Football Season Returns for 2020

 I left a bit early to pick up Caleb from football practice today, partly because I wanted to go walk around the field while watching practice as I haven't seen much yet, and then because Caleb thinks I was late to pick him up from the last practice because, as I saw him walking from the field to the fence by the parking lot, he had to wait approximately 7 seconds as I looped the parking lot to get back to where he was NOW standing.  Ridiculous.

No matter tho...  as I was walking up to practice looking for the bright orange socks that he wears so I can easily find him, I spied an orange sock...  but only one.  And it seemed that a coach was on a knee looking at the knee of the lad, which as I got closer, I could tell had blood running down the shin.

Fun stuff to walk "in on".  But I could read the body language of the coach asking him if he was ok and seeing the positive head shake of Caleb that he would continue.

I did either 6 or 7 trek's around the field on the cement sidewalks they have while watching practice and occasionally stopping to observe and take pics.

The last thing they did at practice was work on special teams, especially kick-offs, since that's new for 7th grade.  I can see Caleb's one orange sock in the pick as he's on D, the ball in the air at almost the exact middle of the press box roof.

Here he is lined up (#27) on offense as the receiver of a screen pass.  They screwed this play up in EPIC fashion the first time they ran it.  Everyone got chewed out a bit and they lined it up again.  I think this is one that we can work on out in the yard with me and Rob helping.

You can't see his # but he's just to the right of dead center in the pic on D.

The lad as we're about to board the spaceship for the ride home.  His arm is bandaged from the previous practice and his leg is garffed up from this practice, hence what I noticed when I was first walking up.

Welcome to football.

Canning Round 2, Missed some!

 

Had another round after a grocery visit!  My eye's are still burning!

2020 Canning, Round 2

This was the result of the first round of canning roughly 5 quarts of pickles and  11 more of just tomatoes, some salsa and some spaghetti sauce.

Today's pick'in!  More spicy mix for these so hopefully they don't suck!  I did them too, instead of my bride this time!  So more opportunity to screw up...

 

Got this may left when I ran out of juice...  Probably about 3 - 4 more quarts.

Vaca 2020 - Day 1, Vicksburg, MS. Civil War Battlefield

The Schmitz Mobile Chaos Unit likes to work in some educational "stuffs" into our vacations. We visited Gettysburg back in 2014 and truly enjoyed our time there! 

You can see those posts here:

http://schmitzchaos.blogspot.com/2013/10/vacation-2013-post-2-gettysburg-pa-pt-1.html

http://schmitzchaos.blogspot.com/2013/11/vacation-2013-post-3-gettysburg-pa-pt-2.html

Vicksburg, as you might guess, looked much the same!  

You can read a bit of history of this lovely little'ish town here:

https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/vicksburg-campaign

Let's get to some pictures!

I am not sure what it is, but I love rows of cannons!  I am a pyromaniac and I really like explosions and things being blown up, so that may have something to do with it.  Also, it's cool and scary to think about what was going thru those men's mind when they're standing behind these things in the heat of battle!

One of several Iowa memorials.

You'll see this in the next several photos.  Piles and piles of men from Illinois fought in this battle and this is a memorial to them.

Caleb and mama's back-sides as they enter.  The size of this thing was deceptive from down on the road but it was quite the beautiful structure!

Rob, who complains EVERY TIME the car stops to get out and look at something, ascending the great staircase.  I now realize that pictures are out of order betwixt Lesley's phone and my own, since Caleb is clearly down on the road with me behind the van.

Big daddy and Caleb walking up when I probably stopped to take the photo of Caleb and mama entering and Caleb ran up ahead as he's not one to wait around for things.

Looking out from the doorway was a breathtaking view, which of course, was not done justice by the camera.  Crazy beautiful landscape that all of the battle and future racial killings took place in.

The inner domed roof.

On the inside...

The ambience of this place made me wish I had a guitar with me!  It was soooooo cool sounding in here with a natural reverb that would last probably 4 full seconds.

That's me fat arse up there with the boys.   This thing was enormous and Rob growled about getting out of the car and walking up the small hill.  I was thinking about what kinds of snakes they had in Mississippi and which ones were in the 6+ inch grass and thick clippings that would cause me to have a heart attack.  Robby lived.  I lived.  Caleb didn't care...

Another Iowa memorial with two fantastic Iowans being represented.

I remember this but honestly have zero recollection of what it was memorializing...

A little shout out to Arkansas, which was a VERY beautiful state that we finally saw more of on this vaca.  When I worked for The Musicland Group back in the 1990's, they wanted to make me the manager of a store in Little Rock, AR.  Turns out that the manager of the store at the time, a cute young blond, did...  ohhhhh, nevermind.  My life worked out as it should have. I have no idea about hers.

