Military grade insects

Signs posted all over Fort AP Hill

BSA National Jamboree

Visiting the Jamboree with the boys in Virginia. Left at 4am, it is now nearly 11am, have been here about an hour and still in the traffic line. This is one of the full visitor lots not including the 40000 participants.

Life is good #3

Decided to take a break this evening and cook out by the pool. We are getting closer to finishing the house. Another weekend that was too short.

Life is good #2

Life is good #1

Poop and run

Can't teach kids manners these days!

Unpacking is exhausting!

Long, long, long day of unpacking finally did Chelsea and Lizzy in. We only have about 50 boxes to go and all of is have hit critical mass. Don't think I ever want to move again!

First shower

Chelsea and Lizzie's first shower in the new house. Lizzie has not figured out she is a dog so all bathing occurs in the shower with Chelsea. Aroma therapy shampoo of course.

Finally made it

This trip was extremely long. Took us about 24 hours to make the drive from North Carolina. Driving separate care is really a drag. Now the fun of getting settled in. Today is a day of rest, Kevin goes to work tomorrow, B and the kids with the help of her sister and our daughters will have the daunting task of unpacking. Fun...fun.

Guard dog

Lizzy was not much on keeping us safe on the ride to Oklahoma. She did bark once at a couple of dogs that were at a very safe distance then put her tail between her legs. I wander how to teach her that she is a dog?

AT Hike - Good Bad and Ugly

We went on the long awaited Appalachian Trail Hike this weekend. Started on Saturday at 3am (EST), time zone matters because I flew in about midnight from CST which made for less than 2 hours total sleep included the nap to the trail. Day one was uneventful other than the trail was really pretty and proved I am in much WORSE shape than I thought I was. My right knee pooped out at about 7 miles of up and down, unfortunately we were going 8.5 miles that day. Kevin Jr. started feeling poorly that evening but survived fine.

Sunday morning started at about 5:30am with Kevin Jr. throwing up all over him, me and the tent (who needs an alarm clock!). After cleaning up best we could decided to push on with the group, not that we had a lot of choice. I learned that on the AT Trail it is an all or none adventure. There are no stores, payphones, or taxi-cabs along the way. After a bland breakfast Jr. made it about 1 hour and was sick again. We struggled through 7.1 miles till our lunch break and Jr. was feeling better, but had still not tried to eat anything. By this time Danny and Daniel were also sick but had not tossed their cookies yet.

Jr. ate some lunch and we packed on about 2 miles when it all started again. At this point we decided that this was not a safe situation with the heat and exertion, coupled with very few out points on the trail. We backtracked the 2.6 miles to a Hostel who we hired a ride to Johnson City, TN. That is another posting.

Our AT experience lasted 2 days and 20.2 miles. We dealt with the no sleep, fear of bears, PUDS (pointless ups and downs), met some nice and strange folks, diarrhea/vomiting, and how to get to a city that was 29 miles away with no car, not knowing anyone, and no phone. All-in-all it was a great time and hope to do it again under different circumstances.

Owe Yeah - the sickness was due to tainted sweet iced tea from Bojangles that Kevin, Danny and Daniel drank. Before it was over, the rest of the team abandoned the trail due to illness and we all made it back to Sanford about 3 AM on Monday.

Some thru-hikers we turned out to be!

And the crew.

Heading home to see my honey!

Learning to fly

This baby bird (blur in the picture) was trying to learn to fly on the porch of the camper. He kept trying to fly through the closed door. Little practice and he will soar with the eagles.