AN EVENING SUNSET OVER PLACID WATERS

THE END OF A QUIET DAY AT BAYFIELD'S DEER PARK LODGE

Half an hour after I posted yesterday's blog, sunlight broke through the clouds, filtered through our living room window, & gently lifted me & my gloomy spirits up out of the recliner & headed us back out the door  into the fresh air again. 

OUR FRONT YARD FUJI CHERRY IS BLOOMING

Drove into Bayfield, picked up a 6" Tuna sub at Subway & drove over to Pioneer Park which overlooks Lake Huron.  While eating the sub I noticed how dead calm the lake was which I thought maybe was the first time I had ever seen the water looking like glass with no waves visible.  Next thought was....camera!!

IT IS NOT OFTEN THESE WATERS ARE SO CALM

We live only a few minutes from the shores of Lake Huron so it didn't take me long to slip home & grab a couple cameras.    Headed for Deer Park Lodge where Kelly works because at this time of year I knew there would probably be no one there.  Deer Park sits high atop the scenic cliffs overlooking the lake & is always a great vantage point for Lake Huron sunsets.  Had myself a nice walk on the beach as the setting sun replenished my depleted motivation banks.

AN ANCIENT SEA MONSTER ON THE SHORES OF DEER PARK

Today turned out to be beautiful with temps reaching 80F.  Thought about taking the bike for a run but opted to do a little more work in the yard.  Kelly was on her way home & I wanted to be here when she rolled in the driveway.  She usually has a lot of stuff & needs help carrying everything in, & true to form Kelly pulled in about 1 o'clock with lots of stuff including a new 20" computer monitor & a wireless mouse.

PRETTY BLUE EYE RING ON THIS MOURNING DOVE

I had a Doctor's appointment in Goderich at 2 but was able to help carry in all the loot.  Nice to have Kelly home & see the smiling doggy guys jumping up & down with lots of happy tail wagging going on.  Since Kelly & I met back in the summer of 1993 this past 10 days is the longest we have ever been apart.  I'm sure it was a very nice break for her.  Man oh man that girl has stamina!!

A WATERWAY WENDS IT'S WAY TO THE LAKE

My Doctor's appointment went OK & it looks like I have a few sinus issues for which my nurse practitioner prescribed some nasal spray stuff.  I have to give myself a couple shots in each nostril every day for the next month & see if the problem clears up.  Shot myself up when I got home & immediately felt sick so there must be some powerful juice in that spray.

 

Hooked up the new monitor & 'wow' what a difference.  Gone was that yellow/green cast on the much smaller monitor.  I can now upload all my photos into the desk top computer again which means I can comfortably spend my after supper nights back in the sun room again surrounded by my favorite music while putting the blog together.

 

SUN REFLECTION ON THE WATER

Seemed kinda weird eating something for supper tonight that either wasn't made out of peanut butter & honey, corn flakes, or oatmeal.

 

Friday morning we are off to visit my Uncle Harry in Woodstock, Ontario.  Weather is due to sharply change with possible snow showers late Friday afternoon & we're going to end up with a cold Saturday.  Yuk!!

OLD SOL DIPS INTO THE COOLING WATERS OF LAKE HURON

And thanks to everyone's comments & concerns.   Happy to say I am over the doldrums hump for another day.  I'm sure there are more gray days ahead, as there is for everybody, but until then it's........blogging as usual:))

ME TAKING A PICTURE OF ME TAKING A PICTURE OF THE SUNSET AT DEER PARK LODGE (self timer)

GROANER'S CORNER:))  Police were called to a daycare where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.

Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.

BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.

FINALLY GETTING A LITTLE TIRED OF BURGS & FRIES

WE ENJOY OUR PINE FOREST LIVING

We don't have any bricks in our house but we do have a few sticks so when the wind warning was issued this afternoon we weren't too concerned.  After being pummeled by the big Arizona & California winds a few months ago in our motorhome anything coming through our pine forest here just is not going to be a worry.  No flapping awnings, no rocking & rolling, & no big bad wind sounds trying to rip the windows out.  Blow you winds, blow....we're home now.  Na na na na na naaaaaaaaa:))

Had me a look back to our blog one year ago & it could be an identical blog for today.  Exact same feelings 365 days later.  BLOG....ONE YEAR AGO

