A Much Needed Vacation, Part 1

I suppose after two weeks it's time to give an update on the happenings in our family. Within fifteen minutes of sending out our last newsletter we were on the road for our vacation!

We've had an excellent trip! Our Disney vacation in 2008 still stands out as our best vacation ever, but this was a close second and was definitely the most relaxing time we've ever had away. We got back home Sunday, and I'm not really sure I want to be back home. Before leaving Vicki and I were both under a lot of stress to get things done. Vicki had even begun to break out in hives and get physically sick -- all of which cleared up within hours of leaving Cross Plains. We spent four nights with the Jones family at their new house in Georgia and then headed down to Ormond Beach for four nights there.

We have a portable DVD player we typically take with us on trips, but it has quit working so the kids had to entertain themselves the way I used to do when I was there age. One game we played was to see how many different state license plates (including Canadian provinces) we'd see on the trip to Georgia. Everyone guessed a number before leaving. We were all low in our estimates as we saw license plates from 31 states -- the farthest being Alaska. (Oddly, no one from Canada was traveling around us -- wrong time of year I guess.)

Somehow we got on the topic of things I used to see on the road when we would drive to Arizona to visit Aunt Carrie and Uncle Ed or Florida to visit the Cotters. The long Army convoys have always stuck out in my mind. This somehow led to me mentioning the Cold War which made Nate ask, "What's a cold war? Is that where they play Rock, Paper, Scissors?" Now I have this visual of Kennedy and Khrushchev in Vienna banging their fists on their open palms stuck in my head.

Will and Darice had been renting a house for a little over a year since moving to Georgia. They bought the house they have now back in November and completed moving in by Christmas. With Pauline's passing away we are just now getting to see their new house. It is a beautiful home with a pool in the back and situated in a rural area. We really enjoyed their pool! Even without the pool I think this is my favorite of all the houses they've lived in.

One of the goals for this visit was to scan family pictures and documents we found in Pauline's house. We started with the love letters from when Pauline and Jessie dated. They dated, mostly by mail, for five months before getting married in November 1963. Jessie was working for GM near Chicago and Pauline lived in Camden. They met when Jessie came home to Camden to visit family. There were over 100 letters exchanged between them during this time and we have them scanned now. We're planning to put these into a book so all the grandchildren can have a copy when they are old enough. There's also a cassette tape from about 1972 of Pauline and Jessie telling about when they first met. We're thinking we will transcribe that for the introduction.

On Saturday (June 19) we went to the Mall of Georgia to see Toy Story 3 (in 2D). This is a cute film and a great sequel to the first two movies. Even with Andy going off to college I wonder if there will be a Toy Story 4. While at the mall we also saw an iPad. This is a really cool device and I can see why Apple has sold 3 million units in only 80 days. Impressed as I may be, I don't want one. Sunday we stayed at home with the exception of going to church (http://www.st-annas.com/).

We drove over to Lake Hartwell on the Georgia-South Carolina border on Monday. We rented a pontoon boat for an afternoon of fun. We also bought a Zip Ski (a large, one person inner tube) to tow behind the boat. We enjoyed riding in the boat, being pulled in the Zip Ski, swimming in the lake, and having a picnic lunch on the boat. The only bad thing about the whole day is that I can no longer say the General Jackson is the smallest boat I've ever driven.

Tuesday we got up early and drove to Ormond Beach for the second half of our vacation. We stayed off the interstate for the majority of this leg of the trip and drove on state highways through rural Georgia to Jacksonville. It was a pleasant drive, though I'm not sure I want to travel the route again. With that I'll stop and save the rest of the vacation for the next edition.

Joe