CASTING LONG FINGERY SHADOWS WESTWARD

ALL OF TONIGHT’S PHOTOS TAKEN FROM THE DRIVER’S SEAT THIS MORNING

Unexpected over night rains had me awake at 2 a.m. and my day basically started from there.  Dozed off once or twice but finally gave in, snapped on the TV and fired up my laptop around 4.  Needless to say I ended up having a rather low energy slow day.  I think had I not been outside in my pajamas shortly after 2 flapping my way around closing shed doors and winding up windows I might have been alright and fallen back to sleep again but soggy PJ’s are just not conducive to a good sleep…………………

FIRST SECTION OF PHOTOS ARE FROM OUR DRIVE TO GODERICH EARLY THIS MORNING

Noticing Goderich's Canadian Tire store had something on sale I was interested in Pheebs and I were out the door earlier than usual.  With morning’s Sun low on the horizon casting long fingery shadows westward across land touched by the old painter’s masterful hand I saw puffy gray and white cloud bottoms tickled softly by old Sol’s fiery awakening.  Truly another bonus weather day was upon us.

A quick swing down around the south harbor to have a look at Lake Huron's wind whipped waves.  With temperatures down quite a bit from Friday I was glad I had my lined nylon jacket with me when we stepped out for a leg stretch and short walk.

SECOND SECTION OF PHOTOS ARE FROM GODERICH’S ROTORY COVE BEACH AREA

Home again I alternated between my recliner and wrapping up a few outside annual tasks for the coming Winter.  Our day was a mixture of sun and cloud and I once again marveled at how beautiful everything looked whenever the day’s sun lit up our Autumn surroundings

We had us a mighty fine Thanksgiving turkey dinner tonight with all the fixins including pumpkin pie.  Sitting here at the computer I can hardly move.  Me and Mr. Turkey have a lot in common at the moment….we’re both stuffed.  I’m not at all a big eater anymore but it seems when it comes to mashed potatoes with gravy, stuffing, creamed corn and turkey my appetite knows no bounds and I always end up overeating and hurting myself.  Think I might just let myself fall out of this computer chair onto the floor where I can wallow and flop around like a beached whale for half an hour or six…………….

GROANER'S CORNER:(( A little guy gets on a plane and sits next to the window. A few minutes later, a big, heavy, mean-looking guy plops down in the seat next to him and immediately falls asleep.  The little guy starts to feel a little airsick, but he's afraid to wake the big guy up to ask if he can go to the bathroom. He knows he can't climb over him, and so the little guy sits there, looking at the big guy, trying to decide what to do. Suddenly, the plane hits an air pocket and an uncontrollable wave of nausea passes over the little guy. He can't hold it in any longer and he pukes all over the big guy's chest. About five minutes later the big guy wakes up, looks down, and sees the vomit all over him.  "So," says the little guy: "are you feeling better now.

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Q: Why are fish so smart?

A: They live in schools.

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Two young men were out in the woods on a camping trip, when the came upon this great trout brook. They stayed there all day, enjoying the fishing, which was super. At the end of the day, knowing that they would be graduating from college soon, they vowed that they would meet, in twenty years, at the same place and renew the experience. Twenty years later, they met and traveled to a spot near where they had been years before. They walked into the woods and before long came upon a brook. One of the men said to the other, "This is the place!". The other replied, "No, it's not!". The first man said, "Yes, I do recognize the clover growing on the bank on the other side. To which the other man replied, "Silly, you can't tell a brook by it's clover."

SHE LEFT ME HOME ALONE WITH FRESHLY BAKED OATMEAL COOKIES ON THE COUNTER

It’s unusual to be talking about humidity in October but the last couple of days have been overly warm with 80F temps and a high humidex.  Left me feeling sticky and uncomfortable.  Now contrast that with Sunday’s overnight projected low of 33F.  Temperature variations like that can lead to some nasty storm conditions in October.  It was nearly a year ago when a heavy dump of wet snow knocked out power to thousands of people in our area including Kelly, Pheebs and I.  Luckily for us we quickly retreated to the Motorhome where we had heat and solar power.  Despite lots of damage to trees and shrubs the storm left a Winter Wonderland behind.  Here’s my post and photos showing the aftermath of that totally unexpected snow storm.  Storm's Aftermath