Kelly's son Ben & girlfriend Bree were up from Cambridge for the week-end staying at Deer Park so tonight we all went out for supper at the Dock's in Bayfield.  Food was good but I'm thinking maybe I've reached a point in my long 65 year food journey where I'm beginning to think there is more to life than burgs & fries.  I'm thinking of finally expanding into some fine cuisine dining.  Am contemplating expanding my taste bud horizons & looking into the fine art of... hot dogs:))

EARLY MORNING CROCUS FLOWERS

And speaking of fine food......I'd like to welcome blog follower number 120.  BIG SKY CHEF is the latest reader to climb aboard the Bayfield Bunch bus.  Although the rig will be stationary for a few months I hope we can come up with something now & again to perk BSC's interest.  Hot dogs......now that should do it:))

Kelly heads off in the morning for Spencerport NY to visit her Mom & Dad for the week.  Her Dad is not well & will possibly be undergoing some surgery in a few days.  Me & the furry guys will be holding down the fort & I bought 4 extra boxes of cornflakes for myself this morning.  We'll be just fine here in the quiet pine forest.

DAFFODILS

Why is it you can't buy a couple AA batteries anymore.  Remember years ago if you needed a battery you would just get a 2 pack.  Well, they phased the 2 packers out & went to 4 packers.  So then if you needed a battery you got 3 spares whether you liked it or not.  Always bugged me about that.  Well, this morning I go to Wal-Mart because I wanted 2 fresh batteries for Kelly's camera.  Would you believe the 4 packs have now been replaced by 8 packs.  #%!!*%??\\//#   Now I've got 6 spares sitting here slowly counting down to the expiration date.  Worse yet, I saw in the middle aisle where they had what looked like 20 or 40 packs on sale.  What is this world coming to.  Who in their right mind to buy about 30 batteries just to get a couple.  Big business has sure got us little consumer guys right by the adenoids!!!! 

TINY VIOLETS IN THE GRASS

GROANER'S CORNER:((  And because this is a short blog tonight I have decided to break with short joke tradition & put in a rather lengthy explanation by a few prominent people of the world as to....'why did that darn chicken cross the road!!'

Plato: For the greater good.

Martin Luther King: It had a dream.

Hamlet: Because 'tis better to suffer in the mind the slings and arrows of outrageous road maintenance than to take arms against a sea of oncoming vehicles...

Dr. Timothy Leary: Because that's the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take.

Howard Cosell: It may very well have been one of the most astonishing events to grace the annals of history. An historic, unprecedented avian biped with the temerity to attempt such an herculean achievement formerly relegated to homo sapien pedestrians is truly a remarkable occurence.

James Tiberius Kirk: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.

Stan Laurel: I'm sorry, Ollie. It escaped when I opened the run.

Doug Hofstadter: To seek explication of the correspondence between appearance and essence through the mapping of the external road-object onto the internal road-concept.

Machiavelli: So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the princely chicken's dominion maintained.

Hippocrates: Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its pancreas.

H.P. Lovecraft: To futilely attempt escape from the dark powers which even then pursued it, hungering after the stuff of its soul!

Jacques Derrida: Any number of contending discourses may be discovered within the act of the chicken crossing the road, and each interpretation is equally valid as the authorial intent can never be discerned, because structuralism is DEAD, DAMMIT, DEAD!

Thomas de Torquemada: Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out.

Robert Anton Wilson: Because agents of the Ancient Illuminated Roosters of Cooperia were controlling it with their Orbital Mind-Control Lasers as part of their master plan to take over the world's egg production.

Friedrich Nietzsche: Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you.

Aleister Crowley: Because it was its True Will to do so.

Oliver North: National Security was at stake.

Sappho: For the touch of your skin, the sweetness of your lips...

J.R.R. Tolkein: The chicken, sunlight coruscating off its radiant yellow-white coat of feathers, approached the dark, sullen asphalt road and scrutinized it intently with its obsidian-black eyes. Every detail of the thoroughfare leapt into blinding focus: the rough texture of the surface, over which countless tires had worked their relentless tread through the ages; the innumerable fragments of stone embedded within the lugubrious mass, perhaps quarried from the great pits where the Sons of Man labored not far from here; the dull black asphalt itself, exuding those waves of heat which distort the sight and bring weakness to the body; the other attributes of the great highway too numerous to give name. And then it crossed it.

Malcolm X: Because it would get across that road by any means necessary.

B.F. Skinner: Because the external influences which had pervaded its sensorium from birth had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own free will.

Carl Jung: The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and therefore synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.

