The Summer Routine

The school year is over. We're back from vacation. Now we're settling into the summer routine. So what is everyone doing?

For those of you who don't know or have forgotten, I am a 12 month employee at DA, so while I have more flexibility with my hours without classes and a lighter schedule, I'm still going in to work. Vicki, of course, is going in to work too. Vicki and I did celebrate our 27th anniversary with a lunch date at the new 6th & Main Restaurant in Springfield just a few doors down from her office and visited an art exhibit. We also enjoyed a nice Father's Day with one of my favorites, chicken lasagna. And for dessert Jenna made my favorite chocolate cake.

Jenna is continuing to work at Historic Perk both as a barista and coffee roaster. Even though she has graduated she is still studying to prepare to the NCLEX exam which she has signed up to take on July 15 in Evansville, Indiana. I know she would appreciate your prayers as she prepares for that exam. She will start her new job with NorthCrest the next day. She is also moving through her wedding planning checklist when she isn't working or studying.

Nolan has started his job as an HVAC tech with Wheeler Mechanical since his graduation. Right now he is riding along with another tech for on-the-job training but hopes to be in his own company vehicle making service calls in a few months. He has certainly begun collecting some interesting stories from his job, mostly about dogs.  We had hoped he would get to go with us for the Gatlinburg leg of our trip but being new to the job and having the trip to Colorado just before he didn't feel like he could miss work, so he wound up house sitting for us while we were away.

Ben went back to work briefly at Marysville Marine where he worked last summer to fill in a short gap of time before beginning a summer stint as a camp counselor at Lighthouse Christian Camp in Smithville (https://lighthousechristiancamp.com). He reported for orientation the week before our vacation and has returned while the camp runs through most of July. This camp serves underprivileged children from Nashville to Cookeville free of charge.

When Ben was here he and Mei Lin tried to squeeze in as much time together as they could. Now she has returned to Birmingham for a summer job while Ben is in Smithville. I think they have plans to be home on a few weekends. They did have one mishap here at the house one night when they were sitting on the porch swing and one of the screw eyes holding up the swing failed, pulling a couple of ceiling boards down with it. Fortunately they were not hurt but it was an impressive sounding crash.

Nate has also started his summer job; also at Marysville Marine. Ben trained him. Now all his fun trips are behind him and he'll be working 40 hours a week until it is time to head off to Tech.

The only other member of the family to discuss is Fluffy. She is a mostly outdoor cat (she will spend the night upstairs when it is really cold outside) and in the summertime she will disappear to who-knows-where for two or three days doing who-knows-what. She has been spayed so her disappearances are not romantic interludes. She gave us a scare because she was nowhere to be found after we had gotten home from our trip. Nolan had seen her every day that we were away except for the last two days and he had continued to replenish her food dish when he didn't see her. We were getting concerned when she had been absent for six days and were very glad when she showed up on the back porch the other day. I have often thought it would be interesting to put a GPS tracker on her to see where all she goes but I've never been interested enough to actually spend the money to buy one.

So, that's the news from our house. I feel like I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel when I'm writing about the extended absence of our cat, but that's about all I have to offer right now.

Joe

A Key Vacation

Here we are post graduations and the flurry of graduation parties to boot. We have a house full of graduates now. After a couple of weeks delay we’ve started our summer off with our last family vacation together, just the five of us, before Jenna gets married in September; one last hurrah before the family looks different.

There were several reasons why we didn’t take our vacation immediately after school was out. First, Nate had signed up to go on the youth camp trip with church, his last as a student, which was scheduled for the week of Memorial Day. Nate was one of 30 from our church to spend a week at a missions camp in Talladega, Alabama, and reports that they had a great time. Second, Jenna went with Nolan and the Magee family to Colorado for a wedding over the first few days of the month. In addition to the wedding in Denver Jenna got to go to Colorado Springs and saw where Nolan grew up before his family moved to Nashville. And third, we were coordinating with the Jones family to meet them for a few days while they vacationed in Gatlinburg.

So, with all the kids back in town from their activities—Ben had been in Smithville, Tennessee, while Jenna and Nate were out of town, but I’ll save that for next time—we loaded up the van and headed out for Gatlinburg a week ago last Sunday (the 6th) where we had reserved three nights at the same resort where the Jones family stays every year. We were pleasantly surprised upon checking in that our unit had been changed and that we were practically next door to the Joneses. Their entire family got to come so between the two families there were 11 of us enjoying time together. We had vacationed with their family for several years when the kids were young some 20 years ago so we revisited several of the traditional things we used to do together; breakfast at Log Cabin Pancakes, a picnic at the Chimneys (where we saw a bear this time!), strolling down the Parkway in Gatlinburg, etc.

Last Wednesday we said our goodbyes and headed back to Nashville where we boarded a plane bound for Miami then rented a van and drove to Key Largo (actually Tavernier) where we had reservations for two nights. We enjoyed looking around the Upper Keys and especially the snorkeling trip to Horseshoe Reef and Dry Rocks which is where one of the Christ of the Abyss statues is submerged. It was really interesting to look down on all the coral and tropical fish from above. Unfortunately the sea was a little choppy and this got the better of Vicki in spite of her taking something for seasickness ahead of time. She was one of about a dozen people who camped out near the stern of our pontoon boat wishing the trip were over faster. She was all smiles after clearing her stomach a second time.

Friday we drove on down to Key West. I knew this drive involved bridges, but it was nothing like the picture I had in my imagination. I had envisioned a series of very long bridges (on the order of 10-30 miles each) connecting a handful of small islands, so I was surprised when the majority of the trip from the mainland to Key West was on land, and while we did cross 42 bridges the Seven Mile Bridge just south of Marathon is the longest one. Most are much shorter. The drive is very pretty.

When we got to Key West that afternoon we took a guided kayaking trip through the red mangrove trees growing in the shallow water. We saw all sorts of cool critters including small sharks, a sting ray, a sea cucumber, jelly fish, and crabs. The trees were literally crawling with crabs. This, for me, was the best part of the trip.

We stayed in Key West for two nights and enjoyed several restaurants, sunsets and street performers on the Mallory Square waterfront, visiting the Hemingway House and Truman’s Little White House, pictures at the Southernmost Point Buoy, and of course, plenty of ice cream treats and key lime pie.

By Sunday our time was drawing to a close so we drove back up the Overseas Highway for one night in Miami before our flight home on Monday. Toward evening we enjoyed some time at the beach. The only hiccup in the whole trip was the small storm that was moving through Miami as we had boarded our plane. Lightning in the area delayed the loading of our luggage, and once that was onboard we had to wait our turn to take off. To add insult to injury the Wifi on the plane was down. Fortunately, all passengers were good sports in spite of the hour and a half delay as we crept to the end of the runway. Once in the air all was good.

This time last year Vicki and I took an anniversary trip to Memphis. Looking back, that excursion was such a fluke. People were hoping that things were loosening up after everything had shut down last spring that things were trying to sputter back to life. We were lucky to have hit a little season when some attractions were open and only a few were venturing out (we had Graceland practically to ourselves). Compare that with today and things are definitely returning to normal. Ignoring the two days of air travel where the federal mask mandate is still in place for airports and planes, I would guess that less than 3% of the people we saw were wearing masks, and most of them were employees of a business that still required their workers to be masked. Signs are disappearing and the social distancing stickers on floors and sidewalks are so worn they are practically unreadable.

So that was our vacation. It was a fun one. We had saved and planned to take a cruise to Alaska but that’ll have to wait for another year. Now we’re home and it’s back to work for all of us. At least I don’t have classes for six more weeks. Next time I’ll touch on the summer routine.

Joe