ON GOLDEN POND

Oops, it's not Golden Pond, it's Hunter's Pond. It's just that some days it seems like Golden Pond. I'm not getting lost in the yard or bumping into trees. If I start doing that we'll have to move somewhere without woods and a pond! Actually we still love this place. We are getting tired of the dirty and nasty Canadian Geese, but they usually only pay us a visit once a day. We do have a friendly deer that stops by once a week. She's beautiful. She seems to be a loaner. Most deer I know run in packs. I think our deer is somewhat antisocial. We also have a cardinal couple (Carl & Carla). Recently another male cardinal showed up. Carl wasn't happy. He chased the new guy. Recently I saw Carla talking with the new guy. A think a divorce is imminent! I failed to mention 'tommy the turtle'. Tommy is about 10 inches long and has a beautiful black and gold shell. Tommy walks across our patio about once a week. I think it takes him a week to make the circuit of the apartment buildings. Well, enough about our nature preserve lest you think I'm losing my marbles. Or maybe you've thought that all along. Anyhow...

So let's talk about people...we met our snowbird friends for a 'summer reunion'. We met at a campground in Champaign, Illinois. Now normally one would assume that if you are going to an RV Park, one would have some sort of RV or at least a tent. However, the day we were to pull our trailer to Champaign, the brakes went out on the truck. This was on a Saturday afternoon. The only place open was Sears. They found a broken brake line on the left front. The only problem was they couldn't get the part until Monday. We decided to drive Mary Ellen's car and stay at a hotel in Champaign near the campground. On interstate 80 around Chicago we had a blowout. By the time we waited for emergency services to arrive, had lunch with our Son, Tim, bought 2 new tires and got underway, we had lost 4 hours. I should mention Tim lives just a few miles from where we had the blowout. The rest of the trip was uneventful. We were the last to arrive at the campground, but made up for it quickly. The gathering was fun with the exception of Dave's back. He has had back problems for some time now, and the doctors can't seem to find a cure. On the last day in Champaign Dave developed severe pain that radiated from back to front. He wouldn't go to the E.R. of course, and eventually the pain diminished enough that Dave felt he was ready to drive home. Just prior to the reversal I told Dave we were going to take him outside and shoot him! I was very glad we didn't have to follow through. Dave has a difficult decision coming up. Whether to have surgery or not. We're all hoping he's in much better shape when we get to Florida this January.

I can't believe it's August already. I have to admit I'm actually looking forward to some cold weather. The ninety degree temps are really getting old. We have plans for another trip to Ohio, perhaps PA as well, and will probably take our camper to an RV Park for the month of September. The end of October we're planning to take the camper to Florida and store it down there. When January comes around, and it's time to prep for Florida, it will be such a relief not having to dig out of the snow and ice. We'll only have to drive the truck to our Florida storage facility and we're home free.

Lastly, I just have to mention the morons in Washington. I won't even bother giving you any details. I'm sure you're all as sick of this crap as I am. If you're not, nothing I can say will ever change your mind. My suggestion to all of you who are fed up with this Washington crowd is to vote for ANYONE who ISN'T an incumbent. That's right, throw them all out. And most of all throw out the clown that occupies the White House.

JIM

FALLING RAIN

We're are at home again today. Even though our travel trailer is at the Spaulding Lake Campground, we decided to come home due to rainy weather, AGAIN. We began our month of camping on June 10th. We left for OHIO on the 11th for a graduation party. Mary Ellen's grand-niece is headed to Dayton University. We also visited my two sisters and of course stayed with my sister-in-law, Carol. Since we've returned its rained almost every day. I don't know about you, but sitting inside a camper with the rain coming down brings on 'cabin fever' quickly.

Mary Ellen had a slight accident last Wednesday. While getting dressed alongside our bed, she tripped on a drawer that was open and covered with the bedspread, which made the drawer invisible. She fell backwards and hit her left lower back. She has had a nasty pain in her back ever since. There is no bruising and appears not to involve the kidney. It could be a broken rib, but she doesn't see any point in going to a doctor since they don't do anything for a broken rib.

The rest of this week is supposed to be dry. We'll head back to the campground tomorrow unless the weather changes. I should mention we live only 20 miles away. So coming home every few days is no big deal.

