Halloween was fun this year. Ava chose to be a princess, and wore the beautiful gown she had worn for Cinderella's breakfast at Magic Kingdom last winter. Her pre-school class had a little Halloween party, and for a week or two Ava was on the fence about going. But at the 11th hour, she decided to go so Gaffer and I enjoyed watching her parade through all the kindergarten classes with her fellow pre-schoolers - very cute! Then the kids shared a Halloween feast back in their own room, and Ava ate her weight in orange jello squares! Who knew she liked them?? It was VERY cold the actual night of Halloween, but clear and beautiful. We drove her to Gorham so she could trick or treat at Gram and Gramp's first. They were delighted to see her! Then we found a parking spot across from Baxter Library in the village, and headed out from there. Ava was wearing little princess sandels, so I packed her crocs in a bag, convinced that it wouldn't be long before she'd swap shoes. But that kid tromped for miles in her fancy shoes and never asked to change! She was in her glory - at every house she was told how beautiful she was, and she would graciously smile and say "thank you!" Gaffer and I found a treat at one house, where an old lady was out on her porch with crock pots full of hot cider that she was handing out in little styrofoam cups. We covered a lot of ground and her little plastic pumpkin was full when we decided to call it a night and head home. She's not much of a candy eater, so at this date (Dec 2), the pumpkin is on top of the fridge - still full!
In November, Gaffer's seaduck hunting season really took off, and he was hired to work in Stonington helping another guide there. I was asked to cook for the crew for a few days, so Ava and I drove up. It was a beautiful drive, and we had fun singing "Shady Grove" along the way and looking at the sights. She was fighting a cold, so we stopped at a pharmacy along the way for some tylenol to bring with us, but she was cheerful and looking forward to the adventure in spite of being under the weather. We arrived on Saturday afternoon, and Gaffer was happy to see us! The rented house was at the end of a long dirt driveway in Deer Isle, right on the water. We spent the day on Sunday helping get ready for the hunters from PA to arrive - making beds, getting groceries, cooking... The other guide, Mark, and his girlfriend April were there, along with April's 9 year old daughter, Iva. Ava and Iva hit it right off, and Ava fell in love with Iva's black lab, Flash. Mark, April, and Iva left that afternoon, and then it was up to Gaffer, Ava and me to take care of the seven hunters. Ava was her usual friendly, talkative self, and they all enjoyed her very much! She ran out of energy quickly, though, with her cold, so spent quite a bit of time in our bedroom, watching movies on her portable DVD player. She'd take a break, gather up some steam, then come out and be the life of the party! It worked out well, in a way, that she was so happy to be in bed resting, because I was up to my elbows in cooking and cleaning for the next three days. By Weds, she was feeling lively enough to give me a lot of help as we cleaned up the place before we left - she vacuumed, washed floors, made beds, cleaned shower stalls - what a great helper!! One of the hunters had "tipped" her a dollar two nights in a row for bringing him his newspaper, and then April tipped her six dollars for all the work she did around the house - Ava's first income!! She's saving it for our trip to Disney in February.
Thanksgiving Day was another highlight this fall. Ava went with Gaffer to pick up Joe in Brunswick, Uncle Steve and Jennifer came over, and Bobby and Katie brought Kerry with them - and then, surprise, Nannie also showed up! Beepa was working a shut-down at McCain Foods up in the County, so Nannie decided to come to Durham rather than stay home alone! We had such a fun day! Ava had helped me cook the day before (we played music and danced all day while we worked!), so we only had to warm things up and wait for the turkey to be done for our 2:00 feast. She was in her glory with all her aunts and uncles (and Nannie) to dote on her. She wore her red Christmas dress from last year, and was simply gorgeous - with her happy face and beautiful smile, she made my heart go pitter-patter everytime I looked at her.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Iowa Road Trip
She really didn't want to go on this road trip to Des Moines - has never liked to spend a lot of time in the car - but didn't want to be left behind, either. In the days leading up to the trip she whined and complained about riding for such a long distance, to the point where I finally said, "Look, Ava. We're going. We're planning to have a lot of fun. If you can't find a good attitude about this, then please stay with Gram and Gramp - they would love to have you. Otherwise, don't 'yuk our yum', and let's enjoy this adventure."
And she's that kind of kid - once it's in front of her, in black and white, she makes a mental adjustment, and happily goes with the flow. I think it's a good trait to have - she has the strength and will to fight against a situation she disagrees with, but then when she realizes that she's beating her head against a wall, she accepts it and makes the best of it. Good stuff!
So, on Weds 9/22/10, we left home about 9am, smiling and excited on a beautiful sunny day, Ava sitting between us in her booster seat in the F250.
We brought a lot of books, activity workbooks, toy animals, and movies for her portable DVD player to help pass the time on the long drive. We dropped Bear off at Nanny's house, and then were on our way.
We had planned a route that dipped down into central Pennsylvania and then west from there, rather than take the dreaded NY Thruway and I-80 across northern Ohio, and it turned out to be a good decision. We had light traffic and lovely early fall scenery in western Connecticut and through the Catskills area of New York. Entering Pennsylvania, we drove through the beautiful hills in the Poconos along a winding well-maintained road.
By this time, it was getting to be mid-afternoon and Miss Ava was starting to get a little sleepy. I saw her starting to snuggle in, and asked if she'd like to have Teddy to use as a pillow, and take a little nap. She nodded, and I reached around the cab of the truck for Teddy. Nothing. So I unbuckled my seatbelt and groped around in the back seat for Teddy. Nothing. I looked at Patrick over Ava's head, and he looked back at me, and we both remembered that she had taken him with her into the Charlton Plaza rest area on I-90 back in Massachusetts. Our eyes said the same thing to each other: "Oh no!"
He dug into his pocket for the lunch receipt from the plaza, and it had a phone number. I called and got someone who could barely speak English, and tried to ask quietly if anyone had found a teddy bear in the ladies room (I remembered exactly where we had left him - sitting on the toilet paper dispenser in the last stall on the right.) She put me on hold for a little while, then came back and said No. I left my phone number with her, but my heart sank. By this time, Ava was looking at me with big questioning eyes. "Where's Teddy?"
I had to tell her that we left him in Massachusetts. The wail she let out was like nothing I had ever heard from her before. My eyes filled with tears and I was sick to my stomach. Visions of Teddy filled my mind - Teddy camping, Teddy with Cinderella, Teddy on the boat, Teddy in the garden. It seemed as though every mental picture I had of Ava also included Teddy. As an "only child", she had relied on Teddy for companionship and he had been her trusted sidekick since before she could walk.
We assured her that the people at the plaza would keep an eye out for him, and that we'd swing back by on our way home to see if he had turned up. This calmed her down, and then her main concern was who she was going to hug and sleep with during the rest of the trip, so we made a plan to run out to the closest department store to look for a new teddy as soon as we got to the hotel.
We arrived at the Hampton Inn Carlisle PA about 6pm and, true to our word, as soon as we had checked in and got our stuff into the room, we headed back down the highway to Target. They had a disappointing selection of stuffed animals - only a handful of them - but she managed to find the only teddy bear on the shelf, and instantly told me that she loved it. So now Fuzzy Bear was riding shotgun to Iowa with us. At times during the rest of the trip (and to this day), Ava would talk about Teddy and sometimes cry for him, but she did a great job of moving on with life.
As we were leaving Target, the glorious full moon was being overtaken by great black clouds, and as we drove to the hotel thunder began rumbling, then we could see lightning flashes, and then just as we pulled into the hotel parking lot, the rain came pouring down. We made a mad dash for the door, and were soon back in our room, glad to be off the road for the night. Patrick and Ava headed right out to the pool, while I did Southworth work and ordered a pizza delivered.
We woke early to get a good start on the drive, planning to stop in Indianapolis that night. Patrick, as usual, was dressed and ready to go before I was, so he helped Ava get her things packed up while I showered. At about 6:30, as I was walking around the room in a towel, the hotel fire alarms started to go off - not in our room, but out in the hallway. Patrick opened the door to see what was going on, and we saw that in addition to the noisy "bwaat bwaat bwaat" of the alarms, white lights in the ceiling were also flashing. I didn't think too much of it, assuming it was just a false alarm, but he wanted us to get out of the room. Just then I picked up a faint scent of hot electrical, and jumped into my clothes. We gathered up Ava, but left everything else behind, even Fuzzy.
As we walked into the lobby area, several other sleepy, confused-looking patrons were wandering around as well, everyone kind of glancing toward the front desk for some indication as to what was going on. But the guy alone at the front desk was on the phone, not making eye contact with any of the customers, so we and most of the others went outside. The alarms were still going as we stood on the sidewalk next to the hotel, and I had fun watching the people slowly trickle out of the building - a little boy, obviously plucked from his bed, draped over his dad's shoulder; a young guy without a shirt, in his running pants; several businessmen in their khakis, ready for sales calls but having had to leave their rooms before they could pack. The smell of electrical was really noticeable by this point, so I was glad we had left our room at the first alarms.
We heard the sirens of the local fire department coming nearer to the hotel, and a larger crowd gathered around the building as more and more people decided to take the fire alarms seriously. Patrick and I got a kick out of watching the fire trucks show up - three of them, including a ladder truck that sent a fireman to the roof - because it seemed as though the fire department had been waiting for a chance to try out all this new shiny stuff they had hanging around the station! As firemen were entering the building, I was absolutely amazed to see people coming out past them, fully dressed, hair-styled, and with all their suitcases and laptop bags in tow - seemingly blase about the emergency. I had to laugh to myself - as much as we hear on the news about how Americans are afraid of another terrorist attack - you wouldn't know it in Carlisle, PA.
