Coming Home

As the saying goes all good things must come to an end.............and so it had to be with our year of adventure. We finished off with a canoe trip down the Brulle river in Wisconsin (a place James had visited as a child) and a stop in northern Minnesota to see our new friends Bob, Linda & Jeff. James wanted to do some last mintute fishing and they promised to hook him up. I quickly realized that in this part of the country they give you your birth certificate along with your fishing license. We had a classic 'Grumpy Old Men' moment when Bob asked Jeff if they were going fishing in Merril lake the next day and Jeff became very agitated and told Bob to lower his voice so Walleye Dan wouldn't overhear. The fishing ended up not being so good because the weather was a little cold, but the company was great. They really rolled out the red carpet for their new friends from the south even making us a cool sign for the hacienda.

Last Wednesday we began the sad trek home and were welcomed back into the sweltering heat Thursday night. James waited until 9:00 Friday morning before going to work. Nice to see he really got the perspective he needed from this year off. It has been a whirlwind since then. My sister Juli is here with her family, my sister Janet just had a little girl (Samantha Karen 8lbs 1 oz), we have a foster teenage boy moving in with us for the summer, and we are trying to move back into our house. We are still sleeping in the RV. I'm not sure if I haven't been able to get the bedroom together because I haven't had the time or because I haven't had the desire. Sleeping in the house means it really is over, I'm not sure if I'm ready to admit that. James is keeping a watchful eye to make sure I don't sink into another depression but I think I will be okay. He didn't work Sunday so he could get the pool ready, so that will be my anit-depressant for the summer.

Besides the accomplishment of still being married after living in a 26 ft. home for a year we have also been to 33 states, 2 other countries and 20 national parks. We drove over 35,000 miles and stayed in 90 campsites; including driveways, rest areas, Wal-Mart parking lots, one alley and a ferry dock. We have biked over 300 miles and hiked almost 300 (James swears it had to be more). We have taken over 3,000 pictures (anyone up for a slide show?) and made a ton of memories.

It has been really fun writing this blog and James has enjoyed it so much he is even thinking about taking a writing class at the University this fall. Thank you so much for all of the great comments and encouragement. We have loved the feedback from everyone, but I feel a special shout out should go to our 3 most faithful commentors Tracy, Janet and Tuna. Tracy, thank you again for letting us stay with you and I hope we continue to keep up in emails, we will have to play Balderdash with Tuna the next time you are here so we can have an acronym showdown. Janet, I could say anything about you because you probably won't look at a computer for another year or so, but you know I love you. Tuna, thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to faithfully read and comment. I don't know if James would have been able to enjoy himself as much this year if he was worried about things at home, thank you for relieving that burden from him.

We have realized alot of things this year....... if you burn a pie in the RV the smell will linger for weeks, Wisconsn has the most expensive state campgrounds, RV toilets never clog, never hike on a trail in New Mexico labeled difficult, you can survive with only 5 pairs of shoes, Spam is not a childhood food you should revisit, rednecks do not live only in the south, laundry mats are great places to people watch, the backup camera really is a marriage saver, but the most important thing we have realized is how blessed we are to have each other along with such good friends & family.

We plan to continue our adventures, they will just have to be a little closer to home for awhile!

Love, Kim & James

The North Country not-so-Fair

We are back in winter. At least a typical Arkansas winter. We are up on the u.p. of Michigan and it is nasty and cold, about 42 degrees for a high and overcast with occasional rain and lots of wind. I made the decision to wind our way back home via the northern Great Lakes route and now I am wishing we were just back in humid 85 degree Arkansas. This weather would be great if we had already endured a long, hot summer, but right now it is a tad depressing. The trees up here are just starting to bud out and as you can see in the photo we even found a little snow on the shore of Lake Superior by Painted Rocks National Lakeshore. We are now camping in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart in Marquette, Michigan. We are going to get up early and haul butt to the Apostle Islands and spend the day in that area of Lake Superior.