How about that wonderful, upstanding young ex governor of IL. Old Blago bit the dust today. With 17 out of 20 charges in the guilty column, he could get 300 years behind bars. How ridiculous is that. The press is saying he may get 7 to 9 years. Why attach all those years when there is no way anyone will ever be sentenced to anywhere near that many. Blago said in a post trial interview that he 'just couldn't understand how this could happen'. Didn't he hear his own tapes? Guess not.

Speaking of politics, I think Gingrich has shot himself in the foot once too often. That leaves Romney, Bachmann, Pawlenty, Cain and perhaps a few others. As things stand today, anyone of these people would beat Obama. Of course that's as of NOW. All or any of the aforementioned has plenty of time to shoot themselves in both feet. Hopefully it's Obama who goes 'limping' into the voting booth on election day.

Mary Ellen and I are looking forward to our "summer reunion" with our friends we winter with in Florida. We're meeting at a campground in Champaign, IL on July 11th. We'll spend a few days trying to remember what we did this past winter. Of course there will be a few lies and other assorted BS. I can hardly wait...I'll be back in my element.

RAMBLINGS

Another rainy and cool morning in lovely Michiana. Thought it would be a good day to sit at the keyboard and 'bang out' another of my 'highly anticipated' BLOGS. I base this comment on a statistical analysis I've done that shows 2.5% of you do 'highly anticipate' this blog. I realize 2.5% isn't statistically valid enough for me to extrapolate and use 'highly anticipated' in my advertising, but I don't advertise much, and who is going to bother turning me in? Now that I've clarified this, I'll move on.

We'll be parking the travel trailer at Spaulding Lake in Niles for a month starting June 10th. This is a "poor man's" version of having a summer home on the lake. So, from June 10th till July 10th we'll be spending some time in Niles, MI. When we leave on the 10th of July we'll head to Champaign, IL for the REUNION with our Florida gang. The ten of us are gathering for a few nights to solve many of the world's problems. That's not to say we didn't solve most of them during our winter gathering in Florida, but for some reason a few more problems have developed since then.

Government's spending of OUR money is totally out of control as most of you have probably noticed. It's incredible what the D.C. dingbats can come up with. Whose the imbecile that decided we need signs in every school zone that state, "This is a Drug Free School Zone"? Really? How nice! I've been driving around looking for a school zone that advertises drugs. Damn, they are all DRUG FREE. Wouldn't you love to know what it cost to produce and install these ridiculous signs. One small example of the people we've elected going out of their way to screw us. Don't you love it?

Speaking of spending, I bought myself a new phone. Not just any phone. I bought an iPhone!! This is the most amazing gadget I have ever encountered. I'm sure some of you also have the iPhone from Apple, so I won't detail all of the fantastic features of the iPhone 4. I love it. I hate to admit it, but it virtually eliminates the need for my MacBook and my Nook. In fact it virtually eliminates the need for anything other than Mary Ellen. Yes, I do love her more than my iPhone, but it was close!! I actually bought the book, iPhone for Dummies. This book takes an in depth look at all the features with shortcuts and tips that make navigating the many apps much easier.

We are 90% settled into our new home. It's actually looking like we've lived here forever. Of course we have numerous boxes packed onto the many shelves in the garage. Some of this stuff will eventually go to Goodwill or some other worthy cause. There is plenty of room for Mary Ellen's PT Cruiser. There are still a few things that we haven't located yet. The biggest headache is changing our address with the numerous magazines and accounts. I didn't realize we had to apply for new driver's licenses in order to give the BMV our new address. You have to bring a couple bills with our new address on them. What we didn't realize, and what makes no sense to me, is that these bills must also have Mary Ellen's name on them. We took bills from our electric company and newspaper. Both of these had my name on them with our new address. I could apply for a new drivers license, but
Mary Ellen couldn't. We failed to take anything with her name on it. Even though we are married and both living at our new address, she was unable to apply for a new license. Our State government in action. Mary Ellen will need to make another visit to the BMV when we can find something with her name and our new address on it. She's really looking forward to her return trip!

We'll be heading to Indy at the end of this month for the Indy 500 weekend. Mary Ellen and I won't be going to the race this year, but we'll spend time with sons Dan and Mark and Dan's family. Erin has a soccer game and Ally is graduating from Kindergarten. I think she had a 4.0 cumulative!! Elementary school scholarships are pouring in!