By this time, Ava had noticed (and cried about) that we had left Fuzzy in the room. We explained to her that in an emergency, you don't stop for things. Nothing, not even Blue Cat. That people have died in fires because they looked for things instead of just getting out of the building. She listened seriously to this, and didn't mention Fuzzy again. I hope it's a lesson she remembers the rest of her life.
Eventually, a girl who was part of the morning kitchen staff started making the rounds, telling us that it was a short in their electrical room and that everything was fine, and letting us know that we could go back in the building. I went back to the room, while Patrick and Ava watched the firefighters putting away their shiny stuff. Over breakfast a little while later, Ava told me that all the firemen had talked to her, and they even turned on one of the "spinny" lights on the front of the engine so she could see it!
Ava and I were sitting at the table together, while Gaffer was loading our gear in the truck, after breakfast. Ava was holding Fuzzy. An older lady walked by, a grandmotherly-type with grey hair but with a firm look that made me think that maybe she was a former teacher (you can tell them a mile away! I love them!), and she stopped to tell Ava what a nice teddy bear she had. The poor thing didn't know it, but this was a very tender subject. Ava's eyes filled with tears and she said, "Well, this is my NEW teddy bear that I got last night because my real teddy bear is at a rest area..." The lady looked over at me, and I nodded and told her what had happened. Well, that lovely woman turned to Ava and looked directly into her eyes, and in a matter-of-fact but gentle voice said, "You may not see that teddy bear again. But, you know what, there may have been a sad girl at that rest area who didn't have a teddy bear. And she saw yours and it made her feel better, and now she's taking care of him."
Ava looked at her seriously, and nodded her head. You could see the wheels turning at this idea of Teddy's fate. Then she said, "Well, I love my new teddy bear also..." I thanked the old lady for being so nice and taking the time to talk with Ava. It seems that every day, you can find examples of good, decent humanity in places where you would never expect to find it! I'll remember that lady forever, even if Ava doesn't.
Once on the road, we had miles and miles through the Allegheny Mountains - literally, through! Many tunnels were bored through the mountains, and it was exciting for Ava each time we drove through one.
I had made an appointment in the Columbus area with a customer who had stopped into the Southworth booth at the Atlanta woodworking show, and we arrived there at about 3pm. Gaffer and Ava took a walk and stretched their legs while I went in and looked at the application, and then we hit the road again, arriving in Indianapolis at around 5:30. This hotel was the only disappointing Hampton Inn we stayed at. Not really clean, whirlpool broken down, leaves and dirt in the (indoor) pool, and only decaf coffee available! (This was ridiculous! No real coffee????)
But we hadn't stopped in Indianapolis for the accommodations - we had stopped for Fogo de Chao. Ever since the first time I had gone to Fogo in Chicago, I've been a huge fan. When Patrick and I went to Washington DC, we had a great time at the Fogo there and he was hooked. I went to the one in Baltimore while I was working there earlier this summer, and he was thrilled for me - that's how much he loves it, he's happy even knowing I'm going without him! We went to the one in Philadelphia this August during our anniversary/Southworth road trip and it was fantastic, and now we wanted to check out the one in Indianapolis.
After the mandatory swimming time with Gaffer, Ava put on a beautiful outfit and we headed downtown to Fogo. We found a parking spot on the street adjacent to the court, the jail, and about 75 bail bonds agencies. We held Ava's hand tight during the walk to the restaurant, but all was well, and we relaxed especially once we were inside. As we expected, it was a dining experience like no other - unique to its own location, but otherwise distinctly Fogo. Ava enjoyed interacting with the gauchos who brought the meats around, and she was quite the big girl pulling her own cuts from the skewer with her little tongs. The Spanish-speaking gauchos all listened to her intently as she told them what she wanted, and the kid ate her weight in filet mignon, sirloin, lamb, chicken, and sausage, not to mention the vegetables from the magnificent salad bar, and mashed potatoes. Topped off with a bowl of chocolate ice cream. It made us proud - Gaffer was beaming: "That's my girl!"
On the way out of the city, we were captivated by the beauty of the full moon over the skyscrapers.
The next morning, Friday, was to be our last day of travel. We planned to be in Des Moines by about 2. We passed the Colts stadium on our way out of Indianapolis,
and then had a few hours of driving in typical Midwest scenery - farms and more farms. Ava and I passed the time playing with her animals, reading, and doing her workbooks. We had brought the perfect variety of things to do, so that Ava never got bored and neither did I. We were always in agreement that it was a good time to stop playing animals and do something else. Or just look out the window for a while, or take pictures, or talk to each other. Patrick and I were amazed at what a good little road-tripper she was.
We crossed the Mississippi into Burlington, Iowa, at about 11 in the morning,
were checking into the Stoney Creek Inn in Des Moines at 2:15, and Ava and Gaffer were in the pool by 3:30! And what a pool! I always stayed at the Stoney when I had the Midwest territory for Southworth and was working in the Des Moines area, and it's a wonderful hotel. Designed to be rustic, like a lodge, there's a comfort and homelike feeling to the place that is so enjoyable.
Pete has two girls, a little older than Ava, and a friend of his was there with two more little girls, and Tammy brought Ava inside the RV to meet them. Tammy works in the office of their town's elementary school, and is the recess lady for the first graders - has been for years - and she really has a way with kids. Ava took to her instantly when they first met and, during the two and a half days we were there, she was Ava's second "mom", loving and attentive.
So anyway, Ava went with Tammy into the RV, while Patrick and I stayed outside and mingled and talked. But after a short time, Ava appeared at my side, whispering that those girls in there were too "rough". She really wanted to play with them, but was scared of them. I took her back in, and could see her point. Four little girls, ages about 3 to 7, were in the bedroom of the RV, literally bouncing off the walls! They were jumping on the bed, shrieking and laughing and pushing each other off and crawling back on... It was quite a scene, especially because they were all black and yellow with black and yellow ribbons in their hair - looked like a nest of buzzing bees! They stopped jumping for a moment when Ava and I came in, and I said, "Hey guys - she's kind of shy - can you settle down for a minute till she gets to know you?" And Pete had followed me in, so he also told them to quit jumping on the bed. But as soon as we left, they (of course!) started right in again, so Ava ended up tailgating outside with the grown-ups.
Then it was time for the game, so we all started moving up toward the stadium. Barron Equipment has four seats in the skybox, as well as seats throughout the stands so, once inside, everyone split up. Pete and his family had the skybox, but Steve told us that we'd swap with them at halftime - cool!! Our seats were at the "HAWKEYES" end of the field (as opposed to the "IOWA" end), and we had a great view of the action. The rain had held off all day, in spite of the heavy cloud cover, but once we sat down Steve looked to the west and said, "Uh-oh..." Great black clouds were coming our way.
The game was a blast, in spite of being one-sided (Iowa 47, Ball State 0). We were in the "A" section when the cheer when around the stadium - starting on one side "I", then over to "O", then "W", then "A" - little Ava was screaming out her favorite letter at the top of her lungs! What fun!
As halftime approached she got tired, so we spread out some raingear on two seats and covered her up with more of it because by then the rain was coming down steadily. She quickly konked right out.
At halftime, it was a monsoon - we were getting soaked! So we gathered Ava up, trying to keep her asleep, and tried to find our way to meet with Pete and switch to the skybox. We were in a crushing crowd of Hawkeye fans - I kept hoping that nobody would yell "fire" or anything that could cause a stampede. I could completely understand how mass tramplings happen. Ava was awoken by all the jostling and looking over Gaffer's shoulder at the sea of people she began to cry.
What I said earlier, about good and decent people being in our midst every day, and appearing where you least expect them? Well, as luck would have it, squeezed in beside me and behind Gaffer, were two pretty 20-ish girls. And guess what they were going to school for? To be teachers, and both of them currently worked in child care. So they talked with Miss Ava, and told her how pretty she was, and cheered her up. Because of the Bobby-Joe-Kerry-Emily connection, Ava is at her best and brightest when in the company of this age group.
So we managed to get through the horrific crowd, but by then we were just like, "Let's go back to the RV where it's warm and comfortable, and where the food and drinks were." Pete had really wanted to keep his family in the skybox, and who could blame him? Back at the RV, we had a great time as one by one our friends started wandering back from the game and the tailgating started back up again.
We headed back to our car late in the day, and as we walked Steve and Brandon both yelled "McNutt!" Sure enough, coming out of the back of the building was Iowa's star wide receiver, Marvin McNutt. He stopped and signed their hats, and then Matt picked up Ava so Marvin could sign her sweatshirt. By then the sharpie wasn't working very well, though, and all you can see on her shirt now is a couple of black lines. But we got his picture with her, and McNutt has three new fans from Maine.
Ava took a little snoozy-snooze on the two-hour ride back to Des Moines, and they dropped us off at the hotel around 7. We ordered pizza and got down to the pool, while they went home to get their swimming things and came back. We had a fun evening of swimming, whirlpooling, and eating and drinking poolside - Matt and Brandon were there, so once again Ava was the happiest of 4-year-olds!
The next morning, we went over to the Joslin house and were served a big pancake/french toast breakfast with bacon and sausage and homefries. Steve and Tammy's daughter, Allie, home for just the day (with her boyfriend Taylor) from college at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Rapids, was cooking when we got there, and she and Ava hit it off right away. There were also two cats - an old, skinny, rickety one named Emily, and a big fat one named Snickers. Ava was in heaven! She's definitely a "cat person" and, luckily, the cats were friendly and seemed to enjoy all her attention. After breakfast, Allie took Ava upstairs with her to get ready for the day, and Ava came back downstairs with a new stuffed animal - a dog she named "Allie". So far, one stuffed animal lost, three gained...
