Some Sad News

We got a call from my parents today, and they told us that Mom's latest cancer treatment (they had been thinking about radioactive seed therapy, but it is so brutal, they decided against it) is not working. Basically, the cancer had spread everywhere and now the doctors are using the word 'terminal', so hospice has been contacted in order to help out as time goes by. She hasn't been given an estimate as to how much longer she has to live, since the doctor doesn't like to make such assumptions. Presently, Mom is still chipper, upbeat and doing well, albeit tired, but she is very aware that time is now a very expensive thing that she has little of. This is sad news to talk about, but in reality, we have had some time to deal with the inevitable and feel lucky we have had her for as long as we have had since her original diagnosis. I told her to write down the things she would like to have done for her wake (we prefer to think of this as a time to celebrate the completion of a life, rather than the loss of one). They said that after they have a visit next week from her oncologist, they will have a better idea of how it is going to go down (for a lack of a better term).

We'll keep you posted.

Working On The Driveway

We were doing kinda good on dropping dirt down and leveling it out in order to make a semi-circular driveway at the side of the house. Unfortunately, things sometimes don't come out as you planned it and we ran out of money because we have other, more important things to deal with. When we get the funds back to together again, we'll get back into finishing the job. We'll let you know when it happens...

I Flipped My Bobcat Pin Today

This morning, there was an anomaly that occurred which reminded me of something that happened when I was a youngster.

Luann and I were at Dunkin Doughnuts this morning and the place was packed, with every employee scurrying around, working on completing customer’s orders. We were standing in line when the manager, who was working the cash register, accidentally spilled a large cup of coffee on the counter. My first impulse was to rush up to the counter and grab some napkins and help mop up the spill. Unfortunately, since we were 3rd in the line I realized that when everybody in front of us took a step back to keep from getting little driblets of coffee on their shoes, the small crush of humanity leaning back on us totally squelched any ideas I had of immediately making my way to the counter to lend assistance.

So, we waited in line, watching fellow patrons maneuvering their way around the ‘wet zone’ and grumbling about the mess. One very capable gentleman even stood back from the counter and wouldn't step closer for fear of getting something on the bottom of his shoes. When the counterperson tried to hand him a package containing his order, she had to lean her stomach fully on the coffee-sodden countertop because he wouldn't even reach out to take it from her. By the time we made it to the counter, it had been quickly wiped down with a wet cloth and the coffee that made it onto the floor was picked up with a mop.

I could see that the ‘doughnut crew’ was extremely busy and that any attempt to finish wiping the counter dry would throw off their timing, so when we stepped up to the counter and Luann gave them our order, I grabbed a handful of paper towels from the dispenser on the counter and started drying things off. The manager had a surprised look on his face and before he could say anything, I said; “Don’t break your stride man, just keep taking care of the customers, I’ve got your back!" I finished the job just as they handed Luann our order, and then we were on our way.

So, are these paragraphs a way for me to say; “Hey, look what I did”?

Actually no, they aren't.

What is most significant about this is how everybody was so concerned about themselves, that they wouldn't do anything to help. I wasn't looking for accolades or anything, I just saw a need I could fill.

Now, what does this have to do with a Bobcat Pin? As we were leaving Dunkin Doughnuts, I had something of a flashback and remembered when I had done a good deed like this before when I was a cub scout. You see, back when I was kid and you wanted to join the cub scouts, you would have to memorize and pronounce the cub scout oath (on my honor, I will do my best, to do my duty, to God and my country, to be square and to obey the law of the pack), and then you were given a pin with the image of a bobcat's head stamped on it. The Bobcat Pin was put on your uniform with the cat's head positioned upside down and could only be flipped over to its right-side up position once you had done something of merit.

I still remember the good deed I performed which let me flip over my Bobcat Pin. It was that I opened the door for my grandparents and held it open for them as we were leaving their house to go shopping. Since I had recently come from my cub scout meeting, I still had my uniform on. It didn't even dawn on me that I might be doing something that would let me flip over my Bobcat Pin, I just wanted to do it.