JIM

BOXES!!!

The past two weeks have been draining. Mary Ellen and I end each day physically exhausted. I know what your thinking, "get over it. It can't be that bad". Three of our sons did a tremendous job on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. On Monday afternoon Two Men and a Truck moved the heavy stuff. One might think with all that help it would pretty much take care of it. If you thought that, you'd be wrong. Its all the little stuff, not to mention all our clothes. It has taken us the last five days to totally clear everything out of the house. We got it as far as the garage. Tomorrow we'll get it into my truck and haul it over to our new home. The good news is we both love our apartment! Thank god we have a garage. We thought we had gotten rid of most of the excess baggage. We've made numerous trips to Goodwill, Women's Shelter, Faith Mission, and of course "the dump". Even after all that plus Craig's List, we've managed to have way more stuff than we have apartment! The lesson learned is NEVER stay in the same house for 36 years.

So, for those of you planning to send us a 'house warming' gift, and I'm sure many of you were thinking just that, DON'T. In fact Mary Ellen and I have a plan. It's called a 'reverse house warming'. So, all of you can plan to receive a surprise package in the next few weeks. Nothing elaborate mind you. Most of what we'll be sending you are items we were too embarrassed to drop off at St. Vincent De Paul. So you've got that to look forward to.

For those of you who have moved in the past 36 years, have you noticed how things that you truly valued seem to disappear during the moving process? What makes this even worse is we're finding ourselves saying stupid things like "I know I saw it in a box". My God, that's all we've seen in the past three weeks. Just yesterday I asked my wife, "have you seen my knife"? This is a knife that I always carry in my pocket. It's my favorite knife. My Son, Tim, bought me this knife. It's a really good knife. It has simply disappeared. That same day I took some pictures of the apartment complex. I had my camera bag in the truck with, of course, my camera and the USB cable with a little gizmo that goes into the camera. With this simple little cable I'm actually able to send pictures from my camera to my Mac Book. Truly amazing. Well, I'm no longer able to do this. My cable has vanished. This is why none of you are able to see the lovely place where we now live along with 567 boxes!

Speaking of boxes, most of what we moved now resides in our lovely attached garage. The plan was to have all of this stuff that we weren't mentally capable of trashing to reside on the right side of our garage, leaving plenty of room for Mary Ellen's PT Cruiser. My truck of course would reside in the parking area. At this moment both vehicles reside in the parking area. I'm betting on 2013 for PT Cruiser indoor parking!

We moved one of those lightweight plastic shelves we had in our former garage. I honestly thought this five tiered shelving would handle most of the stuff. The rest would hang from some cleverly positioned hooks attached to the walls and ceiling. Last Wednesday I purchased two more five tiered shelves. But the boxes kept coming. Last night we returned to Menard's. I now have five of the five tiered shelving. I do not plan to purchase more shelves. However, I've purchased 280 more hooks to be cleverly positioned on the walls and from the ceiling.

Mary Ellen has two mis-matched shoes. She's upset. You would think with 175 pairs of shoes, something like two shoes that don't match wouldn't be a big deal. But don't tell that to Immelda!

Still no knife nor camera cable. The quest continues.

JIM

LEG 4,5 and Beyond

We're home! We arrived home on Wednesday after spending Tuesday night in Indy with my son Dan's family as well as Griffey, my favorite Labradoodle. Dan grilled burgers, Mark joined us, and Dan took us to the Orange Leaf for dessert. Orange Leaf is a new chain that features frozen yogurt in 20 different flavors. You can use a small or large container and fill your cups with as much as you want. Then come the toppings. After you've passed all the delicious flavors and toppings you arrive at the scale. Yes, you pay by the ounce! It can really get pricey! Jill, Erin and Allison (Dan's 3 young ladies) love the place as we did.

The trip from Indy to Elkhart was totally uneventful!! However, when we got home we found Mary Ellen's car with a flat tire and it wouldn't start. We've since got the tire repaired and will have a new starter installed on Monday. On Thursday we accomplished a lot. We signed on the line for the apartment we'll live in for at least a year. It's called Hunter's Pond. The big selling point is the attached garage that comes with each unit. We go down the hall from our apartment and into our garage. It's bigger and pricier than we planned, but it's worth it. We move in on May 1st. Three of my sons will help us with all the boxed up stuff. Two Men and a Truck will take care of the rest. The fun begins.