Matt had a baseball game, a "fall-ball" league, so we watched that for an hour or two, enjoying the beautiful blue sky and brisk fall air, and met Steve's parents there, and a little while later Allie and Taylor arrived with Tammy's mom. Such a nice family, and close. Allie was sitting with us, texting to Matt in the dugout "I'm going to ask dad if you hit a homerun, will he buy us BlackBerries" - she was laughing, especially when Matt texted back that he just got in trouble by coach for texting in the dugout! Apparently, they both have been after Steve for some time for upgrades to their cell phones, and Allie had teasingly come up with another "plan"!
Then it was time for the actual highlight of the trip, at least for Patrick and Ava - Steve owns 70 acres of woods and meadows about an hour's ride from Des Moines, and he often finds arrowheads and fossils along the small river running through the property. Ava was dying to find an arrowhead!
The dirt road into the property was a quagmire due the heavy rain the day before, so Steve put his truck into 4-wheel-drive, and Ava loved the adventure of "muddin'"! After checking out the cabin he's building, everyone hopped onto Tammy's 4-wheeler to head down to the creek. We spent a few hours walking along the rocky creek bed, finding all kinds of beautiful and unusual rocks.
Tammy also gave Ava and me a ride on the quad around some of the property - it was so beautiful! I told Tammy that it reminded me of "Little House on the Prairie" scenery. People who haven't been there have no idea how truly beautiful Iowa is - rolling hills, tall grasses, groves of trees. We flushed a covey of quail, watched a soaring hawk, and breathed in the sweet air. When we got on a straight-away, Ava told Tammy to "go faster - I like to feel the wind in my hair!"
Ava assumed that every triangle-shaped rock she found was an arrowhead, and we didn't do a lot to discourage her from thinking that - she was having a great time! She had looked at Steve's arrowheads, and we showed her the marks where the Indians had chipped away to make a sharp edge, so later that afternoon while we were just hanging out at the property, she was picking up random rocks, sitting down, and chipping away at them to make her own arrowheads!
And she's that kind of kid - once it's in front of her, in black and white, she makes a mental adjustment, and happily goes with the flow. I think it's a good trait to have - she has the strength and will to fight against a situation she disagrees with, but then when she realizes that she's beating her head against a wall, she accepts it and makes the best of it. Good stuff!
So, on Weds 9/22/10, we left home about 9am, smiling and excited on a beautiful sunny day, Ava sitting between us in her booster seat in the F250.
We brought a lot of books, activity workbooks, toy animals, and movies for her portable DVD player to help pass the time on the long drive. We dropped Bear off at Nanny's house, and then were on our way.
We had planned a route that dipped down into central Pennsylvania and then west from there, rather than take the dreaded NY Thruway and I-80 across northern Ohio, and it turned out to be a good decision. We had light traffic and lovely early fall scenery in western Connecticut and through the Catskills area of New York. Entering Pennsylvania, we drove through the beautiful hills in the Poconos along a winding well-maintained road.
By this time, it was getting to be mid-afternoon and Miss Ava was starting to get a little sleepy. I saw her starting to snuggle in, and asked if she'd like to have Teddy to use as a pillow, and take a little nap. She nodded, and I reached around the cab of the truck for Teddy. Nothing. So I unbuckled my seatbelt and groped around in the back seat for Teddy. Nothing. I looked at Patrick over Ava's head, and he looked back at me, and we both remembered that she had taken him with her into the Charlton Plaza rest area on I-90 back in Massachusetts. Our eyes said the same thing to each other: "Oh no!"
He dug into his pocket for the lunch receipt from the plaza, and it had a phone number. I called and got someone who could barely speak English, and tried to ask quietly if anyone had found a teddy bear in the ladies room (I remembered exactly where we had left him - sitting on the toilet paper dispenser in the last stall on the right.) She put me on hold for a little while, then came back and said No. I left my phone number with her, but my heart sank. By this time, Ava was looking at me with big questioning eyes. "Where's Teddy?"
I had to tell her that we left him in Massachusetts. The wail she let out was like nothing I had ever heard from her before. My eyes filled with tears and I was sick to my stomach. Visions of Teddy filled my mind - Teddy camping, Teddy with Cinderella, Teddy on the boat, Teddy in the garden. It seemed as though every mental picture I had of Ava also included Teddy. As an "only child", she had relied on Teddy for companionship and he had been her trusted sidekick since before she could walk.
We assured her that the people at the plaza would keep an eye out for him, and that we'd swing back by on our way home to see if he had turned up. This calmed her down, and then her main concern was who she was going to hug and sleep with during the rest of the trip, so we made a plan to run out to the closest department store to look for a new teddy as soon as we got to the hotel.
We arrived at the Hampton Inn Carlisle PA about 6pm and, true to our word, as soon as we had checked in and got our stuff into the room, we headed back down the highway to Target. They had a disappointing selection of stuffed animals - only a handful of them - but she managed to find the only teddy bear on the shelf, and instantly told me that she loved it. So now Fuzzy Bear was riding shotgun to Iowa with us. At times during the rest of the trip (and to this day), Ava would talk about Teddy and sometimes cry for him, but she did a great job of moving on with life.
As we were leaving Target, the glorious full moon was being overtaken by great black clouds, and as we drove to the hotel thunder began rumbling, then we could see lightning flashes, and then just as we pulled into the hotel parking lot, the rain came pouring down. We made a mad dash for the door, and were soon back in our room, glad to be off the road for the night. Patrick and Ava headed right out to the pool, while I did Southworth work and ordered a pizza delivered.
We woke early to get a good start on the drive, planning to stop in Indianapolis that night. Patrick, as usual, was dressed and ready to go before I was, so he helped Ava get her things packed up while I showered. At about 6:30, as I was walking around the room in a towel, the hotel fire alarms started to go off - not in our room, but out in the hallway. Patrick opened the door to see what was going on, and we saw that in addition to the noisy "bwaat bwaat bwaat" of the alarms, white lights in the ceiling were also flashing. I didn't think too much of it, assuming it was just a false alarm, but he wanted us to get out of the room. Just then I picked up a faint scent of hot electrical, and jumped into my clothes. We gathered up Ava, but left everything else behind, even Fuzzy.
As we walked into the lobby area, several other sleepy, confused-looking patrons were wandering around as well, everyone kind of glancing toward the front desk for some indication as to what was going on. But the guy alone at the front desk was on the phone, not making eye contact with any of the customers, so we and most of the others went outside. The alarms were still going as we stood on the sidewalk next to the hotel, and I had fun watching the people slowly trickle out of the building - a little boy, obviously plucked from his bed, draped over his dad's shoulder; a young guy without a shirt, in his running pants; several businessmen in their khakis, ready for sales calls but having had to leave their rooms before they could pack. The smell of electrical was really noticeable by this point, so I was glad we had left our room at the first alarms.
We heard the sirens of the local fire department coming nearer to the hotel, and a larger crowd gathered around the building as more and more people decided to take the fire alarms seriously. Patrick and I got a kick out of watching the fire trucks show up - three of them, including a ladder truck that sent a fireman to the roof - because it seemed as though the fire department had been waiting for a chance to try out all this new shiny stuff they had hanging around the station! As firemen were entering the building, I was absolutely amazed to see people coming out past them, fully dressed, hair-styled, and with all their suitcases and laptop bags in tow - seemingly blase about the emergency. I had to laugh to myself - as much as we hear on the news about how Americans are afraid of another terrorist attack - you wouldn't know it in Carlisle, PA.
By this time, Ava had noticed (and cried about) that we had left Fuzzy in the room. We explained to her that in an emergency, you don't stop for things. Nothing, not even Blue Cat. That people have died in fires because they looked for things instead of just getting out of the building. She listened seriously to this, and didn't mention Fuzzy again. I hope it's a lesson she remembers the rest of her life.
Eventually, a girl who was part of the morning kitchen staff started making the rounds, telling us that it was a short in their electrical room and that everything was fine, and letting us know that we could go back in the building. I went back to the room, while Patrick and Ava watched the firefighters putting away their shiny stuff. Over breakfast a little while later, Ava told me that all the firemen had talked to her, and they even turned on one of the "spinny" lights on the front of the engine so she could see it!
Ava and I were sitting at the table together, while Gaffer was loading our gear in the truck, after breakfast. Ava was holding Fuzzy. An older lady walked by, a grandmotherly-type with grey hair but with a firm look that made me think that maybe she was a former teacher (you can tell them a mile away! I love them!), and she stopped to tell Ava what a nice teddy bear she had. The poor thing didn't know it, but this was a very tender subject. Ava's eyes filled with tears and she said, "Well, this is my NEW teddy bear that I got last night because my real teddy bear is at a rest area..." The lady looked over at me, and I nodded and told her what had happened. Well, that lovely woman turned to Ava and looked directly into her eyes, and in a matter-of-fact but gentle voice said, "You may not see that teddy bear again. But, you know what, there may have been a sad girl at that rest area who didn't have a teddy bear. And she saw yours and it made her feel better, and now she's taking care of him."
Ava looked at her seriously, and nodded her head. You could see the wheels turning at this idea of Teddy's fate. Then she said, "Well, I love my new teddy bear also..." I thanked the old lady for being so nice and taking the time to talk with Ava. It seems that every day, you can find examples of good, decent humanity in places where you would never expect to find it! I'll remember that lady forever, even if Ava doesn't.
Once on the road, we had miles and miles through the Allegheny Mountains - literally, through! Many tunnels were bored through the mountains, and it was exciting for Ava each time we drove through one.
I had made an appointment in the Columbus area with a customer who had stopped into the Southworth booth at the Atlanta woodworking show, and we arrived there at about 3pm. Gaffer and Ava took a walk and stretched their legs while I went in and looked at the application, and then we hit the road again, arriving in Indianapolis at around 5:30. This hotel was the only disappointing Hampton Inn we stayed at. Not really clean, whirlpool broken down, leaves and dirt in the (indoor) pool, and only decaf coffee available! (This was ridiculous! No real coffee????)
