Want a Marsh mello?

Bubbye and Zaza visit the grandchildren

 

We're spending two weeks here with our seven grandchildren before we get on the Big Bird to London with the two oldest. Raleigh has a direct flight to London.

The campground  is on Falls Lake. The water is warm. I'm showing off my cooking skills with hamburgers, chicken and yellow rice, chili, steaks and other meals for ten or eleven...

I'm installing and painting shelves in the laundry room and a large closet. It's nice to have a little project to help pass the time. Most of my old tools ended up here in Kenny's garage.

Warren is an enthusiastic wood gatherer and fire builder.

Above  is the patriarch, Vivian and Riley. The trip to the United Kingdom is coming up soon. The first day we'll see Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and the Salisbury Cathedral. We'll sleep in Bath.

On our second day we will see the Roman baths, Glastonberry and the Wells Cathedral. That night we've been invited to play in a cricket match and enjoy a family birthday party in Torqay.

On day three we'll have breakfast with Helen and Chris and explore the villages and National parks in the southwestern peninsula.

The picture below (left to right and back to front) is Taylor, Brooke, Riley, Barret, Warren, Carolyn and Vivian. Taylor and Brooke are coming with us to see England, Ireland and Scotland.

If you want to know about day 4 though day 21 of our UK trip, follow the blog.

Carolyn offers me a marsh mellow.

Mrs. Phred is known to the grandchildren as "Bubbye" and I am "Zaza". Bubbye is the name for a Jewish grandmother. Zada is the proper name for a Jewish grandfather, but it was mangled by the firstborne, Taylor, and I'm stuck with Zaza now....

Zaza and Vivian above...67 years age difference. Today I told Taylor that my own grandfather was born in Cork, Ireland. Time is fleeting...

Bubbye and Zaza with the seven grandchildren. Kenny behind the camera...

The End of Summer

Wake Forest, North Carolina

This is the last day of our week with the grandchildren. I'm cooking a blueberry pie and chicken and yellow rice for our goodbye dinner.

After six months on the road, we're heading back to Sarasota for the Fall and Winter.

Time to start planning next years travels.

What Does It Matter Where People Go?

Wake Forest, North Carolina

Why am I here? Where will I go? How did I get here? This is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife....

I've been hanging around to accomplish some things for my son. With seven kids (including a newborn), he probably deserves some help now and then. I finished painting and caulking the new playhouse; got two lawnmowers, two weed wackers and a chainsaw running and spent a day cleaning up construction debris from the house addition.

I could stay and organize his new garage and build shelves, but that would be a project too far...

Mrs. Phred is VERY eager to start our summer trip. I've been putting her off day by day to finish projects. I have no idea which way to go...maybe it will come to me in the morning

Start your engines, gentlemen..
Round 'em up...Move 'em out...
Walk me out in the morning dew, my baby...

If you were a bird, and lived on high,

You'd lean on the wind when the wind came by,

You'd say to the wind when it took you away:

"That's where I wanted to go today!"

Where am I going? I don't quite know.

What does it matter where people go?

Down to the wood where the blue-bells grow -

Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know.

- A.A. Milne

The Perils of Self-Containment

Wake Forest, North Carolina

RVs must be able to function on a self-contained basis. Among other things, they have three holding tanks:
- One for fresh water,
- One for "gray water" (sink and shower drains),
- A third tank is for "black water".

The plumbing on my RV has two places to connect a water hose:
- One allows me to fill the freshwater tank or, by moving a lever, connect the RVs plumbing directly to the fresh water supplied by the hose.
- The other connection is used to flush and clean the black water tank. A warning sign says to be sure that the black water drain is open while the flushing process occurs.

In a rush to get setup, I accidentally connected the water supply to the wrong port. After a few minutes, a brown soupy-looking liquid begins to spew and cascade energetically over the roof and down the awnings and both sides of the RV.

The hose water has completely filled the black water tanks and forced the contents of the tank out the roof air vent.

I call Mrs. Phred at the grandchildren's house, explain the situation, and ask her to give me a few extra hours to get the tanks dumped at the Park dump station. Then I climb up on the roof to hose off the disgusting mess. I wash down the sides carefully.

SHIT!
Happens
SHIT!
Happens
It happens, it happens
SHIT!
Happens
SHIT!
Happens
DON'T WORRY!
'cause shit will always happen

In The Ditch

A Ditch in North Carolina

A little voice inside is telling me that I've become overconfident in my driving skills.

A huge wrecker arrives and winches me out. There is very little permanent damage. A little paint scratch on the right rear cargo compartment appears to be the extent of it.

We wandered though Savannah on the 23rd to see the old mansions and beautiful town squares once again.

