Vacation (2013) - Post #14, Harpers Ferry Pt.2

Oh, this is a doozy...

On Wednesday March 5, 2014,  I had posted about the first part of our day in Harpers Ferry, WV.  

As I type this, it is December 12th, 2016 and I became mildly obsessed with finishing up the 2013 vacation because of this post.

I started looking at pictures and had such fond memories of that vacation and especially of this wonderful little town that has such amazing importance in Americas history.

This is where I had left off in the original post.  I believe this to be a hotel, which based on what I know is behind me when I took this photo, would have excellent views of but I honestly can't remember.  Who cares, really...  the landscaping is neat!

And the road as it heads uphill (the direction we're walking).

More of the same...

Awesome little restaurants and coffee shops would just pop up as you walked along.  And since they're built into the side of a mountain as it descends to the river, you get really cool patios such as this.

If I recall correctly, and I likely don't, we ate at the Potomac Grille.  This is the little cutie-pie Ethan, enjoying himself a fry of the French.

Then there's these two, teasing and jacking around...

Another strange photo that I thought was cool.  Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

It's him again!

That's the local train depot.

Now that we've climbed a bit of the hill, I figured that I would turn around and show from whence we came.  That building just to the right of center is the building that I thought was the hotel.  The road on the right is how a person or persons would get themselves to the Ruins of St. Johns Episcopal Church (see in that post from years back).

A bit further on up the road from our dining place.

Beautiful rock formation with tree's growing out of it.

I just loved the houses along the road.  I can just imagine sitting on that upper balcony and looking out over the river valleys on sunny, rainy, and even snowy days.

At one point, I was pleasantly surprised when I turned around from taking pictures of the houses and rock formations and saw this!!  Have I mentioned this is a beautiful little town?

That's the train depot again way back in the upper right of the photo.  There are restaurants, bars, flower shops and whatever else accessible by these kinds of crazy staircases along our journey.  Beautiful town...

And, I have nearly as many more pictures to finish up this vacation as we descend one of these crazy staircases...

Got'cha Day, 5 Years On...

5 years ago on December 5th, 2011, we met this guy!   Little Chang Rong Bo, in Changchun, China, in the Jilin province.  He was amazing when we met him and remains amazing today.   He is funny, a tease, thoughtful, helpful, and numerous other "things".    Above all, he is loved by his family!  This photo was taken at Dragon House East in Des Monies on his 5th anniversary of "Got'cha" day.

Some other past blog posts about that wonderfully fateful day:
http://schmitzchaos.blogspot.com/2012/02/photo-blog-part-10-gotcha-day.html

http://schmitzchaos.blogspot.com/2012/02/photo-blog-part-10-gotcha-day-back-at.html

http://schmitzchaos.blogspot.com/2011/12/brothers.html

http://schmitzchaos.blogspot.com/2011/12/gotcha-hes-here-and-hes-spectacular.html

http://schmitzchaos.blogspot.com/2012/12/gotcha-day-anniversary-and-more.html

Feeling Thankful

I love this! Caleb had a writing assignment at school. It was to write about something you're thankful for. He chose his brother! 

This little cutie wrote a sweet Thanksgiving letter to Robby.

It says, "Dear Robby, I am thankful for you being my brother and for being in my life.  I am thankful that we like baseball and you help me when I need help, like cooking.  I love you

Talking to a Wall

Robby had a friend stay over night. They wanted to watch a movie downstairs, which I have no problem with.  They wanted to have snacks downstairs, which I have a little problem with as we tend to have a problem with the tiny gray field mice that come inside this time of year.

So I get their movie going and head upstairs for the night.  The next morning, I go downstairs for one reason or another and find this:

That's 1 wrapper of "Red Vines", two potato chip bags (1 not quite empty) and over to the left of the blanket, is a plastic container that contained pickle wraps.

The old saying, "May as well be talking to a brick wall" applies here, methinks.

Vacation 2015, #21 - The Great Salt Lake

So last night I did a blog post about our vacation that was nearly 5 months ago. When typing that up, I realized that not only had I not finished last years vacation, there is still a post (not really, cause I ain't gonna do it...) from about 150 years ago when we went out to see our friends in Gaithersburg, MD.  

Well... perhaps I will do a final post as I was curious and just went to look up photos from that vacation. It was in August of 2013 and the final post is from Harpers Ferry, WV and there are some lovely photos of that place with some kids who have aged well since that time!

Anyhoo... 

So this post is more recent than that, but NOT as recent as the last one about Minnesota... 

Got it?  Ya with me?

So we're at the Great Salt Lake in Utah.  We had driven hard, really hard, since leaving the Redwoods and finally made it here.

Now keep in mind, this is nowhere near our final destination for the day.  Oh no...  what would a Schmitz Mobile Chaos vacation be without strict deadlines and near impossible miles to cover, be?!?  

So, I wanted to dip my toes in the water, go pee, get back in the car and get moving!

We parked at a little music venue/welcome center called... wait for it...  The Saltair!  It is obviously a concert venue but also serves as a gift shop and welcome center to those of us who are just passing thru and want to smell the nasty air of dead fish and bird carcasses gracing the long-a!!! walk out to the waters edge.

So we finally made it to the waters edge as a group.  And a dang fine looking bunch we are!  Oh, and if you can't tell from our expressions, it was BRIGHT!!!

A shot from waters edge back at some type of factory that we drove past on I-80 (I think) on our way into town.  I took it simply because I liked the contrast of the straight lines of the smokestack against the mountainous terrain.

And a photo that makes me sad now.  Aunt Molly on our way back to the vehicle after dipping our toes...