But we hadn't stopped in Indianapolis for the accommodations - we had stopped for Fogo de Chao. Ever since the first time I had gone to Fogo in Chicago, I've been a huge fan. When Patrick and I went to Washington DC, we had a great time at the Fogo there and he was hooked. I went to the one in Baltimore while I was working there earlier this summer, and he was thrilled for me - that's how much he loves it, he's happy even knowing I'm going without him! We went to the one in Philadelphia this August during our anniversary/Southworth road trip and it was fantastic, and now we wanted to check out the one in Indianapolis.
After the mandatory swimming time with Gaffer, Ava put on a beautiful outfit and we headed downtown to Fogo. We found a parking spot on the street adjacent to the court, the jail, and about 75 bail bonds agencies. We held Ava's hand tight during the walk to the restaurant, but all was well, and we relaxed especially once we were inside. As we expected, it was a dining experience like no other - unique to its own location, but otherwise distinctly Fogo. Ava enjoyed interacting with the gauchos who brought the meats around, and she was quite the big girl pulling her own cuts from the skewer with her little tongs. The Spanish-speaking gauchos all listened to her intently as she told them what she wanted, and the kid ate her weight in filet mignon, sirloin, lamb, chicken, and sausage, not to mention the vegetables from the magnificent salad bar, and mashed potatoes. Topped off with a bowl of chocolate ice cream. It made us proud - Gaffer was beaming: "That's my girl!"
On the way out of the city, we were captivated by the beauty of the full moon over the skyscrapers.
The next morning, Friday, was to be our last day of travel. We planned to be in Des Moines by about 2. We passed the Colts stadium on our way out of Indianapolis,
and then had a few hours of driving in typical Midwest scenery - farms and more farms. Ava and I passed the time playing with her animals, reading, and doing her workbooks. We had brought the perfect variety of things to do, so that Ava never got bored and neither did I. We were always in agreement that it was a good time to stop playing animals and do something else. Or just look out the window for a while, or take pictures, or talk to each other. Patrick and I were amazed at what a good little road-tripper she was.
We crossed the Mississippi into Burlington, Iowa, at about 11 in the morning,
were checking into the Stoney Creek Inn in Des Moines at 2:15, and Ava and Gaffer were in the pool by 3:30! And what a pool! I always stayed at the Stoney when I had the Midwest territory for Southworth and was working in the Des Moines area, and it's a wonderful hotel. Designed to be rustic, like a lodge, there's a comfort and homelike feeling to the place that is so enjoyable.
Ava made some good progress with her swimming while we were on this trip - she swam in five different pools across the country to Iowa and back, and with each pool she developed better skills. She swam with a float-coat on during our first night out in Carlisle, but by the time we left the Stoney four nights later she didn't want it and was absolutely fearless about jumping right in. It was fun to watch! And doesn't she love to swim!!! She and Gaffer came up with all kinds of new swimming games and ways to dive and jump into the pool. One of her favorites was "Hum De Dum". This meant she walked toward the pool like she was nonchalantly strolling a boulevard, "Hum De Dum, what a lovely day..." and walk right into the pool - so funny to see her walk over the edge and splash into the water. It was always the highlight of her day, so we tried to get her to the pool as often and for as long as we could - she never missed a day of swimming!! She enjoyed the whirlpools, also.
We had gotten settled in our room (even took the time to take our things out of the drybags and put them into drawers - nice to know we were going to stay a little while!) On the bed was a stuffed animal, a wolf with a red Stoney Creek bandana. Patrick and I had known an animal would be there, because there always is, and last year there had been a bison in our room that we brought back for Ava. So this time it was a wolf, with a little note on him to the effect of: "HaHa, we already knew your kid saw this, so we're tacking $20 onto your bill.." Yes, Ava fell in love with it, couldn't believe the hotel would give us a wolf, decided it was a girl, named it Piney (for pine tree), then changed it to Wolfie, and didn't put it down for two days.
Steve and Tammy met us at the hotel around 7 that evening, and took us out to a little restaurant in Grimes that the locals love. We had a great home-cooked meal, which was wonderful after all the road food we had been choking down, and we made plans to be ready to leave the hotel by 7:15 the next morning to go to the University of Iowa game in Iowa City.
I've been friends with Steve since I've worked for Southworth, over 21 years now. At first it was a business relationship, starting when he was a salesman for Barron Equipment in Iowa, and I was his inside sales coordinator at Southworth. When I became the Midwest territory manager in 2001, I became closer not only with Steve but with the entire Barron Equipment organization. This company was the first to ever sell over a million dollars of Southworth equipment, so obviously they were a big part of my life (and my paycheck.) I spent huge amounts of time with them, working on projects at John Deere and Maytag and Jeld-Wen and dozens of other large accounts, and we always had a good time. The guys at Barron worked hard, but they enjoyed what they did. Often Steve and I would make a detour through some prime duck hunting areas and get out of the truck and walk around - Steve would always say, "I can't believe we get paid for doing this!"
Several years ago, Steve and two of the other salesmen, Tom and Pete, bought Barron Equipment so the owners (Barb and Ron - "BarRon") could retire.
This friendship between Steve, Tom, Pete, and me expanded to include Patrick when the Barron boys (as we call them) came out to Maine with their wives for a week-long visit in 2004, and then grew even stronger when Steve and his entire family came out to visit the following year, renting a house in Harpswell. Then Steve, his son Matt, and Tom came out for a moose hunt last year. Patrick and I drove their moose meat back to Iowa for them, so Patrick had had a chance to meet Tom's kids and we spent some time with Steve and his family during the brief time we were there.
During this trip we knew we'd see Pete at the Iowa game, but we weren't sure how we'd see Tom, who lives a couple hours drive north. But it worked out that Tom was coming down to Des Moines to a gun show on Saturday, and was bringing his family down the night before and staying at the Stoney. So he came down with his boys (all of them bleary-eyed and freshly rolled from bed) to have breakfast with us before we headed out with Steve to the game. Ava was shy with the boys (they're about 7 and 9 years old, or thereabouts), as she is with all kids she meets. But when Steve and Tammy showed up, and told her Matt was waiting in the Suburban, she became the biggest flirt you've ever seen! She LOVES Matt - fell in love with him during the moose hunt - and he loves her, too. Tammy took her out to see Matt - and this picture says it all:
Matt had his friend Brandon with him, and we had a fun two hour ride to Iowa City. Ava sat in the third row with Tammy and me, but spent a lot of time poking and tickling the boys in the second row!
The sky was overcast and the weather report had warned of heavy rain during the day, but during the drive it held off. We got a spot in a parking garage at the university and then walked to where Pete parks his RV each Saturday the Hawkeyes have a home game. Patrick and I were amazed by the number of people and the overwhelming spirit of the fans. Everyone was wearing yellow and black. Steve told us that this was "nothing" - they were playing a nobody team (Ball State) and it was going to be a rainy day - typically the crowds were even bigger. This was hard for us to imagine. The 70,000 person capacity of the stadium seemed already bursting, and the tailgaters filled acres and acres around the venue. We stopped at one of the dozens of kiosks selling everything Hawkeyes, and picked out a sweatshirt for Ava. She was in her glory with Matt and Brandon.
We got to Pete's big motorhome (a diesel pusher RV that he and his father-in-law had bought for one reason only - to go to Hawkeye games!) to find the party already well underway, with food and beverages and a big screen TV set up outside so everyone could keep an eye on the pre-game show. A lot of my old friends from Barron were there, so it was great to be able to introduce them to Patrick and Ava.
Pete has two girls, a little older than Ava, and a friend of his was there with two more little girls, and Tammy brought Ava inside the RV to meet them. Tammy works in the office of their town's elementary school, and is the recess lady for the first graders - has been for years - and she really has a way with kids. Ava took to her instantly when they first met and, during the two and a half days we were there, she was Ava's second "mom", loving and attentive.
So anyway, Ava went with Tammy into the RV, while Patrick and I stayed outside and mingled and talked. But after a short time, Ava appeared at my side, whispering that those girls in there were too "rough". She really wanted to play with them, but was scared of them. I took her back in, and could see her point. Four little girls, ages about 3 to 7, were in the bedroom of the RV, literally bouncing off the walls! They were jumping on the bed, shrieking and laughing and pushing each other off and crawling back on... It was quite a scene, especially because they were all black and yellow with black and yellow ribbons in their hair - looked like a nest of buzzing bees! They stopped jumping for a moment when Ava and I came in, and I said, "Hey guys - she's kind of shy - can you settle down for a minute till she gets to know you?" And Pete had followed me in, so he also told them to quit jumping on the bed. But as soon as we left, they (of course!) started right in again, so Ava ended up tailgating outside with the grown-ups.
Then it was time for the game, so we all started moving up toward the stadium. Barron Equipment has four seats in the skybox, as well as seats throughout the stands so, once inside, everyone split up. Pete and his family had the skybox, but Steve told us that we'd swap with them at halftime - cool!! Our seats were at the "HAWKEYES" end of the field (as opposed to the "IOWA" end), and we had a great view of the action. The rain had held off all day, in spite of the heavy cloud cover, but once we sat down Steve looked to the west and said, "Uh-oh..." Great black clouds were coming our way.
The game was a blast, in spite of being one-sided (Iowa 47, Ball State 0). We were in the "A" section when the cheer when around the stadium - starting on one side "I", then over to "O", then "W", then "A" - little Ava was screaming out her favorite letter at the top of her lungs! What fun!
As halftime approached she got tired, so we spread out some raingear on two seats and covered her up with more of it because by then the rain was coming down steadily. She quickly konked right out.