I have an existential dilemma. I have provided my e-mail address to an individual who wanted to send out information about tennis at the RV park where we winter. Somehow, this individual feels that it is somehow appropriate to send out almost treasonous remarks about our current Commander-in-Chief. I find his presumption that I would share his views irritating, at best.

What should I do with this curmudgeon? Lack of rejection might be interpreted as acceptance. I do accept that everyone has a right to and opinion, but my personal God of Enlightenment does not extend this proposition to the view all that opinions are equally well formed or even rational.

On the other hand, I'm reluctant to enter into a debate with a moron. I'm sure that if I wrote to "Dear Abbey", she would tell me that this individual has committed a gross violation of E-mail etiquette. I'd place this individual in my SPAM filter, but Mrs. Phred counts on the tennis updates. Perhaps I'll get Mrs. Phred her own E-mail account so I don't have to hear from this fool again?

Perhaps another, more subtle approach would be to make my next donation to the Obama reelection campaign in his name so he could receive lots of e-mails from Barrack, Michelle and the DNC.. Would that be identity theft? I wonder.

Evenings with Grandchildren

Falls Lake State Park, North Carolina


We spend eight days with the grandchildren. Each night we take two or three back to camp with us in the RV. The lake water is nice. We have a lot of fun playing in the water. I like to grab them by the feet and drag them screaming to the deep water.

If You Build It...

...They Will Come



My work here is done...Ho Ho Ho

Christmas 2008

I'm using the swing set as an excuse to hang around the grandchildren for a few more days.

My oldest grandson and I worked on it for six hours today. It's about 1/3 finished. He's a great helper and I take every opportunity to let him tighten the bolt, read the plans, pick out the parts and square up the project. We've spent 12 hours together on this so far...It's the longest time we've done one-on-one.

Some of the parts were to cold in the freezing weather to flex properly, so we brought them inside to thaw out.

We got the swings, glider, slide, ladder and rock climbing wall assembled.

Tomorrow we build the fort and picnic area and attach the awning.

Beagles ran down the back property line today, baying at deer. They were following the trail of a herd that ran past, but following in the wrong direction.
In the morning I hope to knock out the rest of the project while they are in church...then run on down the road Monday morning.

The Swing Set

Some Assembly is Required


Mrs. Phred found a swing set on E-bay. She asked me to set up an account with E-bay and Paypal and buy it for the grandchildren. I do my due diligence and discover that the vendor has over a 99% satisfaction rating.

It takes a day to create the accounts and establish my identity. At first American Express rejects my purchase with Paypay, fearing identity theft. I clear that up, but then Paypal rejects the purchase, noting that American Express turned me down.

Meanwhile, over on Ebay, my confused vendor writes, wondering why I want two swing sets.

I turn to a friend who orders a third swing set on my behalf with his well used Paypal account....we cancel my orders. I give my friend an old-fashioned bank check (there are still some in an old file in the basement).

The transaction is eventually consummated and the swing set is shipped.

When we arrived the swing set was in two wet and soggy cardboard containers. There appeared to be thousands of wooden, plastic and metal pieces.

I am attempting to dry out the 20 pages of assembly instructions. The blurry cover page suggests allowing two men two days for the construction.

The swing set pieces fill the bed of my son's old Ford junker pickup truck. I need to get busy. There are three days until Christmas. I'm on my own and a day late, if not a dollar short.

HO HO HO!

Secrets of the Universe (part 1)

Firecloud 5

Moab, Utah

I've made a breakthough discovery. You know those rolls of "Reynolds" tinfoil and "Gladwrap" clingpaper? You know how the rolls always come out of the box when you pull on the end of the wrap and get all messed up? Well...If you look at the end of the boxes, there are tabs on the end that you are supposed to push in. The tabs holds the rolls in place and allows them to rotate freely within the box without coming loose. Reynolds made that product improvement in 1996. Unfortunately, I never got the word.

We're back in Moab after a sidetrip to North Carolina to visit the grandchildren for a week. Hereafter, these will be refered to as Fireclouds 1-6.

Firecloud 1 is quoting Latin and playing Classical Piano very well. Firecloud 5 made a big sloppy mess in his diapers while I was watching 1-5 by myself. The only hope for it seemed to be to put him in the tub and soap him up completely as part of an irregularly scheduled maintenance. It's been 38 years since my last diaper change. They don't use cloth and safety pins anymore. There are these new things that use velcro fasteners and are disposable. Who says that NASA research didn't improve our lot? The gag reflex still works even with the new technology.

We're off in the morning to a new place. I'm thinking northeast for awhile. The Colorado National Monument is just up the road. Time to see what that's all about.

Firecloud 6

Firecloud 3

Firecloud 1

Firecloud 2

Firecloud 4