TURNED OUT TO BE A NICE MORNING’S DRIVE THROUGH AUTUMNN’S PALETTE OF BEAUTIFUL COLORS

  

IF YOU LOOK CAREFULLY YOU CAN SEE LIBBY SITTING WAY DOWN THE ROAD

Another gorgeous Autumn morning in the countryside and of course Pheebs and I took full advantage of that for a few hours.  On our way through Goderich we stopped at McDonalds and tried out one of their new sausage-hash brown-scrambled egg wraps.  It must have weighed 10 pounds and it was all Pheebs and I could do just to eat it all.  Yes we liked it and for sure would get another one sometime.

THE MAITLAND TRAIL ON THE RIGHT FOLLOWS AN OLD RAILWAY LINE AND THAT’S LIBBY OVER TO THE LEFT ON A SHORTCUT ROAD RUNNING A SHORT WAYS ALONGSIDE THE TRAIL

HIKERS HEADING EAST ON THE MAITLAND TRAIL BETWEEN BEN MILLER AND CARLO

Trees are beginning to fill in nicely with Autumns beautiful pastel reds, oranges, and yellows.  Give it another week or so and I’m guessing area bush lines will explode in grandiose splendor.

Kelly baked up a big mess of oatmeal cookies this morning then left to go over to the Bayfield Berry Farm to pick up some pie crusts or something.  Leaving me home alone with stacks of freshly baked cookies sitting freely on the counter top teasing me is not a nice thing to do.  Before I could regain control of myself I had put some very noticeable dents in the cookie piles then had to craftily re-arrange the cookies to look like nothing was missing.  In my 72 years I have never needed my stomach pumped but the panicked thought did flash through my oatmeal infested mind this morning.  Hey wait a minute!!  Did she just say she was going over to the Berry Farm to buy pie crusts??  Oh no I am sooooooooo totally doomed!!

Laid a cleaning job on our Sunfire this afternoon and filled the rest of of the day up with puttering stuff.  Lubed up our Sterling tow hitch, hauled a couple more frogs to the big pond and moved a few more outside things into storage.

 

A few of RV Sue's readers have been wondering where her blog has got to.  In our Shout Box a few days ago Sue in part said,  “Al, Some of your readers read my blog, too. My blog will be down for several more days”.  Sue also mentioned in her last post that she was heading to an area with ‘iffy’ internet connections so might be off-line for a few days.  We’ll all be keeping an eye out for her return so stay tuned:))

And by golly I hear there is a wedding anniversary going on in Shakespeare Ontario on Saturday.  Shakespeare is just 3 short miles North of my home town of Tavistock.  Hilda and Bruce Marriott will be celebrating their 50th Wedding Anniversary.  Congratulations from the Bayfield Bunch folks.  Bruce has been reading my blog since 2007.  Now there’s a fella with a whole lot of stamina.

FIFTY YEARS TODAY:))

I know we have a number of readers interested in Quilting and the Beaver Valley’s very own Furry Gnome at Seasons In The Valley took some nice photos of a few award winning quilts at the recent Collingwood Fall Fair affectionately known as the GNE.  Quilting seems to be a very common pastime among fellow RV Bloggers.

JUST A DARN NICE DAY FOR LOOKING AT AUTUMN LEAVES

I was saddened to read Betty’s last post at Joe And Betty's Adventures.  Joe has been waging a gallant medical battle and his health has taken a turn.  We met Joe and Betty in Quartzsite at Bloggerfest 2015 a couple years ago.  Nice folks and like myself Joe has a keen interest in aircraft.

GROANER’S CORNER:))  At New York's Kennedy airport several years ago an individual later discovered to be a public school teacher was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a setsquare, a slide rule, and a calculator.  At a morning press conference, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement.  He is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.  Al-Gebra is a fearsome cult," Gonzalez said. "They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns', but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country.  As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'there are 3 sides to every triangle".  When asked to comment on the arrest, President George Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, he would have given us more fingers and toes".

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Knock Knock
Who's there?
Isabella!
Isabella who?
Isabella out of order!
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Isabelle!
Isabelle who?
Isabelle necessary on a bicycle?
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Isadore!
Isadore who?
Isadore locked, I can't get in!
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Isaiah!
Isaiah who?
Isaiah again Knock Knock

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Janna asks, “why are you enjoying life while eating a hotdog”?   