Gary Gygax: Because I rolled a 64 on the "Chicken Random Behaviors" chart on page 497 of the Dungeon Master's Guide.

Dorothy Parker: Travel, trouble, music, art
A kiss, a frock, a rhyme
The chicken never said they fed its heart
But still they pass its time.

Karl Marx (revisited): It was a historical inevitability.

T.S. Eliot (revisited again): It's not that they cross, but that they cross like chickens.

Jean-Paul Sartre: In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.

Jean-Luc Picard: To see what's out there.

Darth Vader: Because it could not resist the power of the Dark Side.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: The possibility of "crossing" was encoded into the objects "chicken" and "road", and circumstances came into being which caused the actualization of this potential occurrence.

John Constantine: Because it'd made a bollocks of things over on this side of the road and figured it'd better get out right quick.

Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

Gandalf: O chicken, do not meddle in the affairs of roads, for you are tasty and good with barbecue sauce.

Baldrick: It had a cunning plan. (From the Black Adder British TV Show series)

Wesley: It's terribly fashionable, I think everyone will be doing it in the future.

[begin _Princess_Bride_ section]

Fezzik: Because if it did not it would be like a toad!

Inigo: Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You crossed my father's road. Prepare to die.

[end _Princess_Bride_ section]

Aristotle: To actualize its potential.

Roseanne Barr: Urrrrrp. What chicken?

George Bush: To face a kinder, gentler thousand points of headlights.

Julius Caesar: To come, to see, to conquer.

Candide: To cultivate its garden.

Bill the Cat: Oop Ack.

Buddha: If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature.

Moses: Know ye that it is unclean to eat the chicken that has crossed the road, and that the chicken that crosseth the road doth so for its own preservation.

Moses: And God came down from the Heavens, and He said unto the Chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And, verily, the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

Fox Mulder: You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many more chickens have to cross the road before you believe it?

Joseph Conrad: Mistah Chicken, he dead.

Salvador Dali: The Fish.

Darwin: It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees.

Thomas Dequincy: Because it ran out of opium.

Rene Descartes: It had sufficient reason to believe it was dreaming anyway.

Emily Dickinson: Because it could not stop for death.

Bob Dylan: How many roads must one chicken cross?

TS Eliot: Weialala leia Wallala leialala.

TS Eliot (revisited): Do I dare to cross the road?

Epicurus: For fun.

Paul Erdos: It was forced to do so by the chicken-hole principle.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: It didn't cross the road; it transcended it.

Basil Fawlty: Oh, don't mind that chicken. It's from Barcelona.

Gerald R. Ford: It probably fell from an airplane and couldn't stop its forward momentum.

Freud: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying insecurity.

Sigmund Freud: The chicken obviously was female and obviously interpreted the pole on which the crosswalk sign was mounted as a phallic symbol of which she was envious, selbstverstaendlich.

Robert Frost: To cross the road less traveled by.

Zsa Zsa Gabor: It probably crossed to get a better look at my legs, which, thank goodness, are good, dahling.

Gilligan: The traffic started getting rough;
the chicken had to cross.
If not for the plumage of its peerless tail
the chicken would be lost,
the chicken would be lost!

Johann Friedrich von Goethe: The eternal hen-principle made it do it.

Ernest Hemingway: To die. In the rain.

Werner Heisenberg: We are not sure which side of the road the chicken was on, but it was moving very fast.

Adolf Hitler: It needed Lebensraum.

David Hume: Out of custom and habit.

Saddam Hussein: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

Lee Iacocca: It found a better car, which was on the other side of the road.

John Paul Jones: It has not yet begun to cross!

Leda: Are you sure it wasn't Zeus dressed up as a chicken? He's into that kind of thing, you know.

Jack Nicholson: 'Cause it(censored)wanted to. That's the (censored) reason.

Gottfried von Leibniz: In this best possible world, the road was made for it to cross.

Groucho Marx: Chicken? What's all this talk about chicken? Why, I had an uncle who thought he was a chicken. My aunt almost divorced him, but we needed the eggs.

Karl Marx: To escape the bourgeois middle-class struggle.

Gregor Mendel: To get various strains of roads.

John Milton: To justify the ways of God to men.

Alfred E. Neumann: What? Me worry?

Sir Isaac Newton: 1. Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest. 2. Chickens in motion tend to cross the road.

Thomas Paine: Out of common sense.