In spite of my "incident" in Decatur, we had a wonderful time in Florida. We're trying to figure out how our gang (BBBF) can get together in this July for our "summer reunion". We're planning to do things a little differently next winter. We'll take our camper as far as Milton, FL in late October. We found a great storage facility in Milton. We'll drive the truck to Milton in January, hook up the camper and drive the remaining 30 miles to Navarre. We'll avoid pulling out of the snow in January. We'll hook up in the warmer weather of Milton, FL and pull it the rest of the way.

In the past two days we've accomplished a great deal. Mary Ellen is packing up items in the kitchen. I've been concentrating on books from my office. There is much to do, but we're trying to attack it one room or area at a time. We have to be completely out of here by May 8th. That leaves us about 23 days. I think we'll be ready. Our biggest problem is furniture that won't fit in the apartment. We really don't want to have a "moving sale". The furniture has already been on Craigs List and didn't sell. We may have to resort to Goodwill, Salvation Army or the Women's Shelter. It's way too good to take to the dump. I'd love to keep one of the two desks in my office, but there simply isn't room. The trials of downsizing.

It's time to do a little more packing...

Leg #3

Nashville is always a nightmare. It's a constant lane changing puzzlement. All this fun and lots of traffic. It started raining as we made our way through the maze. The temp went from 80 to 61 in a matter of minutes. Can you say tornado watch? We escaped Nashville and left most of the weather behind us as we made our way into KY. We arrived at the Bowling Green KOA without incident. Right after we set up for the night the rains came to Bowling Green...and I do mean rain. It's one of those rains that likely will last all night...and we do have a tornado watch till 6 p.m. No problem, we've got 75 cable channels, free internet, and close proximity to the office building. If the watch turns into a warning, we'll be heading to a more stable hideout. I like our camper, but I don't trust it in a tornado.

It's still raining @ 6 p.m. Its been a constant downpour since we got here. For some reason the weather made me think of my favorite poet, Robert Frost. He has written some great poems...poems like STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING & PROVIDE, PROVIDE. And so I leave you with this:

The witch that came, the withered hag
To wash the steps with pail and rag
Was once the beauty Abishag

The picture pride of hollywood
Too many fall from great and good
For you to doubt the likelihood

Die early and avoid the fate
Or if predestined to die late
Make up your mind to die in state

Make the whole stock exchange your own
If need be occupy a throne
Where nobody can call you crone

Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Then none at all

Provide, Provide

Leg #2

Today we drove to Decatur and Point Mallard Campground. This campground saw the demise of my humerus bone in my left shoulder. I'm anxious to see my friend, Scott. He's the gentleman who took such good care of us during our unplanned seven nights at Point Mallard in January. He went so far above and beyond that it's hard to find words to describe it. When Mary Ellen called the office to warn them that an ambulance was on the way, Scott got to our campsite before the ambulance arrived. He unhooked the truck, set up our camper, brought a propane tank, acted as a chauffeur, and stopped at our campsite at least three times a day to see if there was anything he could do. These things weren't in his job description. Neither was the phone call I got from him a few weeks ago. He just wanted to know how I was doing. Scott is just a genuinely caring man. We will always stay at this campground whenever we're in Alabama. Scott will be here for a visit tomorrow.

Last nite we saw a beautiful sunset. It's now my new wallpaper on my Macbook. I was up at five this morning, and shortly thereafter we had a visitor from the farm next to us. It was a beautiful Paint horse just like the Lone Ranger's friend Tonto used to ride. You may remember "get um up Scout". After thirty minutes a pretty young lady carrying a bridle came to the campground to reclaim "Scout". I had to laugh that she was carrying the bridle behind her back as she approached "Scout". She knew that this pretty horse would probably make a quick exit if he saw the bridle coming. But Scout didn't see it coming, and shortly she was leading him back to where he lived. Thus began another quiet day on the road to Decatur.

It was 83 degrees and sunny when we arrived. The weather must have brought out a lot of locals for the weekend. There are very few if any sites available. They have 168 sites. Glad to see this lovely campground make some money. Scott needs a raise!

It's supposed to rain tomorrow. Severe thunderstorms are predicted from Decatur to Bowling Green, KY. We're planning to be at the KOA in B.G. tomorrow. We're hoping for another uneventful day.