With end of summer fast approaching, and Jace's summer vacation coming to a close, it's time for a not so brief update on our travel-less summer of 2024.
New grandson William continues to grow into toddler size, well before he's supposed to. If he keeps growing as fast as he has, he'll be a linebacker in about, oh – 3 years or so. Alicia is still recovering from the C-section, but improving steadily.
While Jace didn't spend the full 8-weeks of his summer break with us as he usually does on one of our extended trips, he has spent a great deal of time with us at Bolding Mill COE campground while we've been camp hosting. He got to ride in the Kubota a few times and helped a little bit (a very little bit) in keeping the campground bathrooms clean, but most of the time here he spent on his new scooter or at the lake beach.
He spent a LOT of time at the lake beach.
He met a few kids visiting for the day and got to play with them in the water, got to release a catfish a guy caught near the shoreline, and generally improved on his swimming and floating.
One night we took Jace and Grover out to the local Bruster's for some ice cream. While Jace loved his cone, Grover REALLY appreciated his pup cup, which Barbara complained had the same amount of ice cream her adult cup had – and Grover got the added biscuit!
Jace's summer vacation also included a visit to Great Wolf Lodge with his Auntie KK and her friend Shane. Huge indoor water park and a Magi Quest adventure to keep everybody entertained.
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| Great set of bunk beds in the spare bedroom of the suite Kristen and Shane booked. Of course Jace took the top bunk! |
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| Jace, Auntie KK (Kristen) and her friend Shane. |
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| At Magi Quest, you're issued a magic wand to use to help you find things. But of course, it's also just a stick . . . |
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| When at Great Wolf Lodge, one must wear the obligatory wolf ears! |
One day near the end of his vacation, he was able to see his good friend Amie, who we met a couple of years ago while staying in another campground. These two are really good friends and enjoy each other's company so very much. Their faces light up when they see each other. Anyway, we have lived in North Georgia for more than 30 years, and in all that time we never took a tube ride down the Chattahoochee River in the Helen, GA area. It's kinda the thing to do here.
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| These two always have huge smiles on their faces when they get together. Such great friends. |
You basically get yourself a very comfortable tube with a head rest if you're an adult, or a smaller tube sans headrest if you're 12 years old or younger. If you're smart, you bring a stout 5-foot stick with you or you purchase one for $5 bucks at the tubing location to help you push off rocks or the shoreline as you travel downriver. It can take a LOT of work on very slippery rocks to extricate yourself from danger if you forego the stick. The $5 investment is well worth it!
If the water is running fairly well (as it was that day), you can take a 2-hour trip down the river, or if there has been little or no rain, you're bussed to a departure spot a little closer to the end of the adventure. Fortunately for us, we had had some recent rains (after a VERY dry summer), so the 2-hour ride was available.
Now, because Jace is 8 years-old and Amie is about a year and a half older (so both are under 12), they had to have their tubes strapped to an adult tube for obvious safety reasons. This does a couple of things: First off, the tubes move much slower together than a single tube does, and the tubes spin in an axis at random intervals, keeping the driver (me) from facing forward to control the course. Having 8 or 10-year-olds acting as lookouts or navigators isn't what anyone would call optimum. Thus, Jace and I and Amie and her mom Elizabeth ended up getting stuck in some precarious places. I ended up getting out of the tube 4 times, slipping underwater 3 times just to get us free from rocks. Jace had to pull us out from a tree which blocked our path.
Barbara had her own difficulties traveling by herself, getting caught in a water chute between rocks and going underwater for too long a time for comfort.
Meanwhile, Amie and Jace were desperately trying to hook up our tubes into a foursome by holding onto each other's tubes, making navigating even more challenging.
Still in all, it was a nice morning adventure that I know both kids would love to repeat again real soon. For my money, I hope they can both wait until they turn 12 so they can travel alone!
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| Jace having a ball on the Chattahoochee. That's Amie and her mom in the background. As you can see, Amie is desperately trying to get back to Jace while he mugs for the camera. |
As for us, Barbara continues to work 2-3 days a week at the local West Elm store. It keeps her busy and relatively sane, and brings in a few extra dollars each month. She's earned more than enough thus far to allow us to pay cash for the six new motorhome tires we're going to have to buy this winter while in Florida, and we still have 5 months to go on this camp hosting gig.
The camp hosting isn't strenuous, but it can be frustrating. The biggest thing is the cavalier way all-too-many campers treat their campsite. I mean, let's face it; it's the outdoor version of your living room at home, right? So why would you just discard things on the ground that you wouldn't do at home?
The most annoying things thrown on the ground and never picked up?
Twist ties from bread or roll packages.
Zip ties just cut off from products and left on the ground.
Bottle caps, especially beer bottles.
Cellophane straw wrappers from juice boxes or bags.
And the worse violators?
Cigarette butts. The worst part is when campers use their fire pit as an ashtray for their 2-week stay. Even many smokers don't like to get to a campsite and find their fire pit full of someone else's discarded butts! Non-smokers absolutely hate them! We cleaned up one camp site only occupied for a week, and we policed more than 5 dozen cigarette butts in and around the campsite!
Well, we do get a free campsite with sewer in a Corps of Engineers park for our troubles, but Barbara and I have figured out that this is not an experience we want to repeat anytime soon. After January 8th, it's back on the road for us, and somebody else can clean up other people's messes.
Travel-wise, the RV is staying put until January, but we have a short one week trip in August to South Dakota in our Jeep Cherokee to renew our residency, pay our annual vehicle registrations in person, and renew our driver's licenses after 5 years of being residents of that great state. Full-time RV-ers have to provide proof we stayed at least one night in a hotel or campground once every five years to maintain residency, and we have to renew our driver's licenses in person as opposed to actual residents who can renew by mail. It's no big deal, as we enjoy the state immensely, even if it's just for a short visit. And the paperwork takes us less than a half a day to get everything done.
Doesn't seem that long ago we were driving up there in our old Mini Cooper convertible to get ready for full-time RV living by establishing ourselves as residents there. We've probably driven more than 100,000 miles in the motorhome and both tow vehicles since then. Gas was much cheaper for the most part, much more expensive (post-COVID) for a while, and the Jeep is less fuel-efficient and less fun to drive than the Mini ever was, but it's certainly more comfortable and quieter than the Mini. With new tires all around on the Jeep, the trip should be much easier on our ears and rears than it was 5 years ago.