Michael Palin: Nobody expects the banished inky chicken!

Wolfgang Pauli: There already was a chicken on the other side of the road.

Pyrrho the Skeptic: What road?

Ronald Reagan: I forget.

Georg Friedrich Riemann: The answer appears in Dirichlet's lectures.

John Sununu: The Air Force was only too happy to provide the transportation, so quite understandably the chicken availed himself of the opportunity.

Mr. Scott: 'Cos ma wee transporter beam was na functioning properly. Ah canna work miracles, Captain!

William Shakespeare: I don't know why, but methinks I could rattle off a hundred-line soliloquy without much ado.

Sisyphus: Was it pushing a rock, too?

Socrates: To pick up some hemlock at the corner druggist.

The Sphinx: You tell me.

Mr. T: If you saw me coming you'd cross the road too!

Margaret Thatcher: There was no alternative.

Dylan Thomas: To not go (sic) gentle into that good night.

Henry David Thoreau: To live deliberately...and suck all the marrow out of life.

Mark Twain: The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.

George Washington: Actually it crossed the Delaware with me back in 1776. But most history books don't reveal that I bunked with a birdie during the duration.

Mae West: I invited it to come up and see me sometime.

Walt Whitman: To cluck the song of itself.

William Wordsworth: To have something to recollect in tranquility.

Molly Yard: It was a hen!

Henny Youngman: Take this chicken...please.

Zeno of Elea: To prove it could never reach the other side.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

Grandpa: In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone told us that the chicken had crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.

Colonel Sanders: I missed one?

Bill Gates: I have just released the new Chicken Office 2000, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook.

Oliver Stone: The question is not, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" Rather, it is, "Who was crossing the road at the same time, whom we overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing?"

Richard M. Nixon: The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did NOT cross the road.

Jerry Seinfeld: Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn't anyone ever think to ask, "What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place, anyway?"

ARTHUR ANDERSEN CONSULTANT: Deregulation of the chicken's side of the road was threatening its dominant market position. The chicken was faced with significant challenges to create and develop the competencies required for the newly competitive market. Andersen Consulting, in a partnering relationship with the client, helped the chicken by rethinking its physical distribution strategy and implementation processes. Using the Poultry Integration Model (PIM), Andersen helped the chicken use its skills, methodologies, knowledge, capital and experiences to align the chicken's people, processes and technology in support of its overall strategy within a Program Management framework. Andersen Consulting convened a diverse cross-spectrum of road analysts and best chickens along with Anderson consultants with deep skills in the transportation industry to engage in a two-day itinerary of meetings in order to leverage their personal knowledge capital, both tacit and explicit, and to enable them to Synergize with each other in order to achieve the implicit goals of delivering and successfully architecting and implementing an enterprise-wide value framework across the continuum of poultry cross-median processes. The meeting was held in a park-like setting, enabling and creating an environment hich was strategically based, industry-focused, and built upon a consistent, clear, and unified market message and aligned with the chicken's mission, vision, and core values. This was conducive towards the creation of a total business integration solution. Andersen Consulting helped the chicken change to become more successful.

BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

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The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.

DECIDED TO FINALLY READ MY CAMERA MANUALS

WE HAVE SOME MIGHTY STRANGE BIRDS IN OUR OUTSIDE JUNGLE THIS YEAR:))

The first order of day this morning was to load up the two big furry swamp hogs & take them to the beach & ker-plunk them in the lake. Although I hosed them down yesterday after our romp in the Hullett Marsh they still had mud caked in their fur this morning. They love swimming in the lake anyway so it was a pleasant start to their day. DEERPARK LODGE BEACH THIS MORNING GETTING THE MUCK OFF THE TWO SWAMP HOG DOGS

Took the motorhome to Goderich yesterday morning & added some fresh gas to the tank. Sitting for months at a time is not a good thing & I try to take if for a run at least once a month. It always starts right up & runs like a top. It's like it's namesake.....Workhorse. It just wants to get back on the road & do what is was designed to do........work!! We are going to have to make a big financial decision about tires in a couple of months. They are in reasonably good shape but they are the rigs original aging tires & time is running out for them. There is a brake re-call on these motorhome models too but after reading all the politics & problems on RV NET around the issue I'm not sure what we'll do about the problem. So many pros & cons regarding the recall. Why can't people just make things right in the first place!!SPLISH SPLASH I WAS TAKING A BATH!HEY, THROW ME A BAR OF SOAP WILL YA!! WELL, WHADDYA THINK HUH

