Fall 2008 Comes Late to Toledo

When Margaret & I left for Texas on Oct 1, 2008, it was still summer-like out, temp in the 70s and leaves still on the trees. By the time Halloween usually comes most of the leaves are down and raked to the street. This year was and exception. Seven or eight days into November and leaves were just starting to fall. The City made it's first leaf pickup with hardly any effort. A few days after they left the leaves finally started to fall and boy did fall. I think 80% fell in about 2-3 days. I raked most of the leaves in the back yard against the neighbor's fence. If we are lucky we'll get another pickup before Christmas. I'll wait till the last minute to rake them to the street and hope they don't freeze solid.

Today I looked out and guess what? Mother Nature was laying on us a preview of things to come. The temperature fell into the 30s. It snowed for a few hours. No accumulation because the ground is still too warm. Look close, you can see the giant flakes. All next week it will stay COLD!

Shopping In Vermilion

On Saturday Oct. 25, 2008 Margaret & I took grandma Pedee to meet Diane & Elaine for a day of shopping & family bonding. Margaret suggested that we meet half way somewhere like Vermilion. So off we go. We picked up my mom about 9:30am. Traveling down Reynolds to get to the Ohio Turnpike I shot through a traffic light that changed red as I was going through. I didn't see a flash so maybe there wasn't any traffic camera at that intersection and hopefully no ticket.

We met up with the girls on Main St. in downtown Vermilion. Downtown Vermilion is about 2 blocks wide. It is mostly a summer resort town. This day was no chamber of commerce day, it was bone chilling cold and very windy. The warm clothes we brought came in handy.

First off we stopped a local coffee house for a cup of joe. After warming up a bit, we ventured out to scout the local shops. I get tired quick when the shopping goes beyond 15 minutes, so I went to the car to nap. It was perfect day for a nap. The sun was warm inside the car even though the weather outside was brisk.

We ate lunch at a local restaurant/ ice cream parlor. After lunch the shopping had not been satisfied so off they went to a second hand store. Me, I retreated to the comfort of the front seat of my Camry.

You know thinking back, I probably shouldn't have gone with the girls. I don't like to shop and I know the girls were upset that I didn't want to participate in the shopping. I should have just let it be a girls day out and stayed home.

After the shopping urge had been satisfied, we parted ways. I decided to take Rt. 2 instead of the turnpike. Big mistake! The speed limit on Rt. 2 this side of Sandusky is 65 mph. As soon as you cross the bridge over the Sandusky River the speed limits drops to 55mph. Dummy me! I was still going the 68 mph, when out of the corner of my I spotted a State Highway patrolman laying in wait. No! Noooo! On go the flashing lights as he pulls out in pursuit of his prey. I looked around to see who he might be after. Not me, I said, I was only doing 68 and the speed limit is, oops, Oh NO... 55. I slowed down to late realizing that he was after me.

"Hello Officer", I said. Standing next to my door he said "Let me see your driver's license and insurance card." Knowing I was at least 12 mph over the speed limit, I knew I might have to make a hefty contribution to the Ohio State Highway Dept. He took my information and went to his car to check my history for warrants and accumulated tickets. Coming back, he gave me my papers back and said I had a clean record and that he was only going to give me a verbal warning. Thank God my clean record saved my sorry ass.

October 2008 Visit the Austin Pedees

We knew that Ryan the newest seed to carry on the Pedee namesake across Texas was about to start to crawl, get some teeth and start to jibber jabber a little and we wanted to be there when it happened. The planned trip to Austin began as a standard Internet search. Get on Travelocity or Priceline and try to find some cheap airline tickets to Austin. Normally I can find tickets for in the $200-$250 range. With the price of jet fuel going up, flight tickets are going up also. Margaret had 2 weeks off, so we decided to drive. Margaret said because we had extra time to travel, lets stop and explore a few places along the way.

We had been to Mamouth Caves in Kentucky 2 times already, but never to any of the surrounding commericial caves. We decided to stop at Horse Cave, Kentucky.

This old town is about 6 hours south of Toledo, just north of Mamouth Cave off of I 65.