We waited in line at the gas station this morning to get some cheap $3.99 gas as it was $4.29 just down the road in b.f. u.p. Michigan. Far enough north that they gig you for gas. We cruised across the Peninsula and kept seeing signs for Pasties, so my gastronomic curiosity got the best of me and I had to stop at the "oldest" and "best" pastie stand. I got two ready to eat and two frozen what I called "pay-stees". "O.K. den, that will bee four pass-tees altogether." They pronounce things funny up here. Mackinac is Mackinaw. I already am thinking these guys are crazy for enduring the winter that doesn't end until June, so the funky pronounciations are just icing. There is apparently a lot of fishing and camping and other outdoor activities up here due to the huge amount of water, but I think I would wait until July or August for my next visit.

We are about done with this year long journey, just one more week. I am going to miss this r.v. and being able to wake up whenever and travel wherever and stay however long. At times I feel excited about getting back to work and sometimes I feel like I am headed to the electric chair. The time sure has flown by, but when I reflect on all that we have done it seems like it should have taken years to accomplish. There is so much to see and do in the U.S. of A. You could spend a year in every state. I have no regrets. I feel very fortunate to have been in a trade and economy that afforded us this trip and twice as fortunate to have a wife that I wanted to spend this much time with and who would tolerate me as Kim does. If fate takes away all my assets (what are left) and leaves me with just Kim I know that all will still be fine.

Talk to you soon

James

Roller Coaster Mania

We thought we had accounted for all factors……not a weekend, kids still in school, not a major holiday, how were we to know about Physics Day?

We pulled into the parking lot at Cedar Point and were excited about the lack of cars until we saw the number of buses. One car, maybe 4 people, one bus more like 40. We went up to the ticket line and while we waited there for an hour, were amazed at the number of teenagers in line around us. I had predicted there may be a few instances of schools seeking entertainment at the end of the year but this was overwhelming. After we finally got inside we rushed to wait in another line for over an hour to ride the Raptor, a Batmanesque ride for those of you who have been to six flags. We again noticed the massive amount of teenagers and started to pick up on the cues that these weren’t normal teens. They appeared to be having remotely intelligent discussions, they were all dressed fairly normally no baggy jeans or barren midriffs (well it was about 50 degrees). The tell tail sign that these were not your run of the mill teenagers was the fact that we were at an amusement park and no one was even attempting to cut in line. James even commented on how he had renewed faith in the youth and he didn’t understand why I was hesitant to return to work. Not wanting to let us be deceived too long in our optimism the guy in line behind us informed us that we had happened upon Physics Day. The four geeky guys to one cute girl ratio should have been a sign.

For those of you who don’t know Physics Day is a day created by Physics teachers across the nation to boost enrollment in their classes. In exchange for suffering through a year of Physics you get to go to an amusement park at the end of the school year and pretend to marvel at the properties you have been studying all year being put into play. I’m not being mean here we actually saw one girl wearing a shirt that said ‘this is why I took Physics’.

Other than it being a bit more crowded than we had expected we had a good day, thankfully we finally saw the sunshine after days of rain so that helped. We were definitely some of the oldest people there, but that just added to our novelty. I got a good pep talk from the kids behind us in line for the Millennium Force, a ride that starts you off with a 300 ft. drop and keeps you at about 90 miles the rest of the trip. While we were waiting in line a car stalled at about 298 ft. This is where my enthusiasm began to lag. If I had been stuck at the top I’m afraid more than shaka would have come out of my mouth. It was worth it in the end so much so that we went on it twice! I did have to explain to the guys in front of us what ‘shaka’ meant since they had to listen to me screaming it in their ears.