At halftime, it was a monsoon - we were getting soaked! So we gathered Ava up, trying to keep her asleep, and tried to find our way to meet with Pete and switch to the skybox. We were in a crushing crowd of Hawkeye fans - I kept hoping that nobody would yell "fire" or anything that could cause a stampede. I could completely understand how mass tramplings happen. Ava was awoken by all the jostling and looking over Gaffer's shoulder at the sea of people she began to cry.
What I said earlier, about good and decent people being in our midst every day, and appearing where you least expect them? Well, as luck would have it, squeezed in beside me and behind Gaffer, were two pretty 20-ish girls. And guess what they were going to school for? To be teachers, and both of them currently worked in child care. So they talked with Miss Ava, and told her how pretty she was, and cheered her up. Because of the Bobby-Joe-Kerry-Emily connection, Ava is at her best and brightest when in the company of this age group.
So we managed to get through the horrific crowd, but by then we were just like, "Let's go back to the RV where it's warm and comfortable, and where the food and drinks were." Pete had really wanted to keep his family in the skybox, and who could blame him? Back at the RV, we had a great time as one by one our friends started wandering back from the game and the tailgating started back up again.
We headed back to our car late in the day, and as we walked Steve and Brandon both yelled "McNutt!" Sure enough, coming out of the back of the building was Iowa's star wide receiver, Marvin McNutt. He stopped and signed their hats, and then Matt picked up Ava so Marvin could sign her sweatshirt. By then the sharpie wasn't working very well, though, and all you can see on her shirt now is a couple of black lines. But we got his picture with her, and McNutt has three new fans from Maine.
Ava took a little snoozy-snooze on the two-hour ride back to Des Moines, and they dropped us off at the hotel around 7. We ordered pizza and got down to the pool, while they went home to get their swimming things and came back. We had a fun evening of swimming, whirlpooling, and eating and drinking poolside - Matt and Brandon were there, so once again Ava was the happiest of 4-year-olds!
The next morning, we went over to the Joslin house and were served a big pancake/french toast breakfast with bacon and sausage and homefries. Steve and Tammy's daughter, Allie, home for just the day (with her boyfriend Taylor) from college at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Rapids, was cooking when we got there, and she and Ava hit it off right away. There were also two cats - an old, skinny, rickety one named Emily, and a big fat one named Snickers. Ava was in heaven! She's definitely a "cat person" and, luckily, the cats were friendly and seemed to enjoy all her attention. After breakfast, Allie took Ava upstairs with her to get ready for the day, and Ava came back downstairs with a new stuffed animal - a dog she named "Allie". So far, one stuffed animal lost, three gained...
Matt had a baseball game, a "fall-ball" league, so we watched that for an hour or two, enjoying the beautiful blue sky and brisk fall air, and met Steve's parents there, and a little while later Allie and Taylor arrived with Tammy's mom. Such a nice family, and close. Allie was sitting with us, texting to Matt in the dugout "I'm going to ask dad if you hit a homerun, will he buy us BlackBerries" - she was laughing, especially when Matt texted back that he just got in trouble by coach for texting in the dugout! Apparently, they both have been after Steve for some time for upgrades to their cell phones, and Allie had teasingly come up with another "plan"!
Then it was time for the actual highlight of the trip, at least for Patrick and Ava - Steve owns 70 acres of woods and meadows about an hour's ride from Des Moines, and he often finds arrowheads and fossils along the small river running through the property. Ava was dying to find an arrowhead!
The dirt road into the property was a quagmire due the heavy rain the day before, so Steve put his truck into 4-wheel-drive, and Ava loved the adventure of "muddin'"! After checking out the cabin he's building, everyone hopped onto Tammy's 4-wheeler to head down to the creek. We spent a few hours walking along the rocky creek bed, finding all kinds of beautiful and unusual rocks.
Tammy also gave Ava and me a ride on the quad around some of the property - it was so beautiful! I told Tammy that it reminded me of "Little House on the Prairie" scenery. People who haven't been there have no idea how truly beautiful Iowa is - rolling hills, tall grasses, groves of trees. We flushed a covey of quail, watched a soaring hawk, and breathed in the sweet air. When we got on a straight-away, Ava told Tammy to "go faster - I like to feel the wind in my hair!"
Ava assumed that every triangle-shaped rock she found was an arrowhead, and we didn't do a lot to discourage her from thinking that - she was having a great time! She had looked at Steve's arrowheads, and we showed her the marks where the Indians had chipped away to make a sharp edge, so later that afternoon while we were just hanging out at the property, she was picking up random rocks, sitting down, and chipping away at them to make her own arrowheads!
We couldn't believe it was already 6:30 when we got into the truck. It was our last day in Iowa - we'd be leaving early the next morning. Once we got back into Des Moines we stopped at a Barnes & Noble so that I could pick up some more activity books for Ava for the ride home, and who would have thought that there would be a display of cute little stuffed Peter Rabbits at eye-level with Ava in the children's section? So, a fourth traveling companion was added to Ava's entourage.
Right next door to the bookstore was a decent-looking BBQ restaurant, so we decided to have dinner there. It was after 8pm by this time, on a Sunday night, and we were the only customers in the place. It turned out to be a great decision - the food was terrific, the ambiance was relaxed, and we had some local brews that were wonderful. It was a perfect place to end the weekend, having laughs over beers and ribs.
After saying good-bye with lots of planning on how we'll all get together again soon, we hit the hay for the last night at the Stoney, planning for an early start in the morning. Patrick was hoping for two 12-hour driving days, to try to get home on Tuesday. However, I had made an appointment with a customer in central PA for Tuesday, so we knew it would be pushing it to try for only one over-night. And we actually never even attempted to get home in this timeframe - it was after 8:30 before we even checked out of the Stoney Creek Inn, and we still had to shop at the grocery store around the corner for juice and travel snacks for Ava. And, who should we meet at the grocery store? Steve's dad, sneaking some doughnuts without his wife knowing about it, who told us a funny story in the parking lot of an incident that happened when he was vacationing in England. It was late morning as we drove away from Des Moines on another pretty, blue-skied day, with 1600 miles ahead of us.
As on all adventures, the trip home is never as memorable as the trip out. You've turned the page in a way, you've moved on. You're ready to be home. We got as far as the Toledo area the first day, spent the night uneventfully there, and woke to a rainy day for our Tuesday morning drive. I had an appointment with a customer to look at a paper-roll handling application in the Altoona PA area, so we stopped there for that. Patrick and Ava walked around town while the salesman and I drove over to the plant.
We were soon on the road again, but with the rain, the stop in Altoona, and our energy (lack of!) levels, we decided to get off the road and spend the night in Connecticut rather than try to make it home. This turned out to be a brilliant decision. We had a nice dinner out (where Ava asked me the profound question of "How did the first person get in the world?"), and spent the evening in a beautiful pool and whirlpool. We enjoyed being in the warm whirlpool and watching the rain and wind outside through the full-length windows - cozy!!!!
We actually slept in the next morning and didn't get down to the breakfast area until after 9. This was the homestretch, but we took a detour on I-90 to get around to the westbound side and take a look through the Charlton Plaza for Teddy. We didn't tell Ava what we were doing, just that we needed to use the rest area. As we walked around inside, and used the ladies room (where I looked in all the closets and storage areas), you could see the dawning light in her face and she said, "This kind of looks like where we lost Teddy?" And then I said, "Yes, this is the same place, and Gaffer and I are looking for him..." We asked a few employees, and they checked around, but nothing. Teddy was gone. As we walked back to the truck, she was very quiet, and we didn't say too much, either.
Then we were on the road again, playing Ava's favorite road games. She plays these with us every time we're in the car - "The Thinking Game" and "Yummy/Yukky". The thinking game is 20 Questions, although we don't keep track of the number of questions - just play until either somebody guesses it or gives up. "Yummy/Yukky" is one that only she and I play together. I pretend to be a customer going into a restaurant, and she's the waiter. We decide in advance whether it's going to be a Yummy or a Yukky restaurant. Usually, of course (because it's way more fun), it's a Yukky restaurant, and she gets to choose where it is - New Jersey, West Virginia, etc. - and what meal it is (most often breakfast). So I describe what I see as I go into the restaurant - usually broken steps, spiderwebs on the sign, cracked windows. And then the waiter puts me at a table, usually with a broken chair so I fall on the floor, and with sticky stuff on the table top. Then I order my food, and each item tastes peculiar. "WAITER - what the heck is this coffee made from??" And she giggles and tells me that the coffee is made from tree bark and worms. And so on throughout the meal, ending with me telling the waiter that I'm not paying, and I'm telling all my friends NEVER to come to this restaurant. This game kills miles of road time!!
So before we knew it, we were stopping by Gram and Gramp's so they could meet Ava's new animals and give the traveling girl a hug, and then on to Nanny's house to pick up Bear, and then home to Blue Cat. (Heidi was at the kennel - Patrick picked her up later.) Ava fell asleep in the truck before we got home, which worked out great because when I walked into the house, the first thing I saw was blood everywhere - gobs and drops on the floor and sprayed on the walls - even up on the door frames! Just as my eyes were taking this in, Blue Cat approached with a mangled ear. I was glad he appeared that quickly, otherwise I would have had a real scary moment! But I saw immediately that he had had a cyst burst, and remembered that he had a bite-mark on the same ear before we left. It was disgusting, though, and I spent the first few hours at home scrubbing floors and walls from the kitchen through the dining room, living room, bedrooms (I had to strip bed quilts covered with blood droplets!), bathroom and hallway - it was everywhere!
