How did he get the guns?

What happened in Webster, NY yesterday could have happened anywhere.  It could have been people I know, people I am related to, could have been any of us in slightly different circumstances.  It was, a couple of years ago, again here in NY when an EMT was shot and killed at a house he tried to enter on a call. 

“Police say Spengler was convicted in 1981 for beating his grandmother to death with a hammer and was released from prison in 1998. They’re trying to determine how he had weapons in his possession.

“Spengler was a convicted felon. He’s not allowed to possess weapons. Did he legally possess those weapons? No,” said Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering.”

So then how did he get the guns?  If there are all the background checks every time someone gets a gun, how did this man possess them?  How does anyone with criminal intent get a gun?  We’re not talking the gritty city streets where guns get stashed in trash cans for anyone in the neighborhood to use, and a lot of people can supply a weapon of choice for the asking.  We’re talking a quiet almost rural town, like the one I’m in and many of you are in.

How did he get the guns?   

“Four firefighters shot, two killed”

“Four firefighters shot, two killed” - the latest updates on an incident in Webster, NY this morning (12/24/12). 

Firefighters, going to do what they do, and a gunman opens fire.  Two died.  So far.

The others pulled back from the fire scene, and more houses are involved, ruining more people’s lives. 

Add these to the other headlines about shootings across the country, and it is a sad commentary on our people, our times, our society, our laws and the ways to circumvent them.  It’s just a sad, sad story to add to the far too many ones we’ve already read and heard, and to the ones we will continue to read and hear.

No, I’m not advocating that guns be banned.  Guns serve a purpose, whether it be for hunting, hobby, law enforcement, or a number of other legitimate purposes. 

I’m not going to quote the much mis-interpreted 2^nd Amendment to defend having guns, either.  I’m also not going to try to get into a debate about the wisdom, or lack thereof, of having a gun for personal defense.  In some cases this has proven to be a right choice.  In some it has caused tragedy.  

Since this is my blog, I’m going to give my opinion: that there is no single place to place the blame.  There is no single thing that could have prevented any of these tragedies.  Yes, maybe more difficult access to the guns, especially automatic weapons could have helped in some cases.  Yes, maybe better mental health care could have helped in some cases.  Yes, maybe armed guards at schools could have helped in some cases (although some are saying that there was an armed guard at Columbine, and there for sure were armed people at Fort Hood).  Yes, maybe everyone having their own gun could have helped in some cases.  Yes, maybe banning violence from tv or video games or and even headlines could help in some cases.  And so on.

The truth is, none of us know what could really have helped in any of the cases.  The truth is that there is no absolute cure, there is no complete and total answer.  

But maybe, just maybe, we all can help tame this epidemic.  Maybe we can try to reach out to someone who is withdrawn, not fitting in.  Maybe we can try to stop bullying when we see it happening.  Maybe we can let the ‘different’ people know they are important, too.  Maybe there are a lot more ways each of us can do just a little something to try to keep even just one of these tragedies from happening.  We’ve got a lot to say after they do, let’s try to say something before.  And maybe, just maybe there will be fewer headlines and fewer tears.  Maybe.

Check your facts, please, people!

I hate politics.  I hate politics a lot.  I admit I don’t pay a lot of attention to political things, and try to keep out of discussions about those for that and many other reasons.  I know that there are a lot of people who don’t like President Obama, and that’s fine with me.  I’m not saying whose side I was on at election time, just that I voted for the person whose platform I most agreed with.  Obama won the election, for good or bad, right or wrong for our country.  Is he gonna be right all the time?  Hell, no, because you know what?  He’s a human being.  The best he can do is hope that he makes more right than wrong choices, and that the rest of the governmental process supports those and helps correct the wrong ones. And, let’s face it, that’s the best all of us can hope for, both from our President, and in our own lives. 

However, I hate untruths a whole lot more than I hate politics.  I totally don’t mind the fact that people have other thoughts than I do, and it doesn’t mean I don’t still like them and want to be friends.  They are entitled to their own beliefs, just as I am and everyone else is.  But it really pisses me off when those beliefs are based on, and fostered and inflamed by untruths.  The latest that several of my friends have posted on Facebook is a speech by Ben Stein (and I admit I’m so out of it that I don’t really know who he is), allegedly regarding the Obama’s decision to call the tree a ‘holiday’ tree rather than a Christmas tree, and to not put religious themed ornaments on it. 