Due to the crowds we weren’t able to ride all 16 of the roller coasters there, but we hit all the big ones. We even rode one standing up. James had to squat a little to get on it but thankfully he made the clearance on all the turns. The ride of the day though was the Top Thrill Dragster. I don’t know if you have ever seen the top roller coaster show that the Travel Channel does but this ride is at the top of the list. You go over 400 ft. in the air at a speed of 120mph. I almost chickened out after seeing the shell-shocked looks on the faces of all the people getting off the ride; even the ones who had looked confident and smug getting on looked as if they had peed in their pants. Since I had been challenged by my 9 month pregnant sister and wanted bragging rites I persevered. I impressed both myself and my husband by keeping my eyes open the whole time. I am so glad I did, it was the most amazing adrenaline rush. I was still shaking 10 minutes after it was over. Even James was a bit rattled. We may be getting older, but we are still young at heart!

Love, Kim

PS the first two pictures are of the people stuck at the precipice of the Millenium Force drop

Niagara...."Thundering Water"

You don’t have to read all of this. Do as I would do and just look at the pictures and move on to the rest of your day. If your day is spent at a computer then what the hell go ahead and read on.
The local channel 7 nightly news from Buffalo, New York is airing on our little R.V. t.v. They just announced that there has been a woman’s body found in the Niagara River. “They aren’t giving any names or discussing the condition of the body. The sheriff department’s only comment is that it is the season for bodies in the river.” That struck me, season for bodies in the river? Apparently the Niagara Falls is a popular destination for the people who can no longer keep up with their mortgages or are otherwise desperate. They do beckon. “Would you rather go back to fixing air conditioners in hot and humid Arkansas or how’s about just climbing that short railing and taking a nice ride in my cool blue waters?” The Falls are definitely a popular destination for anybody that does not speak English on the North American continent. No, that is not the Arkansas bigot coming out in me it was a true cultural melting pot. Many Asians, Indians, Europeans, some Amish, Kim and myself. O.k., the Amish do speak English, but you wouldn’t know it by listening, they are very silent. I am truly fascinated with the Amish after seeing so many in Pennsylvania and western New York. We saw many buggies carrying kids, lumber, shower stalls you name it. Some Amish seemed to use gas powered implements, but most used horse powered implements and they all dressed the same. All were very quiet and the children very well behaved. They were all lean and muscular from hard work. I am thinking this way of life will prevail in this economy. Aside from the devout religious aspect of their lives I am thinking I could live like this, a simple life of working the land and having just enough. It has to be better than living a life of CNN cramming your skull full of bummer news while you cram your belly full of Pop-Tarts and diet Pepsi. I feel poisoned and worthless, that does it I am going back to the falls. I just have to decide, American Falls for sure death or Horseshoe Falls for a chance of coming through the tumult alive. There was a 7 year old boy who swam the falls after his father couldn’t get the boat motor started at the head of the river where it turns to white water and heads to the falls. I have an idea, don’t ever boat near this part of the river no matter how new or “reliable” your motor is. Upshot is that the boy survived, they pulled his sister out right before the brink and they didn’t talk about the old man in the film, so I am guessing the outcome wasn’t little kid tourist friendly.
What an amazing powerful body of water. Summer flow of 750,000 gallons of water per second over the falls. In boater talk I believe that translates to about 90,000 cfs, which is a lot of water no matter how you state it. Kim and I looked at the falls from all angles. We took the Maid of the Mist boat ride right underneath Horseshoe Falls. We took the Cave of the Winds walk right alongside Bridal Veil Falls, we walked over to the Canadian side and viewed the falls from the other side of the river and atop a Ferris Wheel and we viewed all of the falls right next to the brink.
Almost as amazing to me were the Whirlpool Rapids. We walked down into the Niagara Gorge from Whirlpool State Park about 2 miles to view these HUGE rapids. As a lover of moving water I was awestruck. The water runs at 30 miles per hour with that huge volume and makes tremendous waves and holes. COOL!
Kim will tell you all about the roller coasters at Cedar Point on Tuesday.