So it was a typical homecoming for us - it's always something!! I woke Ava up so she could see Blue Cat before I smeared his ear with bag balm and banished him outside. This is a girl who told "Blue Cat stories" to everyone she met east of the Mississippi and beyond, who loves this cat more than anything, who could not wait to get home to get her hands on him - and when she saw that goopy, bloody ear, she didn't even want to say hello to him. "GET HIM OUTSIDE, QUICK!!" So much for a warm welcome, Blue!
Friday, September 10, 2010
First Day of Pre-School
For a year Ava's been watching the construction of the new Durham Elementary School (grades k-8). The tiny old one-story white school had been demolished, and in its place grew a multi-level, multi-wing palace of a school, with a big new playground and several new ball fields. She's been kind of proprietary toward the construction, because it was "her" school that was being built.
We've been telling her that she'll start school when she's five - kindergarten in the fall of 2011. So on August 24th when we went to the Open House, she was still thinking that she had another year to wait before she'd be walking the corridors of her new school.
Gram and Gramp met us at the school for the Open House, and we were led on a guided tour by two eighth grade boys in white shirts and ties, with little notes on recipe cards that they read (in 12-year-old-boy-monotones) in each area they took us to. They were cute - took the job seriously, and came to life when they weren't reading from the cards but rather were telling us their own knowledge of the school and its features, and I even learned quite a bit about their social lives while Gram, Gramp, Patrick and Ava would wander off to look at something.
We were amazed at the beauty of the school, and how well-designed it is. The school has many large south-facing windows to harness natural light, and the boys showed us the reflective system that sends light into the room when the sun is high. A sensor adjusts the interior lighting accordingly. A solar panel on the roof heats the water for the building. The boys also told us that the classrooms are equipped with hearing assistance systems — speakers mounted in the ceiling to ensure that teachers, who will wear special voice enhancement devices, can be heard throughout the classroom.
All the classrooms also are equipped with projectors (hanging from the ceilings) and interactive white boards - the days of slate and chalk are long, LONG gone! We happened to find a real teacher in one of the rooms, and she gave us a demonstration of the white board - she was still learning how to use it herself, so we had a few laughs with her while she stumbled around with it. Of course, it was one of the 12-year olds who finally figured out the step she needed to take to get it to work, and then she was able to show us the capabilities of the system.
The whiteboard is connected to the teacher's computer, so she can display images from the computer screen onto the board, and using a special stylus can mark up the board during the lesson - and then actually save the work onto her computer. This will be helpful for going back to review lessons and also to share with kids that may have missed school that day. Very cool! Of course, Grandpa, being an old professor himself, was extra fascinated by all the new technology, and I think could have stayed much longer chatting with the teachers!
The large library, the art and music rooms, the computer lab with 23 new computers, the gorgeous gymnasium, and the state-of-the-art laboratory with a second-floor balcony so kids can do experiments outside - we were awestruck. The school has a wonderful energy, also, probably owing to the teachers and students feeling so happy to be out of that dank, old school into this bright, shining example of modern education!
During the tour, the boys took us by a room called "Laugh & Learn" and told us that it was a pre-school that would be starting after Labor Day. On the way out, Patrick and Kay stopped by the office to find out more about it. They were given a phone number to call, and later that day Patrick had Ava enrolled!
We decided to start her out with two 3-hour sessions (9-12) on Weds and Thurs mornings. In her 4-1/2 years of life, Ava had always been with either Patrick and me, or Gram and Gramp. She had spent maybe an hour or two with a handful of other people - Kerry or Nannie - but these had been far and few between, and we were concerned how she would handle being separated from us.
A packet of information came in the mail, inviting us to an ice cream social at the pre-school the Thursday afternoon before Labor Day, and included within was a letter to Ava from her new teacher, "Ms. V". In the letter, Ms. V tells Ava that she her favorite activity is snowmobiling, and that she camped on an island this summer, and that her favorite food is lobster. This letter was very helpful in warming Ava up to the idea of having a teacher, especially a teacher that enjoyed the same things she did!
On the afternoon of the ice cream social, she picked a cucumber to bring for Ms. V (but then forgot it at home). She dressed in her best school outfit - her purple knit shirt with the big black buttons and her lavender skirt. Gram and Gramp met us there, and we walked down to the Laugh & Learn room. It was chaos. There seemed to be a thousand little boys running around and building ramps to race cars and bumping past timid little girls and knocking past parents who were just standing around not knowing what to do, smiling politely at each other. In the midst of it, Ms. V emerged and came over to meet Ava.
Ms. V is very young and pretty and we could tell that Ava liked her instantly. She showed Ava where her cubby was, and then we kind of lost her in the crowd again. I took Ava over to a little table, where we sat down until we saw the ice cream was being served over by the cubbies and we ventured over. Ava timidly accepted a bowl of ice cream and we carried it back over to our table. This was where all the sprinkles, chocolate sauce, and cherries had been staged, so there was quite a crowd elbowing and jockeying for the condiments. Ava quietly watched the action all around her, not wanting any of the toppings, and daintily ate her little bowl of ice cream. I was thinking to myself, Oh my Lord. She's NEVER going to want to come back to this!
After ice cream, Kay and I walked around the room with her, looking at the books and some of the toys. She was happy to stop at the little toy kitchen and go through the plastic food and appliances, but seemed relieved when it was time to leave. She didn't talk too much about it that evening, and we let the subject drop.
We purposely didn't talk about school in the days leading up to her first day, but we had to discuss it with her the day before. She got very anxious, and tried to tell us that she wasn't 5 yet!! So we were wrong; it wasn't time to start school yet!! We did our best to explain that this would be "pre-school" and that she was the right age for that, but she didn't quite buy it. She said that Ms. V really wasn't as pretty as she had been in her picture on the letter, and all those kids were too wild.
The next morning, she woke up at 7:30 on her own, and we were glad we didn't have to wake her up to get ready for school. She said many times that she didn't want to go ("I'm SCARED!!"), but we managed to get breakfast into her between bouts of tears. But then when it came time to get dressed, the melt-down began in earnest. She was in her underwear and curled up in a ball so I couldn't put the rest of her clothes on, sobbing that she wasn't going to go.
I walked away and left her in the bedroom while I put away some things in the kitchen, letting her calm down. When I went back to her, I said, "OK Ava - you're going to school. You can either get your clothes on, or you can go to school in your underwear, which would be very embarrassing." Then there seemed to be a turning point, like when a person finally acknowledges that they have no choice but to walk to the gallows.
She calmly put her clothes on while her tears dried, and walked to the car wiping her nose. I asked her if she'd like me to put some tissues in her backpack in case she cried again later in school, and she said that, yes, she would. So with Teddy on her lap and a backpack full of tissues (and baby carrots and apple juice), we drove off to school. We put in "Shady Grove", her favorite song, and all three of us sang out loud until we pulled into the parking lot, and Ava didn't say a thing about having to leave Teddy in the car.
By this time, Ava was cheerful and excited, and marched happily down the hallway to her class. Ms. V was there to meet her, and only a few other kids were in the room. We had told Ava that the class wouldn't be as wild as it had been during the ice cream social, because brothers and sisters wouldn't be there, and this seemed to be the case. The room was calm and quiet. We went in and hung her stuff in her cubby, gave her a hug and a kiss, and then she happily went off with Ms. V.
When we picked her up at noon, we found her busily putting things away and helping Ms. V pick up the room. It was so cute to see her go to her cubby and sling her backpack onto her shoulders, just like a real schoolgirl. She wouldn't even take it off when she got into her car seat, and chatted all the way home and off and on through the day and into the evening about how the day had been, and about the rules she learned (she liked them; they made sense to her), and about the boys that had gotten in trouble, and about playing on the playground. She had thoroughly enjoyed the day, and was looking forward to going back the next morning!
Monday, August 2, 2010
Ava's Eventful Summer
Ava got stung by a bee last night. She and I had been out in the garden; it was one of those perfect July evenings, warm but with a fresh breeze and nice clear air, and we were enjoying our sanctuary. She's madly in love with the garden - asks to go out there every morning first thing, and romps around excitedly to see what new blossom or vegetable has appeared. Our garden has a picket fence around it, and between the fence and the road is a line of healthy, thick shrubberies - burning bush, forsythia, elderberry, cedar, wild rose - that blocks the view of the road and gives us a feeling of peace and privacy when we're in the garden.
So we had been walking around, picking some peas and cukes, and checking out the progress of the baby pumpkins, and she got the idea to play one of her favorite games - "Baby Moose" - the game she invented at Baxter State Park a couple of weekends ago. She likes to pretend she's an orphan baby moose, and I find her. So she started to make a little bed in the thyme, but when she put her hand out to stretch herself down into it, her left ring finger found itself on top of a bee, busy deep within the small flowers. At first it startled and confused her, and then it really freaked her out. She cried and cried, and Gaffer and I put ice on it and made a paste of baking soda and water for it, and petted and hugged her until she recovered herself. The stinger hadn't stayed in the finger and at one point she looked at it and shrieked, "I have a HOLE in me!!" which brought on another round of tears.
When she finally calmed down and had a little bowl of chicken noodle soup, we started talking about what an exciting summer she's had, with so many new adventures. Only a day earlier, she had jumped from the top of Uncle Bob's boat down into Sebago Lake (with Gaffer there to catch her) - a good 6 foot leap! How far she's come from the days of having the little blow-up wading pool in the boat. She loves the water and she loves to swim, and every time we're out on the lake she's a little braver. She can jump and go under without plugging her nose, and she even went tubing with Aunt Brenda on Saturday!