Been spending some time with my camera manuals over the past few days. Figured it's about time I understood how these darn fangled things work. I'm finally getting a little bored with the "automatic" settings & the time has come to kick it up a notch. The cameras are cable of doing amazing things if one takes the time to figure out just how to make them do that. The more I read the more muddled I get but out of that muddleness sometimes comes.....lightbulb moments. I've had a few of those lately so that has been just enough to encourage me to not give up & put the manuals down. You may start to see some oddball photos emerging in the blog but they will just be a result of my experimention into a more creative area of photography using some, "new found knowledge & equipment:))" Am hoping to aim for a little more quality & a little less quantity The only photos taken on "automatic" to-day were the 2 beach pictures. THIS IS OUR CEMEMT BIRD BATH COMPLETE WITH WAVES & AN ASTILBE FLOWER IN THE BACKGROUND

With envy I read LAURIE & ODEL'S blog this morning & could identify with their stirring hitch itch feelings. Quite simply, after being camped in one spot for awhile, it's that urge to hitch up your trailer or car & move on down the road in search of greener pastures & new adventures. Not all RV'ers get hitch itch but for those of us who do, it is what RVing is all about. I have always had the travel bug & that gnawing hitch-itch feeling just kind of follows me around each & every day. These past few RVing years have been great but they have left me extremely restless during our time at home here in Ontario. Most folks are content to stay put, secure in their daily routines, family priorities, job commitments, etc. Nothing wrong with that unless your like me & suffer from the affliction of.........hitch-itch!! DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS FLOWER IS BUT IT WAS GROWING AT THE FOOT OF THE BIRD BATH

GROANER'S CORNER: Did you hear about the snail that got beat up by two turtles? At the police station they asked him, “Did you get a good look at the turtles that did this? He said, “No, it all happened so fast.”

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GUESS WE'RE JUST KIND OF AN ODD COUPLE

A LONE SEAGULL WINGS IT'S WAY ALONG THE BEACH TO-DAY

We were just heading out the driveway on our daily walk a couple weeks ago when our friend & neighbor Gayle came walking across the road with an envelope in her hand. As she approached us she said, "happy anniversary." For a few seconds neither Kelly or I knew what she meant & I figure the puzzled looks on our faces prompted Gayle to say, "it's your wedding anniversary isn't it?" Well, she was right & if it hadn't been for Gayle reminding us we would have blown right past the date again for another year. Needless to say we were both pretty red faced as we opened Gayles lovely hand made anniversary card. It is one of many she has remembered for us over the years. DEERPARK'S VOLLEYBALL COURTS AWAIT THE SUMMER'S GUESTS

I think most normal people remember birthdays, anniversaries, & special occasions but then again Kelly & I haven't been like most people. We're kind of an odd couple of sorts as far as mainstream goes. We did exchange cards & things when we first met but eventually got away from that figuring why spend money on expensive cards that only end up in a drawer or on a shelf collecting dust anyway. Besides, the Coutts-Hallmark card company was already a multi-million dollar enterprise so why give them any more money when we could use it ourselves!! Flowers never made a lot of sense to either one of us either. They were expensive one day & stone dead two days later. And besides, what a waste of a beautiful flower's life. We don't do gifts for Christmas or birthdays either. We just consider them ordinary days. Our monies are integrated & anything we buy like a TV, vehicle, toaster, garden rake, or whatever is considered a sharing gift. Well, something like that anyway. The concept works for us ok but probably not for a lot of people.

DEERPARK LODGE IS GETTING A NEW SET OF STAIRS TO THE BEACH THIS YEAR

Before we met, Kelly had led a very busy social & family life & never had a lot of time for herself. I came from a slightly less social life but was already beginning to tire of it so the timing was perfect for us to meet. Kelly had had enough of the social scene & I was feeling the same so after a couple of years going out to-gether we found ourselves an old abandoned farm house way out in the country with lots of wide open spaces & no social commitments. We just kind of happily disappeared from everything & everybody:)) I THINK THERE'S ENOUGH ROOM ON THAT LANDING FOR AN ICE CREAM SHOPPE