This episode at Dunkin doughnuts today reminded me of something that might be considered to be a trivial thing from my past. But I guess, in all reality, I'm still a Cub Scout at heart...

Today, people are so wrapped up in their own personal micro-world, that they refuse to do that which had once been commonplace. We need to remember our yesterdays, because where we came from sharply defines who we are.

So, what will happen today that will let you flip over your "Bobcat Pin"?

An Evening At the Carnival

It seems we had the carnival come to town and was at the high school, so Katrina & I went over and she had herself some fun.

I remember my days of hanging out at the Miami/Dade fair with rides from the carnival based near our home (Amusements of America). With carnivals, there is always a blaze of light and color mixed with sounds, smells and action. A veritable confluence of sensory overload which intoxicates the youth.

Katrina bought herself a wristband so she could go on any ride she wished to.

Ah, the glass house. I showed Katrina the secret of walking through the maze without going 'bump!' by looking at the seams in the flooring to show you what is glass and what isn't.

Next, she decided to go through a fun-house and tried a hand-stand in the rotating drum at the exit. She didn't... quite... make it all the way around. Ka-Thump!

As she got on this kiddie-ride, her friend said; "I wish I could go on that ride with you". Since it was a very slow night, the attendant let her on for free. Hi Kitty and Katrina!

Here we are at the Wipeout. It's a 3-axis platform that if you ride it for too long or too many times, you just might (as the announcer described it), "blow chunks".

So, it starts spinning in a circle, then it lifts you up at 45 degrees. After it goes up, it then starts moving on an elliptical pattern, swaying on an eccentric. That'll throw your sense of equilibrium off!

Flash! I see you!

Here's Katrina, about to attack with her bumper car. After seeing her expression, I'm starting to wonder if she will look like this while she's driving...

Attack! Smack! After three rounds of bumper cars, Katrina went back to the Wipeout. Needless to say, she got real close to rendering 'oral emissions', so we sat down on the grass for a while, then when she no longer felt the symptoms of vertigo, we headed for home. Yep, just as much fun as I remember it...

Staying At Tommy & Sharon's

Tommy & Sharon were our hosts during our stay in Hohenwald, Tennessee and for this, we thank them very much.

I call this picture, "Room With A View". This is what greets you outside as you awaken every morning. Nice rolling hills with a countryside view. Birds singing their songs, the occasional knickering of horses or lowing of cows... It's really peaceful here. It was strange to be at a place where a car driving by on the road is considered to be an oddity and worthy of everybody's attention.

On our drive up to Tennessee, we had a front-row seat to a 'Car-B-Cue'. Seems like this high-cube truck caught fire for some reason, and was burning energetically. Thankfully, nobody was hurt.

All Katrina could talk about on our drive up to Tommy & sharon's place was being able to ride the ATV's. She literally spent several hours riding on the racetrack Tommy made on one side of the house for the ATVs (and perhaps a mini-sprint car?).

Of course, I had to give it a whirl myself...

Yeah, it's really nice to experience the slower side of life. Just rest your arms on the fence and simply 'hang out' for a spell.

If 4-wheeling isn't what cranks you up, you could always go down to the fishing hole on the property and try your hand at catching a pan fish or two. The kids had some success in their endeavors. Colten was extremely helpful, getting the girls' poles set up and unhooking any fish they might catch.

Even little Janey had her line in the water. I like how her rod and reel are color-coordinated with 'today's ensemble'. I tell you she is as cute as a button, and a double handful when she wants to be.

A little patience is rewarded with a catch for the day. This little guy was hooked in a strange way near his eye, so I helped get him off the hook (after taking this picture) without hurting him (much).

We even had dinner at Bob & Dena's house. Bob is Tommy's brother. This is a picture of Janey really enjoying a piece of celery with ranch dressing on it during dinner. Hey! What about that hotdog, kid? A little kid that likes celery more than a hotdog, how weird...