The cave is called Hidden River Cave and is right in the middle of town. Main St. runs right over the top of the opening. The large opening was formed when a sinkhole colapsed. You walk down about 230 steps to reach the river that runs under the town. Polution caused the cave to be closed for many years. Once the community realized the connection between dumping garbage and sanitary waste on the land and quality of their drinking water, they managed to clean up the underground river. It is so clean that that the animal species that only live in caves are coming back naturally.

Our halfway point in our travels is Tunica. Mississippi. As I mentioned before we like to gamble there when we have the chance.

We got into Austin about 6pm on Friday Oct., 3, 2008. We didn't have any plans other than enjoying the kids and being a part of their lives.

I took many pictures of the trip and have put them on Flickr. The link is http://flickr.com/photos/60999985@N00/ .

Check back again next week at the flickr.com site and I'll have more pics of Ryan and the kids.

Me a Senior Citizen Imagine that!

I was watching the noon news yesterday and they ran a story that Tuesday was Senior Day at the Toledo Zoo. I said to Margaret, " I'm over 60, I am a Senior Citizen, I get into the Zoo for FREE today let's go." So off we went. Margaret, being the older woman that she is has been a Senior Citizen for couple of years. We got free admission & free parking...WOW! The merry-go-round and pop corn cost extra though.

As we walked through the polar bears exhibit Margaret said, "You know with Jason and family coming in the spring to visit us( you better come Jason) we could get a membership and take the grand kids for free to the zoo." No, No! This was suppose to be a FREE DAY, not a $49 today only membership day. Yes you guessed it, by the time we left the zoo the Toledo Pedees were brand spanking new members of The Toledo Zoo complete with temporary membership card.

Doesn't that zebra look like he's not sure if the alligator is real or not.

Silverbacks, are they senior citizens too?

Doesn't this look like Donna Atkinson?

Long necks aren't the only things giraffes have. Ask the horny one in the back.

Anyone notice that the name" THE TOLEDO ZOO" is not reversed. Notice the car driving on the wrong side of the road? How'd I do that? The magic of Photoshop.

Chupacabra in Michigan?

Sunday morning I was supposed to take a bike ride with my friend Joe Monks through the Irish Hills of Michigan. We had had planned to meet at 9 am at my house. At 9:10 Joe called to say that while trying to put air in the tire of his bike he accidentally pulled off the stem and the tire was flat. He said he didn't have any replacement tubes. We all know no bike shops are open on a a Sunday morning. I was all ready dressed and had my gear sitting by the front door. The thought of spending the day riding through the Irish Hills fleeting from my memory, I decided that I would take a ride on my own.

I hadn't been to Luna Pier, Mi. in a couple of years. I mentally calculated the distance at about 30 miles round trip. I haven't been on a bike ride for over a month, but I ride the stationary bike at the gym 40 minutes 3 times a week. I should be able to handle that.

We live about a mile from the Michigan line. As soon as you get across the state line into Michigan the terrain turns agricultural. Lots of open fields. As I was riding along a drainage ditch next to a corn ,my eye caught a glimpse of what looked like a large dead dog in the ditch. I circled back to get better view. What was it? Not a dog, but dog-like characteristics, large fangs pointed nose. Oh my God could it be the infamous Chupacabra? That means "goat sucker". It's a mythical creature in Puerto Rican folk lore. Could this be the first actual sighting of a Chupacabra in this part of the country? Upon closer observation I noticed a reddish busy tail. Let's see pointed snout, large teeth, large reddish bushy tail, no it wasn't the elusive Chupacabra, but a coyote. I didn't know we had coyotes in this part of the country. After talking to a number of people today, they told me that coyotes are very common in parts of Ohio & Michigan. This one must have got hit by a car.

This poor creature must have gotten hit during the night because the flies and the stench of death were overwhelming.