Photos: 1.Cave of the Winds walk underneath bridal veil falls. 2. Maid of the Mist boat ride under falls. 3. American Falls 4. Brink of Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side. 5. Whirlpool Rapids

Exclusively for Tuna

As we headed north to Niagara Falls Kim had planned for us to stop at Buckaloons campground in the Allegheny National Forest in the northern part of Pennsylvania. Yesterday I had purchased a fishing license online from the state of Pennsylvania so that I could fish in Keystone Lake at our campground. I didn't catch shaka and was turned off to fishing as I havn't had real good luck in a while. Kim thought that we should camp here at "Buckaloons" before we got into New York so that I could have another chance to use my $35 three day license.

We toured the campground upon arrival and the dark, primitive campgrounds combined with the huge speed bumps every 50 feet had me very disenchanted. I had decided to cruise north and forget the fishing when the campground host flagged us down while we were passing. "Can I help you folks, you look lost?" I felt like saying "No, your huge speed bumps suck and we are bolting!", but instead I said "Just looking at the camp sites. How's the fishing?" He was very nice and imformed me that there was a creek behind the campsite that we were thinking about occupying. I felt the Murie guilt, and decided to stay just because the host was nice and he might think I was ungracious if we left.

I took a look a the creek and decided it might be worth a try. I grabbed my pole and a small tackle box that contained some trout lures and headed up the creek. I tried several small holes and not a bite. Between the rainy weather and the lack of good fishing I was getting bummed. I saw some fins come out of the water in this large hole up river. Carp? Gamefish? Hmmmm? I took a couple of casts and nothing, so I decided to change lures. Wham! A very plum smallmouth bass, as big as any I have caught in Arkansas! Yee haw. I took dozens more casts, change lures many times and nothing, so I was about to call it good. I found a funky jig that I had bought ten of in Minnesota and thought "This one ought to scare them away or really piss them off." First cast I hooked a fish bigger than I have had on in many years and of course it popped the hook. I could have cried. Then I cast out again and hooked the same fish or it's equal and landed it. It must have been a four pounder. It was a big female that appeared to be full of eggs, so I had to let it go with no picture for evidence. I was bummed, but I wasn't going to slay this big, beautiful fish just for bragging rights. I caught five more fish that were all as big if not bigger than any I have caught in Arkansas, so I decided it would be worth going back to get the camera in case this was going to keep up. Luckily it kept up and I caught ten more fish. I caught a couple that I am pretty sure were 3 lbs, but could not get another monster. Don't worry, I am going to try again in the morning. A total of 16 fish and none of them smaller than 15", the biggest was probably 20" and fat as a football. I didn't have my professional photographer with, so these I took of myself. Smallest to biggest. I don't need to hit the crack pipe this evening, I am high on fishing right now. My wife is awesome for picking Buckaloons Campground.

Pittsburgh

It is funny to me that James was initially against this whole blogging thing and now I can't tear him away from the computer. He is witty and charming so I don't object to him being our primary spokesman. Unless he calls me a geek, which just for the record he asked me to rewind a part of the Goonies he missed due to a phone call, so he couldn't have hated it too much. Also to defend myself over the Amish bakery incident...... we knew the exact location of such a place but James thought it would be more fun to explore and come across one spontaneously. While usually I am all up for adventure, when sweets are involved I say go for the sure thing. After 2 hours of unsuccessful 'exploring' I got a little cranky.

Well we finally got a taste of some of the weather that everyone in Arkansas has been experiencing. We went for about 3 days without seeing the sun and realized that perhaps we would have had a harder time staying happily married this year if we hadn't had so many sunny days. I knew things were getting bad when I found myself trying to coerce James into kayaking the river even though it was above flood stage. Thankfully he didn't listen to me and the sense of stir craziness passed.