This is Bob's mini-sprint car. It's all loaded up and ready to head over to the local race track. Yep, Hohenwald is just big enough to have it's own dirt race track. I am finding that I really like this town!

On the last evening of our stay, all Katrina wanted to do was lay down in bed and play video games because she was wiped out.

As for Karen and Luann, they decided to spend their evening, sitting out on the front porch under some blankets (it was getting cold), listening to the nothing-ness of the surrounding tranquility. They could even hear the race cars running on the track nearby. You know I just had to break up their moment of solitude with a 'FLASH!' from my camera.

We really had a great time during our visit here and it was so relaxing to sit still for a while (between forays of hunting for a piece of land of our own).

Geocaching In Tennessee With The Family

And of course, whenever we travel somewhere, we just had to do a little geocaching there.

This cache is at a museum in Hohenwald. We were joined by quite a few relatives for this search.

We searched high and they searched low, and low proved to be the best position in which to find it!

It looks like we have some winners! They found it up inside the steel framing of the caboose.

Next, we drove over to Columbia and hunted for a couple of them in a park. Wow, we have a bunch of people out hunting for this one! Let's see if I can get this right; Hans, Luann, Karen, Sharon, Dena, Katrina, Colten, Caleb and Kayleen? If I misspelled a name or two, or three, please let me know so I can fix this...

I think Karen is trying to say; "Hey! Where are you going? It's over there!"

Colten was in a big rush to get to the cache-site and wasn't paying attention to how slippery the mud was, until he slid on has fanny through a mud puddle, that is. Uh, yeah buddy... you definitely have a big 'Butt-Trophy' back there now. Nice job...

He only let this slow him down for a moment, then he was back to the business of finding that geocache.

It looks like Karen was right. She found the container and it was an FTF (First Time Find) too.

On the way back down the trail, we paused to take some interesting pictures.

Yeah, I think this was worth it.

Unfortunately, Luann wrestled with Mr. Gravity and he won. Thankfully, she didn't get hurt, but she did get muddy. What a trooper! That's what a real geocacher is all about. You might get wet, you might get muddy, you might get a scratch or two, but after all that, you will be getting that #*&%$#% cache!!!

On the next one, Dena and Caleb found the container at the base of this tree. Nice, "Mother & Son in the Woods of Tennessee", picture.

As for the rest of the gang, they preferred to hang out on this hillock overlooking the rest of the geocaching team, coaching, offering advice or just plain-ole haranging us 'down-hillers'.

When I made a comment about Karen 'smacking fanny' at me while I was taking the previous picture, the girls decided to present me with their version of "Booty Call". Funny... Uh-huh, real funny, ladies...

Here is the third one we found in the park. Actually, we were wandering around about ten feet away from Karen, when she noticed a rock that didn't seem to belong with its surroundings, so she moved it. Well, her 'geo-senses' were running on overdrive, because she found the container.

This was the last one we found in the park because it really started raining hard. We found out later that the rain was accompanied by a tornado, which touched down about a couple of miles away from where we were. And we think that geocaching in Florida with alligators and other such critters is dangerous...

After Sharon and Dena took off in their car to go do something, the weather started clearing up, so we had to look for just one more cache before heading back to Hohenwald. This one was placed at a monument to 'Pop Greer', famous to the locals for his involvement in horse racing.

We didn't realize how much hiking we had done in the previous park, until Karen stopped & pointed out how tiring it was to hike up these steps.

Katrina made the find on this one and we quickly signed the logbook, took a geocoin and dropped off 3 travel bugs.

Ok, just one more look before we go.

This coffee house was a great place to get some foo-foo coffee and a nice snack while using their free wi-fi service. The people that run this place are very nice. We had such a great time there, that we asked the owners if we could place a geocache on the property. The owners (Bart & Renee) agreed to let us do so and even agreed to maintain the cache-site for us. Well, that makes cache #7 planted by Team GodinDraak.

They were having something like a yard sale when we stopped by (I think this picture was taken on visit number 2).

