. I guess we can all learn something from that.
In any case, I have heard that unless there is a miracle, they are planning a double funeral for next Friday. They don’t expect her to last very long at all.
It is so strange, and difficult, and probably a bit of a shocker for the whole family. So anyway Andrews, know we are praying for you guys.
Today was rainy and messy again… so believe it or not, we never got to have a campfire the whole time we were camping…. Tonight we watched Steve Martin etc. in the better by the dozen 2 (or whatever the name was) in any case, when the family was roasting marshmallows by the campfire, we broke open our marshmallows and just ate ours out of the bag… we made our hotdogs on the stove.
Its in a moment like this when I was really glad we weren’t in a tent…. Although I guess that has its own special moments too, but we are so thankful for the camper with air conditioning, heat, microwave, and cant forget the video projector shooting our movie on the wall while we lay down in a comfortable pile of family. The Dallas Pike campground is a dump, but it was cool to be together anyway… live and learn.
The baby is finally getting better… just in time to go home. It is hard to have a vacation when you have 4 completely different sleep schedules to try to match up. Maria is a one nap girl, Tori often has two naps, I like to stay up super late, and Candi likes to go to bed early… figure that one out. We found out today that Tori has Roseola or something like that… it starts with a couple days of fever, and then you get a rash over your whole body. Maria had it when she was really little. In any case, it made for a miserable baby for a couple of days, but she was feeling better today, and almost back to her normally pleasant self.
Yesterday we took the scenic route intentionally to the zoo… It reminded me a lot of Kentucky… with the backwoods of West Virginia – lots of trailers, and stuff… but beautiful mountains, and windy roads going down to the creek in the holler.
The zoo was nice, small, etc… not impressed with the animals, but the zoo itself was pretty, and they have this cool little train ride which Maria loved. They also have a pretty cool O gauge Train layout in the basement with real mountain streams, water wheels, a river with a working steam boat… anyway, it was fun. All in all the vacation was pretty cool, basically trying to find stuff that maria will enjoy… playgrounds and stuff.
Tomorrow is packing up, and driving home… to unpack and clean out this camper. Its gonna be a long day – but it will be nice to be home – and back to the transition and chaos.
C-stone is coming up… can’t wait for that!
camping in West Virginia
I found an unsecured connection while waiting in a sheets parking lot… so Im gonna post what I typed out last night at the campground. Gotta love wifi
5/31/06
There is a very large raccoon digging in the trash just down from our camp site… actually I just saw another one… I guess it’s a coon festival or something… in any case this campground is a dump… fortunately I have a 24” machete nearby in case any of them gets fresh with me. Yesterday one of them snuck under the camper and was sniffing out the diaper bag as Candace looked on. I was surprised and proud that she didn’t freak out about it since it is pretty dark and stuff out here.
These coons are pretty resourceful… I watched as one of them climbed up on one of those large smooth plastic trash cans with wheels… the industrial strength ones… anyway, somehow he quickly and quite easily opened the lid and climbed right in. I got my massive 3million candlepower spotlight out of the jeep and shone it on them. I know they hate the light.
We picked Wheeling WV as a place to spend our family vacation mostly because it is on the way home from Conrad and Vickis place. It always looked sort of quaint when we drove through. Its not a bad city. You can tell that the city is struggling a bit – it is really an old railroad/steamboat city – in its glory days it must have been quite a place.
I didn’t realize how rare good campgrounds can be. Apparently the place we are staying is the only place in the area with RV hookups.. . and the whole campground is really dumpy. We got the name from AAA and they give us the list of amenities like playground, pool, etc… the pool is a scum, mosquito infested hole… “not yet open” The playground is more a chance for everyone to get mega splinters… prolly hasn’t had a coat of paint in 5 years or more. A homemade sliding board has splintery wood rails for you to hold on to as you slide down… isn’t that lame.
Fortunately the kids cant tell the difference, and Tori and Maria had a blast on the seesaw last night when we pulled in. Tonight we drove 10 minutes into a really nice park that we found, with a huge playground, and a mini-lake with tons of ducks, which we fed some graham crackers we had in the diaper bag. It was a pretty good day.
Tori has been sick all week so far. She caught something Monday sometime and has had a fever – up and down for the past couple of days… it has actually made her pretty miserable especially because the surroundings are all strange and stuff.
Nap time and Bed time have been the most challenging. They are used to their own bedrooms, and to have them share the same room with each other and mom and dad – well it is stretching, and with Tori sick, it makes it all worse.
The weather was really nice today, hot in the middle of the day, but not unbearable. We ended up having lunch at this downtown market… one of the best roast beef sandwiches I have ever had in my life.
Tomorrow we plan on visiting the zoo, and some other local attractions
Fortunately we have a great camper (thanks dad) and a nice cement pad, with a nice small picnic table. We don’t plan on spending that much time here anyway. Today we spent time driving around Wheeling checking out the place and stuff.
The camper has been really amazing. Air conditioned so it is always comfortable… just big enough for our family of 4. A solid fridge, freezer, stove, oven and electricity – its very cool.
Today I bought fireworks – yay for explosives! Who wants to come over and shoot off the rockets??
Driving Manny’s jeep around is just absolutely amazing. I can totally understand why so many people have these big SUV’s now. This thing runs like butter. The pickup is so smooth, and fast, it totally feels like you are driving a small car. It handles great, and takes hills like nothing at all. With the camper on the back we are averaging 10mpg… a little better than I expected. It gets 17 without the camper.
I have had very little down time on this trip so far… basically as soon as the girls are up, we are busy. So it is just after bed time that Candace and I have time together, or I have time to myself. Last night Candace and I played several games of this board game that candi bought me for my birthday… it was cool to just chill a bit.