Verizon Wireless from Hell

Because of my new business venture 4 years ago as a energy consultant I had to have a cell phone. I checked around for different plans. Do I need 500-750 or 1000 minutes? Do you realize how long 1000 minutes is? That's about 17 hours of talking. Who talks on a cell phone for 17 hour a month. I suppose if you are very busy businessman you may exceed 20 hours per month, but the average Joe like me very seldom reaches half of my 450 minutes per month. Have you ever tried to call Verizon because you have a problem with your phone bill? "If you are new customer press (1), If you are an existing press(2)", they say. You spend 5 minutes going through the menu and still can't get to a human being. All you get is a sweet talking computer. I learned a trick today. When I finally got to a human, I asked him how I can reach a human the next time I call them. He said when the menu sweetie asks you to press(1) or (2) don't, just press(o) for operator. Not sure it works, but worth a try.The menu itself never once offers to take you to an operator for assistance.

Do we really need all those extra services like V-cast, GPS, buy a ring tone, searching the web etc.? What the matter with normal telephone ring? I got to admit, I do like to give certain people a special ring. For instance, when my boss calls it plays 30 seconds of "Taking Care of Business".

I think it is amazing that through advertising they try to make us believe that we can't live without Internet service on your phone. Besides it cost more than my home Internet service.

Now there's a reason for buying V-Cast because Prince is on it, wow!

Before cell phones became the big rage in the 90s, I was so happy to just have a pager to ignore. No incessant ringing, just a sexy vibration on my hip. Get a call ignore it or find a pay phone to return the page. Paying 25¢ for each call cut your phone time down considerably.

If anyone has any cell phone stories, I'd like to hear them.

Texas Here We Come!

On October 1st Margaret & I will pack up the Camry and head South. We haven't seen Ryan Pedee, our 3rd grandson (good going Jason) since we were at his baptism in May. Jason says that he is growing like crazy. Last I heard he was around 14 lbs. Being that he is almost 6 months old he's probably doing neat things like laughing and holding his head up to observe his surrounding. Andie said that Ryan is starting to get a bump gums possibly his first tooth.

Because we a driving this time and not flying we are trying to come up with things to do along the way. So far we plan on stopping in Kentucky to explore a few caves near Mammoth Cave. That area of the country is loaded with limestone caves.

After tending to our bruised arms and sore legs from climbing around the caves we head West to Tunica Mississippi, which is 20 miles south of Memphis. Why you ask would anyone go to Tunica ? Tunica my friend is the 3rd largest gambling area in the United States next to Las Vegas and Atlantic City. There are 9 casinos spread along the Mississippi River. All gambling has to be on water, so all the casinos are floating barges anchored to the shore. We were there last year and thanks to Margaret's comps we will be sleeping in a FREE room. It happens to be behind the furnace in the maintenance building, but free is free.

When we were returning from a visit with Allan & Margie in Houston back in the middle eighties with the kids, we were trying to come up with a place to stop and stretch to break up the driving. We found this park in Arkansas where the kids could look for real diamonds.

The Crater of Diamonds State Park is an 911 acre Arkansas State Park situated over an eroded lamproite volcanic pipe. The park is open to the public and, for a small fee, rockhounds and visitors can dig for diamonds and other gemstones. Park visitors find more than 600 diamonds each year of all colors and grades. Over 25,000 diamonds have been found in the crater since it became a state park. Visitors may keep any gemstone they find regardless of its value. The crater itself is a 37 1/2 acre plowed field. It is periodically plowed to bring the diamonds and other gemstones to the surface.

On the way to visit the Texas Pedees a couple of years ago Margaret & I stopped again to try our hand at searching for the allusive 20 carat diamond or anything that looked like a diamond. It was very romantic. It happened to be February 14th. Valentines Day. What better way to finish out the day than to find a diamond for your sweetie. I could say it was a beautiful day. Reality check, it was February in rural Arkansas, it had been snowing and raining for weeks. The field where you allowed to look was a large mud pit. I happened to have my boots and they were covered in primordial mud. Anticipating that we would be going to the park, my dad made up a couple of sifters to sift the soil and have that raw diamond pop up. How are you suppose to sift thick gooey mud? We got there late in the day so I didn't have much time to prospect. I may try it again this year. I think October will be a better month than February.

If anybody has any suggestions of things to do & see between Toledo and Austin via I75,I65,I40 & I30 Nashville /Dallas route I'd be interested in hearing from you. You can email me at dragonfly1947@yahoo.com.