Yesterday we went into Pittsburgh. We had to wear our fleece jackets, even though it is the middle of May. The theme for the day was food. James was very focused on having a sandwich from Primanti Brothers restaurant, a place he saw on the Discovery channel. It was some sort of cheese steak thing with coleslaw and french fries on the sandwich, yuck. He seemed to enjoy it and the fries were good (I had mine on the side, not touching the sandwich of course). We then stumbled across a neat downtown market that had all kinds of fresh meat. Just our luck they were having a special on fillet Mignon so of course we had to stock up for the RV. We also checked out the Heinz history museum and took the incline up to Mt. Washington to take in a view of the city. I have to say Pittsburgh was a nicer city than James and I thought it would be. It sits at the confluence of 2 big rivers and has lots of hills and trees. It does sort-of seem like a struggling city, due to the collapse of the steel industry. We had a drink at Mel's bar at the top of the Duquesne incline and heard him lament about the decline of his city and how the 26 year old mayor was running it into the ground. 26 year old mayor? I was just mastering balancing my checkbook at age 26, let alone the budget for a big city.

Today we enjoyed the sunshine and James did some fishing from our campsite at Keystone State Park. Tomorrow we are heading north towards Niagara Falls, shooting for being there before the weekend rush. I am very excited! It is supposed to rain again, but we will already be wet from the waterfall so who cares.

I got a phone call yesterday from one of my former vice principals and it seems as if I might be gainfully employed again next year. I tried to use this information of course to encourage James to stay on the road for a few more weeks, but no dice. It is a huge answer to prayer to have security for next year. I may have to find a safe bike route to get me up to Bentonville as gas prices sky rocket, but it will be worth it because it is a great place to work.

I hope everyone has a great day tomorrow! We will be home soon!

Love, Kim

Rain, Rain go Away

The rain has sequestered us to the R.V. We are in the Ohiopyle State Park on the Youghiogheny River in Pennsylvania. I intended to kayak the river, but the two days of rain has it flooded, muddy and fast, so I am being a big chicken. Kim is in the back of the R.V. doing pilates or yoga or something to a dvd. She keeps looking up at me and inviting me to join, I think she is delusional about the size of the yoga room back there. "Look Schweetie, Exalted Warrior pose!" "This pose would be great on your back!" "It feels good!" Now she is more than likely going to put on the Goonies dvd. See, it isn't all roses here folks. When it is rainy and cold and you just want some down time to yourself you can't get away to the other side of the house instead you sit at the dinette and try to avoid invitations to pilates. My wife is a geek, uh-oh here she comes, she is bound to peer over my shoulder at any time now. Whew! She went back to the "Theater /Excercise Room". I will pay for these comments, just not right now.

Yesterday we went for a bike ride down a rails-to-trails path that runs down the Youghiogheny River gorge. Youghiogheny is actually pronounced "Yok-e-o-gain-e". It is an indian word for "river that flows in a contrary direction" Ohiopyle is also an indian word for the water falls here. Probably for "water that falls at a high velocity over many boulders". In case you didn't know, a rails-to-trails is where they took an old railroad bed and fill it in with gravel or asphalt to make a bike and walking path. Since there were a lot of railroads in the East there are a lot of these types of paths. It was sunny yesterday afternoon for a spell and the water was flowing everywhere, so it was a very nice time. Today we went and looked at the Falling Water house that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built for a wealthy department store mogul. It was very fascinating. The home was budgeted at 20-30 thousand and ended up costing $140,000. I know some architects capable of overrunning budgets, but 5 times the original sum? I know an architect that thought a project wasn't legitimate unless it went over budget, now I know why he said this. It was given to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy back in 1963 by the only son of the couple and they maintain it now and give tours. The Smithsonian said it was one of the top 28 things people should see before they die, so we decided to check it out. As with all the Frank Lloyd Wright and Fay Jones type architecture I have seen it was comprised of a lot of stone and wood and the ceilings were LOW. Low, low, low. The guide refrenced me many times. "How tall are you? Six foot six. Yeah, see the ceilings in here are six foot four inches and the doorways are six foot two inches. You see Frank Lloyd Wright thought that all men should be around 5' 8" since that is how tall he was and any ceiling above 7' tall was a waste of space." I don't like Frank. This house of stone and wood over the water fall is awesome, but Frank can keep his low ceilings and doorways.