She loves to ask me, "Aren't you so glad you have a little girl?" and "Aren't you glad I'm 4-1/2?" I tell her that she just keeps getting more and more interesting and fun to be around! The other day, we were on the boat, and I heard her say, "A leach!" and I turned around to see - she was holding it in her fingers, and there was a small wound on her thigh where she had pulled it off. During our two camping trips at Wadleigh Pond in May she saw lots of leeches and had been terrified of them at first. But then when she saw how much fun it was to try to hook them onto a stick and then carry them over to the fire and toss them in (*POP*), she turned into an enthusiastic leech-hunter. And so a month or so later, when she found a leech stuck to her leg, no worries!
So we had been walking around, picking some peas and cukes, and checking out the progress of the baby pumpkins, and she got the idea to play one of her favorite games - "Baby Moose" - the game she invented at Baxter State Park a couple of weekends ago. She likes to pretend she's an orphan baby moose, and I find her. So she started to make a little bed in the thyme, but when she put her hand out to stretch herself down into it, her left ring finger found itself on top of a bee, busy deep within the small flowers. At first it startled and confused her, and then it really freaked her out. She cried and cried, and Gaffer and I put ice on it and made a paste of baking soda and water for it, and petted and hugged her until she recovered herself. The stinger hadn't stayed in the finger and at one point she looked at it and shrieked, "I have a HOLE in me!!" which brought on another round of tears.
When she finally calmed down and had a little bowl of chicken noodle soup, we started talking about what an exciting summer she's had, with so many new adventures. Only a day earlier, she had jumped from the top of Uncle Bob's boat down into Sebago Lake (with Gaffer there to catch her) - a good 6 foot leap! How far she's come from the days of having the little blow-up wading pool in the boat. She loves the water and she loves to swim, and every time we're out on the lake she's a little braver. She can jump and go under without plugging her nose, and she even went tubing with Aunt Brenda on Saturday!
She loves to ask me, "Aren't you so glad you have a little girl?" and "Aren't you glad I'm 4-1/2?" I tell her that she just keeps getting more and more interesting and fun to be around! The other day, we were on the boat, and I heard her say, "A leach!" and I turned around to see - she was holding it in her fingers, and there was a small wound on her thigh where she had pulled it off. During our two camping trips at Wadleigh Pond in May she saw lots of leeches and had been terrified of them at first. But then when she saw how much fun it was to try to hook them onto a stick and then carry them over to the fire and toss them in (*POP*), she turned into an enthusiastic leech-hunter. And so a month or so later, when she found a leech stuck to her leg, no worries!
Monday, July 19, 2010
Baxter State Park
Thursday morning, July 15, was warm and sunny as we loaded the truck and rolled out of the driveway at 8:45. We had reservations for three nights in a rustic lean-to at Baxter State Park's Roaring Brook campsite, and the weather promised to be beautiful. Dogs aren't allowed at BSP, so we had to drop them off at the kennel in Lisbon along the way. They'd been so excited to be in the truck with us, and Ava and I were joking about how confused they'd be when we stopped to let them off at the kennel - like, "HUH??" It made us happy to see them jumping around with wagging tails when they heard the other dogs barking - they would be having their own little vacation.We kept assuring Ava that the ride would be shorter than both trips to the Caucomgomoc-area campsite we'd done earlier in the summer, but she was still apprehensive about the long drive. She's never liked to go for car rides, even as an infant, and she had been stressing about this one. Several times she had said that she DID want to go camping with us, but she did NOT want to go for the ride. But she was a trooper, and didn't complain as much as she could have during the five hours in the truck. We had brought along her little DVD player, so she happily watched Ice Age with her headphones on while I read "The Fellowship of the Ring" out loud for Patrick and me.
It was a new experience for me to bear right, away from the Golden Road, at Ambejesus Lake. I'd never been to Baxter, so this was going to be new for me as well as for Ava. Patrick had been many times, and had a lot of happy memories of climbing the mountain and camping there, but his last trip had been 17 years ago. Brenda, John, and Tyler also had reservations, and were meeting us there - Brenda had never been, but John, like Patrick, had been often when he was young and was looking forward to sharing the experience with Tyler, who just had just graduated from Gorham High School in June.
After a few miles of pavement and then dirt road, we came to the entrance of the park, where a friendly forest ranger came out and greeted us and checked our reservation. When he asked us if we had brought any animals (not allowed), Ava held up Teddy and said, "I brought my bear!" and he laughed and told her she'd better keep an eye on him. We were impressed during our entire stay at the pleasant demeaner of the rangers - low-key, friendly, always willing to take the time to answer questions or just chat.
After another few miles of dirt road we arrived at the trail-head parking area, and then to the ranger station. The ranger wasn't in, so we continued on to our campsite at Roaring Brook and were happy to find that it was the first lean-to. An empty lot beside it meant that we had no neighbors on that side, and on the other side was the lean-to reserved by Brenda and John. The lean-to's are all on a slight hill looking down over the well-named Roaring Brook, with rocky pathways down to the river. (The tent sites are farther up the hill, overlooking the lean-to sites.) The ranger came down to see us an hour or so later, and told us that the bears had been a nuisance lately in the campground, so to be sure to keep coolers in the truck (with windows up), and to leave no food lying around.
We were delighted with our lean-to! Roomy and clean, with a little "porch" - we saw places where people had carved their names in the wood, the oldest one we spotted was "Bob and Kay 1953"! The site included a picnic table and a lovely stone fire pit with a nice grate for cooking over flame. And we had brought steaks!
Patrick quickly had the cots assembled and our gear stowed into the lean-to, the camp kitchen set up, water jugs filled from the river (with the portable water filter)
and a fire going in the fire pit while Ava and I explored. She couldn't wait to dabble her feet in the river. 
The current was very strong in the middle and around big boulders, but it was sheltered near the campsite, with little quiet pools and eddies for her to play in. She found out the rocks are slippery in a river, though, and it didn't take long before she slipped and went in! A quick change of clothes made everything all better, and then the Wyman party arrived.
As they were getting unpacked, we decided to walk down and check out the "swimming hole" past Lean-to #10. It was a hot day and even though we hadn't packed Ava's bathing suit (a swimming hole?? Who knew??), we thought she'd enjoy a swim in her undies and t-shirt. It wasn't a very long walk past all the lean-to's and then through the woods along a pretty little path to get to a small sandy area and a shallow (but swift) part of the river.
A large boulder was in the middle, with quaint cairns of stones piled on it - someone's previous artwork. Patrick carried Ava over to the boulder, and she had a blast jumping into his arms or into the water, and she collected her own little stones for Ava-cairns. I was persuaded to make the walk over the wobbly boulders and rapid current to get to the boulder, but halfway across I slipped - my nice cold Mich Ultra filled with river water - but I made it over and Patrick helped me up onto the boulder. He began noticing how many baby trout were swimming around near us, and made a quick run back to the lean-to for his camera.
We soon had hot dogs cooking for supper, and then Bren, John and Tyler came over to join us around the fire. They had uptight neighbors on their other side, so we figured we'd better keep the noise over at our site. Tyler had been fishing earlier and caught a couple of trout, so his vacation was starting out on a good note. Ava fell asleep in my lap, and so I carefully placed her in her sleeping bag on her cot and she never stirred. I had put our pillows on the open side of the lean-to, so that we could breathe the clear air and enjoy the sound of the river. The grown-ups continued their merry conversation around the fire, until the ranger came down to tell us that 9pm was "quiet time" and that we had better keep it down a little. Shortly thereafter, we all headed off to our sleeping bags.
Little Ava had a restless night this first night. She woke up several times, telling me that the river was too loud and was waking her up! And she also had several awful cold sores on the left side of her mouth, on both lips, so the pain of those also woke her up. I gave her some Tylenol in the middle of the night, and that seemed to help and she rested fairly well the rest of the night.
The next morning, after an early breakfast of bacon and eggs, Patrick was jonesing to climb Katahdin. The sky was overcast, and strong thunderstorms had been predicted for the afternoon, but he didn't want to wait until the following day, in case the weather was worse. We had checked the weather before we came, and Saturday had been predicted to be glorious, but he didn't trust the forecast. I really didn't want him to hike alone, and the Wymans had already planned to take their hike on Saturday. He went over to talk with them to see if any of them were interested in going today, but he got no takers.
Finally, he agreed that we'd walk up to the ranger station to check the forecast and make his decision from that. So he and Ava and I took a little walk up the hill, and found the forecast to be just what it had been predicted before we left home. The ranger came out and talked with us, but didn't give any advice one way or another whether Patrick should climb that day - he seemed to be of the opinion that it might be hit-or-miss at any time on the trail. He did suggest that Patrick could climb as far as Chimney Pond and then make a decision from there.
While we were hanging around on the ranger's porch (which also has a scale replica of Mt. Katahdin, with the trails marked - very cool!), he mentioned to us that this would be the perfect time of morning to hike in to Sandy Stream Pond and see moose. Ava heard that and wanted to go see moose! So we ran back to our lean-to real quick, put on our hiking shoes and stopped in to ask Brenda and group if they wanted to go with us, but they were just starting to cook breakfast.
The hike to Sandy Stream Pond is only .4 miles each way, starting out as a dirt path and then changing to boardwalk for most of the trail.
Ava had a lot of fun negotiating the boards and looking out for moose tracks in the mud on either side.
She surprised me by pointing out labrador tea growing beside the path, and we gathered some leaves for tea. 
When we got to the first look-out at Sandy Stream Pond, we were tickled to see two little moose calves on the opposite shore, splashing and eating in the shallow water of the pond. A young bull was grazing a short distance away, and even further off was another moose standing in the water. The view of Mt. Katahdin was beautiful, also.
We continued on, after picking some blueberries, to the Big Rock Lookout, where we could still see the calves and the other moose. We stayed for quite a while, watching as the calves went into the woods, came back out again, and started walking along the shore, getting closer and closer to us. We never saw a sign of the mother, and eventually they disappeared again into the woods. Ava picked more blueberries and labrador tea leaves - I think she enjoyed doing that more than looking at the moose.