We worked hard on that old 2 story brick house to make it livable & ended up quietly staying there for nearly 7 years. I think it was this period of time that changed both of us forever. We knew there was no going back to city living for either one of us. Why drive to big noisy traffic congested cities to do things we weren't really interested in doing in the first place anyway. Our interests in social events just kind of faded away. Figured it made a whole lot of sense to do the things we wanted to do instead of what other people wanted us to do. As I mentioned before, both of us had spent many years doing the social thing & by the time we met we were both way overdue for a huge change in our lives. Fortunately we had the same interests, dreams, & desires. The old abandoned farm house & life in the country was only the beginning for us & it was here that the basis for our future RV dreams began to take shape. The stage was set for our many tranquil boondocking adventures ahead......................:))

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THE SECOND COMING OF SPRING:))

COLORFUL BEACH CHAIRS AWAIT SUMMER GUESTS ON THE SHORES OF LAKE HURON AT DEERPARK LODGE http://www.deerparklodge.com/

Well, I sure wish I had something interesting to write about. One month ago to-day we hiked our way into old historic Fort Bowie near the Apache Pass in Arizona. http://thebayfieldbunch.com/2009/03/through-apache-pass-to-historic-fort.html
To-day, I puddled around raking leaves & cleaned up sticks & branches for a few hours. Doesn't really compare to our day at Fort Bowie but at least Spring has returned again after Old Man Winter took a final poke at us a few days ago.
Our snow is all but gone & I'm certainly hoping that was winter's last gasp.

ALONG OUR MORNING WALK

Weatherman has a nice Easter week-end lined up so maybe it will be a good time to begin the big clean up in the motorhome. All the bins have to emptied, cleaned, & re-organized. The inside has to cleaned from stem to stern & the carpet should probably be steamed cleaned. If I was handy I would pull that carpet out of there & replace it with a tile or wood laminate floor. I said......IF I was handy:(( And WHY would the manufacturer ever have put carpet in the bathroom!!!! Dumb, dumb, dumb. OUR FRONT YARD POND BUDDHA IS WEARING A WHITE HAT THIS MORNING

Had a big 4 hour coffee blow out last night with an old friend at a nearby coffee shop. In our case a coffee blow out now consists of one medium Tim Hortons coffee for me & a half pint of milk for my buddy Jim. He actually quit drinking coffee altogether a few years back. I'm down to 4 a day now & have been at that level for nearly 10 years. It's a far cry from years ago when we would seemingly drink the stuff by the pail full in our long chats in the many coffee shops in the Stratford Ontario area. Jim & I have been best friends for nearly 30 years now & in our coffee shop heyday used to meet every Monday & Thursday nights for coffee at 7 P.M. Jim broke an alcohol dependency habit about 34 years ago & I'm coming up on 30 years in October. I met Jim in my first week of sobriety & we've been best friends ever since. Up until last night we hadn't got to-gether for a good old round house chat in about a year & a half. As usual it didn't take us long to solve all the world's ills & establish ourselves once again as just a couple of wild & aging guys. Remember the Muppet Show? Remember the two old guys in the balcony, Statler & Hilton? Yep, that's me & my old buddy Jim alright:)) I STOCK THIS POND WITH FROGS EVERY AUTUMN

Another friend emailed this week bringing to my attention that I had spelled the word Curmudgeon wrong on our website. He noticed I had an S in there. Well, that is intentional, simply because I've always liked the sound of the word better with an S in it. Cur-smudge-eon. Good one Fred, you sharp eyed old devil you.

Ron from the Shoutbox noticed that since re-doing the format of the website, the top picture doesn't stretch all the way across the page. I wished it did but suspect a problem with the photo format not matching the blogger format may be the culprit. I have tried different photos but all with the same results. If anyone has a solution for that I would be happy to hear from them. I did initially have a lot of problems getting the wording to fit because it kept bleeding off into the gray area to the right. Had to not only reduce the size of the printing but also had to take out most of the text. I like the newer look better than what we had, but yes there is room for improvement. A LITTLE EARLY FOR PICNICS AT THE 5 SEASONS ESTATES, BAYFIELD

And thanks to Don out there in Brandon Manitoba once again for bringing to my attention the brake recall notice for the Workhorse Chassis. He spotted it on RV Net. http://www.rv.net/ You Workhorse drivers can check it out here..... http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/22625788.cfm

The snow you see in to-day's blog pics is gone now. The pics were taken yesterday & I didn't have any new photos for to-day. Besides, how exciting can a picture of somebody raking leaves be...................:(( AS MUCH AS I DISLIKE WINTER......IT SURE CAN BE PRETTY

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