Mike replies,  “I’m just relishing the moment.”

CAUGHT OURSELVES A COUPLE LUCKY BREAKS THIS MORNING

It is not often we get to see a Sunrise when we are home here in Bayfield from early April to late October but by golly driving the rig to Clinton this morning a sunrise we did see as we headed East.  During the Winter months in the Southwest we do see lots of Sunsets and Sunrises and I always look forward to that each season.  And oh that ever so dark night sky again with it’s sheer blaze of diamond studded stars from mountain top to mountain top.  To date the darkest night sky I have ever seen in our travels was near Utah’s Natural Bridges Monument.  I mentioned those dark skies in early November of 2015 in my post, Capitol Reef National Park to Natural Bridges National Monument.

SUNRISE ON OUR WAY TO CLINTON

How lucky we were this morning to catch ourselves a double break at Huron Tirecraft.  Kelly and Pheebs came along and we had the rig there shortly before 8.  Met us a nice young tire tech by the name of Cody.  He had me put the coach’s levelers down to raise the rear dual wheels up while he checked out the suspect tire which turned out to be fine.  He then centered on the extender valve.  He loosened it a bit, sprayed the base with soapy water and a slow leak appeared.  Out with a wrench and securely tightened the extender and hopefully that solves the problem.  We will be monitoring that tire closely now to make sure there are no further troubles.  He also checked out our levelers while they were down saying they all looked good as well as the rest of the tires on the rig.  Personable fella and he was truly helpful in sharing his tire knowledge with us.   And what a lucky break not having to buy a new tire. 

CODY WENT AROUND CHECKING ALL OUR EXTENDER VALVES AND TIRE PRESSURES
We caught our second break when Cody told us there would be ‘no charge’ for the nearly half hour he spent checking that tire out for  us.  I slipped into the office quick to thank Bob for Okaying that.  It was he and Bonnie who we bought our Jeep tires through a couple days ago.  Some days just unexplainably turn out better than other days eh!!

NOW HERE’S A RARE SIGHT…..THE BIG EEE WITH HER LEVELERS DOWN
With our Jeep still in at the Bayfield Garage (control arm) Pheebs and I were grounded for the rest of the day.  Took the opportunity to putter about in the rig fine tuning our interior for the coming travel days ahead.

BAYFIELD HARBOR ON A STORMY DAY
With all this tire talk lately it again has us asking ourselves whether we should be investing in a tire monitoring system.  We have talked it over several times these past 10 years but we never did get around to doing it.  We are now having that same discussion again.  Our friends and fellow RV'ers Nina and Paul from Wheeling It  spent time researching tire monitoring systems back in 2014 before deciding on one and I went back and read her post.  Monitoring Our Ride

A BAYFIELD SUNSET OVER LAKE HURON
Bayfield Garage phoned shortly after 5 saying our Jeep was done including the undercoating so off we went to pick it up.  We combined the Motorhome’s bill with the Jeeps bill and watched as another thousand dollar bill fluttered off into the Sunset.   But it’s the price one has to pay for the lifestyle we have preferred these past 10 years.  Vehicles always need maintenance and repairs.   And we have three of them………..

A CLOSER LOOK AT THAT SAME SUNSET
GROANER’S CORNER:(( Two retired professors were vacationing with their wives at a hotel in the Catskills. They were sitting in rocking chairs on the veranda one summer evening, watching the sun set. The history professor asked the psychology professor, "Have you read Marx?"
To which the professor of psychology replied, "Yes, and I think it's these pesky wicker chairs."
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Two cannibals meet one day. The first cannibal says, "You know, I just can't seem to get a tender Missionary. I've baked them, I've roasted them, I've stewed them, I've tried every sort of marinade. I just can't seem to get them tender."  The second cannibal asks, "What kind of Missionary do you use?"  The other replied, "You know, the ones that hang out at that place at the bend of the river. They have those brown cloaks with a rope around the waist and they're sort of bald on top with a funny ring of hair on their heads."  "Ah, ah!" the second cannibal replies. "No wonder...those are friars!"