I was walking in the lead on the way back to the campsite, with Ava following me and Gaffer bringing up the rear. We had picked a large mushroom on the way in, and I had set it next to the path so I didn't have to carry it to Sandy Stream Pond, and I was just thinking that I'd better remember to pick it up on our way back through. Just as I was putting this thought together, Ava piped up: "We have to remember to get that mushroom!" That happens a lot between the three of us - it must be like that with most families - a certain degree of "mind-reading". So I was walking along, pondering this, when all of a sudden Ava cried out: "A bunny rabbit!" I stopped and turned around and, sure enough, there was a cute little brown bunny, sitting beside the path. I had walked right by him and had never noticed him. Little Eagle-Eye spotted him!
We took some pictures of him and he hopped away into the bushes, and Ava was thrilled. I think she was equally as thrilled that she had seen him when I hadn't, as she was to just to have seen him! We picked up the mushroom along the way, and also found several others. We forgot to bring our field guide to mushrooms, so all weekend we gathered them and photographed them, to identify with the book once we got home.
It became more and more overcast as the day went on, but the rain held off. Patrick kept saying, "I should have gone today... I should have gone today...", kicking himself that he didn't try to climb Katahdin, and fearing that it was going to rain the next day in spite of the encouraging forecast. He finally settled down and accepted the situation and resigned himself for a Saturday hike. Bren, John and Tyler came over in the afternoon and we played a camping board game that was fun for all of us, even Ava. We all took a walk together to Sandy Stream Pond, where everyone but Ava and me had fun looking at the mountain and trying to identify the different trails and places where they'd be climbing the next day.
Returning to camp, it was time to cook supper. They had brought steaks, too, and this was steak night! We put dinner together by 5:00 so that they could all go to bed early, anticipating an early rise to get on the trail by 6am. The flame-broiled steaks, Greek pasta salad (thank you Cook, Eat, Share on Facebook!), and garden salad with Newman's parmesan dressing was wonderful.
After dinner, the Wymans took an evening hike to Sandy Stream Pond, and Patrick and Ava and I relaxed by the campfire. The outhouses were up the hill, near the tent sites, so every time we needed to "go", we had to climb a pretty steep and rocky path up to the facility. Luckily, the path was directly across from our lean-to, so it wasn't too inconvenient. Ava and I never got our schedule in synch, though, so it seemed as though we were constantly going up and down that path, either for her or for me. When we headed up this evening, it was for me. Usually, we leave the door open while we "go", because the smell was pretty bad even though the outhouses were all cleaned every day.
I had gone into the privy while Ava stood on the path directly in front of the door so I could keep an eye on her. As soon as I sat down, though, I noticed that I was in direct line of view by a tent site that had just become occupied this afternoon. I quickly stepped forward to push the door to, and asked Ava if she wanted to come in with me, or wait right there. She chose to wait, so I hurried to do a quick pee. Just as I was putting myself back together, she let out a blood-curdling shriek - "GAMMER! LET ME IN! LET ME IN! A MOOSE!!" and she pushed open the door just as I was reaching to open it, and she stumbled in, still saying "LET ME IN! A MOOSE!!" I scooped her up into my arms, and we both peered around the door frame. I didn't know what I expected to see - on one hand, I thought she must have seen a shadow or a rock, but on the other hand, she had sounded like she knew what she was talking about! And there it was, a cow moose, not 10 feet away, slowly walking through the campsite.
We ran back down the hill, Ava still in my arms, to get Patrick and his camera, and then all three of us charged back up the hill. Patrick was able to snap a few frames of the meandering moose as she ambled back into the forest. Ava and I were both trembling with excitement and laughing our heads off that she had had such a close encounter. We agreed that it was the most exciting thing that's ever happened to her in her 4-1/2 year old life!
She couldn't wait until Brenda and John got back so she could tell them all about it. And as luck would have it, they hadn't seen any moose at the pond. I guess at Baxter, you never know when or where you're going to see one!
This was an early bedtime night for everyone, and Ava and I read books in our sleeping bags until all of a sudden she shrieked again - "A BEAR!! A BEAR!!" - and scrambled as fast as she could back toward Gaffer in the back of the lean-to (he had turned his bag and pillow so his head was in the back, while Ava and I stayed with ours looking out over the river.) He had been sound asleep, but bolted upright and quickly asked her where she saw it. She was half in tears, and pointing to my small dry-bag that was hanging from a nail on an outside wall of the lean-to. She could just see the outline of it in the dusk. I took it down, and she calmed down, but then crawled into my cot with me, and there she slept the next two nights.
Patrick was up at around 4am, and had himself all ready to climb Katahdin by the time I got up at 5:30. It's easy to wake up early when you're camping outside during this time of year - it's so light out at the earliest of hours that, especially if it's a clear morning, you really want to get up and about. Every morning he woke up first and made coffee, and when I woke up he brought me a cup. How heavenly to stay in my warm sleeping bag, looking around at the morning, sipping coffee and listening to the rush of the river. We were so lucky to have such great weather while we were there - Mother Nature and Pamola both showed us their tender sides.
Brenda, John and Tyler were ready early, also, and before I knew it, they were headed up the camp road to the trail head. As I watched them walk away, I remembered my camera, and made them wait while I took a group picture. They were happy and excited to be on their way.
So, I had the luxury of sitting by a beautiful morning campfire, sipping coffee, listening to the river, and reading my book while Ava slept. When she woke up, she cried because she hadn't given Gaffer a kiss good-bye, but she gathered herself together and had sausage and pancakes for breakfast with me, and then we went on our own hike, back up to Sandy Stream Pond.
As we checked in at the ranger station, a young family showed up with three little kids, looking to be 5,4, and 3 years old. The kids were really noisy, so I whispered to Ava, "We'd better get ahead of them while they sign in, or they're going to scare away all the wild animals..." She took that to heart, and walked as fast as her little legs would go.
In spite of this, we could hear the noisy family gaining ground on us, until suddenly we heard wailing and then nothing more. We speculated that someone had tripped on a root and hurt a knee, and we wondered if they had band-aids with them.
We got to the first look-out, and saw a moose out in the pond, dunking her head deep under water and splashing it everywhere. 
We watched her for a while, but then we heard "The Noisies" coming up the trail, so we took off for the Big Rock lookout. When we got there, it was approaching noon, and John had told us that at noontime be looking for smoke coming from the top of the mountain, so Ava and I both scanned Katahdin, trying to spot where John might be having his smoke-break. The noisy family finally caught up with us, and Ava didn't have any interest in lingering with them on the rock (surprisingly - I was thinking she might have liked some little kids to talk to...), so we started to head back to the campsite when the dad called out to his kids that he saw deer on the far shore. So Ava and I went back to the rock and looked at two very golden deer far off in the distance.
Then we hit the trail, and she had fun pretending to be a baby moose with no parents in the forest, and I was the nice lady that rescued her - although I didn't know my way and needed a baby moose that was familiar with the woods that could show me how to get back to the campground. We played the same game over and over until we were on our way out of Millinocket!! It was a favorite with her. (This afternoon we went blueberry picking, and she played it again - I brought a "baby moose" home with me...)
There were a pair of ravens that visited us each day via a tree overlooking our lean-to. Ava and I called them "Loudmouth" and "Quietmouth". Loudmouth would caw and caw, never even bothering to ever close his mouth. Quietmouth actually looked annoyed by Loudmouth, and would flutter over to a different tree and sit on a branch with his shoulders hunched up around his ears, like, "Will that guy ever shut up??" Ava and I followed them around the campsite as they moved from tree to tree, Quietmouth always seeming to try to get some distance from Loudmouth; Loudmouth never taking the hint and flapping over to sit beside him. We imagined him saying, "I'll keep you company; I have lots of stories!"
Later in the afternoon we packed a big canvas bag with snacks, beverages, toys, camp chair, and camera and walked down past Lean-to #10 to the swimming hole. We spent an hour or two there - I had my sneakers so I could safely carry Ava over the rocks in the fast-moving stream to the big boulder. When we returned to our lean-to, it was pushing 4pm, and if the mountain climbers took 10 hours they should be returning shortly. Ava fell asleep on her cot, and I used the time to par-broil some chicken thighs, then barbeque them over the fire. After that was done, I had another opportunity to relax and read some of my book.
When Ava woke at around 6:30, we made the long trip back up to the privy and then decided to walk the long way back to our lean-to, past the trail head - just in case our family was returning. They had now been gone for 13 hours, so we were getting a little nervous, even though they had warned us that it may be after dark before they got back. Before we got to the trail head, I heard "Hey, Pammy Poo!" and there was Patrick and Tyler, walking down the road to the lean-to! Ava and I ran to meet them, we were so relieved. They told us John and Brenda were still on the trail, but not far behind them.
I won't write here of their adventure - that is for them to tell. We were just glad to have them back (John and Brenda came down the road at around 8.) We had another early night, one last chance to fall asleep to the sound of the river. The lyrics to one of my favorite songs, "Brokedown Palace" played in my mind:
In a bed, in a bed
by the waterside I will lay my head
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
to rock my soul
River gonna take me
Sing me sweet and sleepy
Sing me sweet and sleepy
all the way back back home
It's a far gone lullaby
sung many years ago
Mama, Mama, many worlds I've come
since I first left home
Goin home, goin home
by the waterside I will rest my bones
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
to rock my soul
Goin to plant a weeping willow
On the banks green edge it will grow grow grow
Sing a lullaby beside the water
Lovers come and go - the river roll roll roll
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
to rock my soul.
The next morning, we sadly but happily packed the truck and by 9 were on the road home, so Ava could see her cat.
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