That's all of the pictures that I had that were worth showing.  I think that we didn't take too many due to the stench of rotting bird and fish that I mentioned earlier.  It was nasty...  other than that?  A quite lovely visit but if there is a next time, I would like to see the Great Salt Lake when the water level is much, much higher!

Vacation 2016, #1 - Spicer/New London MN

Since I cannot ever seem to finish one years vaca photos before getting into the next, I suppose I may as well continue the tradition. 

Here we are in Spicer Minnesota after a very rainy drive up.  It was heavy rains at times, light at others, and mostly just annoying.

But once we got there, it was good weather throughout, good peeps and good conversation!

Down at the dock, my brother Vince in his walking boot after being in a motorcycle accident not 6 weeks before.

That's me and Calebber on the bench, Robby and Mattison in the water.

Caleb on his fishing trip with Uncle Vince.

Uncle Vince making a "bad" choice to allow the chinaman to drive!!!  Yikes!!

He caught a fish!!!

Swimming off of the dock:  Robby, Matty, Michael and Caleb.

I sleep like crap.  I woke up one morning and it was STUPID early.   After a brief bathroom break, some coffee and other careful considerations, I decided to walk down to the dock (with coffee) and watch the sunrise over Green Lake.  This was the first photo from up at the road, prior to going down to the dock.

After the sun came up a enough to warrant an attempt down to the dock, I managed a successful descent, and watched a crazy amount of hungry fish jumping at about 50ft in.  Amazing activity along with the mosquitos...

And so it went...

More Random Molly Pictures

As time passes, some days, MUCH slower than others, other days faster than I care to deal with, I find myself dealing with the electronic/digital side of Molly's affairs. Meaning, the cd's, dvd's, cameras, flash drives and so on. 

The joy of that is finding pictures that I've either never seen or that I have completely forgotten about.

And so it is that this post came to be.  There will be another shortly within the same theme.

I believe this dates back to 2004.  Molly was graduating from Upper Iowa University.  Her Mom, Marlene, Lesley and myself went NE for the ceremony.

And so did Kerby!  I have no clue as to where his "stomping grounds" were at the time.   I would think though, we were probably doing our 4-times-a-year birthday dinners at this time, so I SHOULD know what he was up too...

Mom and the graduatee...  I'm pretty sure that's not a word, but perhaps it should be.

A fuzzy pic of Molly walking down the aisle.

Totally shifting gears, here is these three trouble makers!

Grandma with the Larger American Boy.

Grandma with the Smaller Chinese Boy.

Robby at the science center green wall doing the weather forecast. I'm sure he was as accurate as the "experts"...

The spaceman.

And so it goes...  went...

Caleb for Gub'na!

Calebber's field trip to the Capitol.  Photo credit goes to:whoever took the picture!  Thank you!!!

Out Of The Ordinary

This is a random collection of mostly nonsense pictures that don't fit with any specific theme to do a post for.  In the past, I would have just thrown these up as individual posts but I'm way, way way behind and I don't have time for that many.  So I'll do a goofy post and group them together and we'll move along as if nothing ever happened?  

Deal?

Deal!

Little Calebber watching the new version of The Jungle Book.  If I laid on the floor like that for more than 30 seconds, I would not be able to move for at least a week!

Nearly two weeks ago, I got a chance to play pool against this guy again!  We have had some epic battles in the past; kicked each others butts up one side and down the other, laughed ourselves silly, argued like 10 year olds, listened to HOURS of excellent tunes, drank too many "squeaky doors" and on the rare occasion, made "donkeys" out of ourselves.  I wouldn't change or trade a minute of those times and cherish each and every minute we get around the silly little table!

Gotta love the fuel saver card from Hy Vee grocery stores, so long as you're disciplined enough to still only buy the things you would have normally bought, had there not been a fuel saver.  Twenty five cents per gallon and not quite $5 to fill up my truck!

This was stinky...  I took a day off of work to deal with Molly paperwork, make phone calls and other stuff trying to get her "estate" closed and finalized.  The photo can't possibly capture the papers and folders that were behind me too.  We getting close to being done but there are several more headaches to be had yet...

Another oddity.  A photo of a beautiful sunrise that nearly captures the beauty of the real thing that morning!

And last, a new way to watch NFL football.  That's not me but I'm guessing it's much easier to understand the rules and excessive flags during the games from this vantage point!

The First Fall Swim Meet

This is a shot of the "close" end of the pool during warm-ups.  Note that there are roughly 3 additional swimming organizations who are not in here at the time, including the Rams Swim Club, in which, Robby is a card carrying member.  It's going to be a long day...

The lad, about a half hour after the shot above was taken, warming up.  Finally...  It's going to be a long day...

There he is!  Lane 6!  Getting up onto the, uh... jumping-off-of-apparatus.

Not bad!  I'm not sure where he came in when all "4 of 4" heats were graded, but in his group, he took second.  The scores of the top 4 never posted on the board, but they were a ways behind these others.

One might wonder where Rob spent most of the time in between heats.  The answer to that is over by his coaches, Todd and Hannah, where he talked their ears off and at one point, I saw coach Hannah give him the "zip your lip" motion.

Here we are again with Robby in second place again.  And again, I have no idea where he placed when both races of Heat 22 were completed.

Here's Robby at the starting gate for his first 200m Backstroke.  He's the one without a swim cap.  How did he do?

Looks pretty good doesn't it?!?  Well, the reality of the situation is that he lost track of counting his laps and swam a 150, instead of a 200.  Henceforth, he was disqualified and made fun of heartily.  He said, "I just have to own it...".  So later on that night, I had mowed the dangerous stuff with the tractor and was ready for him to take over.  He got on the machine and just prior to starting the motor, I hollered over, "make sure you finish all of the laps!".  I giggled. 

As the inimitable Bugs Bunny would say, "Ain't I a Stinker?".