Another BIGGUN that I can not offer any info on...

 

Pretty cool little visit and a shame that the museum was closed due to the Covid...  No matter, we still enjoyed ourselves and saw some pretty cool history!

Vaca 2020 - Day 1 (Really day 2 as we drove from home to Fayetteville, AR)

This vacation was a biggie and we knew it!  2020 was supposed the Schmitz Mobile Chaos Units trip to Alaska but the 'Rona pooped all over that in grand fashion.  We held tight until the beginning of June awaiting the Governor of Alaska to address the rest of the world who may have wanted to go to their most excellent state and figure out how big of pile of poop we would have to scale to enter confines.  The news on June 2nd was NOT in our favor so, against much wailing and gnashing of teeth,  we officially pulled the plug on that vacation for this year and sacrificed a bit of shickles that had been paid on deposits.

We had been generating a back-up plan, and by "we", I mean my bride.  Lesley had been carefully planning another trek that would get Caleb 6 more states and would also get us and Robby caught up at 49 states at the conclusion of vaca.  Caleb is now at 44 (I think!!) with Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona and Alaska...  uh, maybe Texas???

This would also be one of MANY proper places to pay dividends to my wife's planning as she is up against 3 males who don't plan much of anything and complain about nearly everything!  She laid this thing out in amazing fashion and without much time.  Robby was the #1 complainer as he didn't want to come with us at all, but Caleb and myself complained our fair share like little pieces of poo who didn't have proper respect for all that we have and were experiencing.  Lesley put up with that in professionall fashion even tho she shouldn't have had too...  :-(

Never-the-less, not too long after we committed to the Southeast trek as opposed to Alaska,  the Covid numbers in Alaska smoothed out nicely while the numbers in New Orleans, and Florida, with Orlando being a bit behind Miami and other large beach based cities, but Orlando was squarely a focus as Mama and Robby were going to the Harry Potter village/world/harem or whatever they call that...  Caleb and I had no concerns for such silliness so we planned to go do other stuff's that you'll see in future posts.

Covid be d@mned, we started everyone on a daily cocktail of vitamin C & D about 2 weeks before we lifted off and we were off.

We took 'Rona wipes (clorox wipes) with us and wiped down every aspect of every room just as we entered it as our first line of defense.  We will cover our level of satisfaction with the different areas that we visited thru the upcoming posts.

I would say that all went well and we were all impressed with hotels, restaurants, various facilities and so on until we were nearly finished and arrived in Gatlinburg, TN.  The restaurant was fine, and my favorite music store, The Rythym Section, was cool tool, but the rest of the town was out for tourist money and did not give one hydro-electric dam for your health. We spent part of one day in the main area of town and decided to get out and stay out.  All of this you will see in future post should you find my ramblings interesting enough to join us on our 2020 journey.

Google Maps wouldn't allow me to add all of our stops in one map, so, I broke it into two with a bit over overlap.

...and hence, the back 40 of vaca.

 

The first real morning of vaca, where the excited kid woke up, got ready and is raring to go looking like a rock star...

The other lad who pleaded to be left at home and NOT participate in any type of vaca.  He was still lamenting the fact that he had to participate at this point.

We stopped because... uh...  one of us had to "produce", so to speak.  This was a smallish grocery store in Tallualah, Louisiana.  I do not mean this as offensive in any way, shape, or form, but my family, including the Asian Caleb, have never been MORE WHITE IN OUR LIVES!!!  Our family's take away from this quick visit was that if black peeps (or ANY other ethnicity!) in Aloona/Pleasant Hill Iowa (Oor ANYWHERE!!!!) feel like we did in this grocery store, then we have a lot of work to do!  Nearly everybody in there was cordial to us and there were no issues, however, it was BEYOND obvious that there was white folks (with an Asian kid) in "their" store.  There should not be alerts that "go up" about different folks in the local stores... At all, anywhere.   Pretty eye opening.

Not gonna lie, I have no friggin' clue where this pic was taken.   I am the primary driver, which is probably best for everybody but likely open to debate!

I'm pretty sure that Lesley took this as we were passing over the Mississippi river from Arkansas into Mississippi.

Crossing the Mississippi into uh,  Mississippi, ready to visit Vicksburg.

2020 Round 1 of Canning

 

Hatching Avocados

Our sprouting avocado seed!!

 

The First Harvest of Summer 2020

We've got some work to do!!!

Hounds b'Home

These two yahoo's spent 20 days at Doggy Daycare and are happy to be home!  They wanted into the house quite badly when they got home.