Hello Pepper! What a nice little kitty... We stopped by the coffee cafe 3 times before leaving for Florida. We really had a nice time visiting, and we seemed to have made friends with the owners. We can't wait to come back again for another visit.

Luann snapped this picture during our first visit to the coffee shop. What do you think?

So, this is a small slice to show our geocaching experiences while we were visiting up in Tennessee. We really had fun with all of our family members, using billion-dollar satellites to go looking for tupperware in the forest...

It was nice to get the group together, then out and about for something like this and we had a grand old time. Karen was the cut-up, as usual. Dena was willing to go charging into the environs for the next cache, the kids treated it like a treasure hunt (which it is, kinda...) and Sharon surprised us all by continuing on, even in the face of adversity (rain, mud, slippery slopes, bush-whacking, etc), way to go! Thanks for going hunting for caches with us, we really enjoyed it, and now we all have our own individual stories to tell about the experience.

Looking For Some Property

We took a trip up to Tennessee to see what kind of land is available for purchase up there.

This one was 36 acres. Luann, Karen & Teena (our real estate rep) are here with me, walking the length of the fenceline of this acreage. When I used my GPS to find out how far back it goes, it turned out to be 1/4 of a mile from front to back. Whew! Unfortunately, it was not what we were looking for, so off to the next one!

As we were looking for the next property, we stopped near this tree to get our bearings. Karen just had to jump out of the truck and show everybody how much of a tree hugger she really is. She seems to have chosen a beautiful specimen of an oak for her demonstration...

Well, we finally made it to the next place on the list and found that it was simply loaded with "Tennessee Charm". First off, the 'window shaker' air conditioner was being propped up by this branch cut from a cypress tree. We could also see that the foundation was separating and beginning to fall into the creek beside the house. Uhmmmm, just a wee bit more than a 'fixer-upper'!

Around the back of the house, this monster chicken coup was just a little less than useless. Both it and the utility building were falling down just like the house.

A lttle farther back and we came across this storage building that was definitely sliding into the creek behind it.

This is the horse barn, something that hasn't seen horses in a while. Or maintenance either, for that matter. As the wood started to rot away, metal sheeting was tacked on in its place. Unfortunately, this left the whole thing in an unstable mess...

The third property had a weird address and we just couldn't locate it. At this point, we said our goodbyes to Teena and struck out out for Tommy & Sharon's place.

On the way back, we came across this really nice creek, so we stopped and took some pictures.

We really liked the way it washed across the road.

At some point in our photo shoot, Karen laid down in the middle of the road in order to perform her imitation of a piece of roadkill. Of course, I don't remember ever seeing an opossum flattened out in the middle of the road, holding a digital camera...

From this shot, you can see the real reason she flopped down in the middle of the road. She was showing Luann that these country roads are so lightly traveled, that you could lay out in the middle of one without having to scurry out of the way of a car within seconds of doing so. In truth, I did something like this when I was working in northern Michigan and decided to park my rental car in the middle of a dirt road intersection, eating lunch for half an hour. The funny thing is, I did the exact same thing the next day and dined for yet another half an hour still unmolested by vehicular traffic. Been there, done that. I think there's a special kind of looney-ness that runs in our family...

Yeah, if we could find some water like this on a piece of property we could afford, we would be happy.

It's amazing how theraputic the sound of rushing water is to the soul. Even water running across the roadway. We just wanted to sit there and soak up the surroundings.

In our wanderings, we saw a For Sale sign on this piece of acreage, and when we walked around, here was this old, abandoned Dodge pickup just sitting in the woods for who knows how long. Nah, we didn't want to buy somebody else's old junkyard. And the neighbors, that was a cemetary. Yep, another dose of 'Tennessee Charm'...

Luann came across an interesting sign on this door. It looks like crime only happens between 7:30AM-4:30PM Monday through Friday in Hohenwald. Since that's the only time that the local police station is open! This place is neat...

When we were leaving Hohenwald and heading back home, we stopped by this site dedicated to Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis & Clark expedition.

The long, asphalt roadway is all that will greet us for the next 12 hours...