And even more than untruths, I really, really hate that people just spread them around when it is pretty easy to check them out.  Just go to snopes.com or hoaxbusters or any of the several other sites that research things and tell you if they are true, false or some of each.  The Christmas ornament thing?  False, according to Snopes.  The Ben Stein speech?  Yes, it was made, but not as a response to the Obama’s White House Christmas tree.  That would have been impossible, since he made it in 2005, when the president was named Bush.  Any doofus can put two things together and call it facts.  People who care about what they are passing on check before they further spread untruths.

So, people, please check your facts.  You don’t like that Obama got reelected?  That’s fine.  You don’t agree with him?  That’s fine, too.  I won’t argue politics with you.  I will argue spreading things that aren’t true.  Please don’t do it.  If you’re my friend, I’d like to think you’re better than that.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/christmas/ornaments.asp

http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/confessions.asp

Really, Mr. Akin?

Todd Akin On Abortion: 'Legitimate Rape' Victims Have 'Ways To Try To Shut That Whole Thing Down'

Don’t bother with your lame apologies – the damage is done and you can’t spin it back. 

Aside from the absurdity of your thinking and your comments, voters in  Missouri should ask themselves if they really want someone who does not know any better than to make these statements representing them.  I for sure know don't want you helping run my country-hell knows what other stupidly uninformed and narrow-minded things you might say about critical issues or to critical people that could led to frightening consequences.  You are so caught up in your own ego that you can't be bothered to find out the truth.  Your mind is made up, don’t confuse it with facts.  Just what we want in national government.  Please, people of Missouri, do the right thing, and send this idiot  back to the obscurity he deserves.  If you elect him, think what it tells our country –and other countries - about yourselves and your state.  Mr. Akin, do the right thing and withdraw – someone like you does not deserve the position, nor the respect it should carry with it.

Are volunteers the reason?

From "A Day In The Life Of An Ambulance Driver", a blog I read, written by a guy whose outlook and writing I usually agree with and often admire: “Except, of course, that those wages come from a finite revenue pool of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement that runs about 30% less than the actual cost of providing the service. And that reimbursement was derived from some arcane formula calculating the average cost of providing EMS services across the country… including the volunteers who provide the service for free. So, thanks for doing your part to keep EMS wage levels in the toilet, Mr. Noble Volunteer.”

Ah, AD, ya got me again.  I swore to myself after the gun debacle that I wouldn’t run the risk of all the dissention by commenting, but as a volunteer with our local rescue squad for over 35 years, I gotta take you to task on this one, and run the risk of getting shot down yet again.  Volunteers are not doing what they do to bring down wages for paid services.  Volunteers are doing it because they are a necessity for both EMS and fire services.  In many areas across our country that’s all there is.  That’s all there is because given the many factors that include location, tax base, potential revenue and operating expenses make having a paid service out of the question.  And let’s not even go in to finding trained people in some of the areas, never mind keeping them trained. Then there’s the whole thing about how even if there were enough trained people to go around, would any of them want to pick up and move to the isolated areas that depend on the volunteers for whatever help they have?  We’ve got a lot of places like that here in New York State, and I know you must in Louisiana, too. Look them over and ask yourself if they’re better off without the volunteers, without any help at all, or should they wait for a paid service to arrive from an area many, many miles away – if that service would provide the coverage.  The county I live in now has five rescue squads.  Every one of them started life as part of the all volunteer fire department and eventually branched off on their own, and now we all have career staff 24/7/365.  Ours operate out of two stations to cover roughly 150 square miles.  But we thankfully still have volunteers who help those crews when things get busy. The EMS system the country knows today is founded on what volunteers provided for decades.  Please don’t put down what your predecessors did, and what thousands of us still do - yes, for no pay except the satisfaction that we’re helping our neighbors and often our own families.  For whatever reasons, we couldn’t go get the training and make it our life work.  But please don’t make us the scapegoat for what’s wrong with the system.  And don’t make it sound like getting rid of us would solve the problem.  I doubt it will, especially not in my lifetime. 

Thanks for at least reading the other side, even if you don’t agree.  I will now put on my armor and wait to be blasted with your response – and no doubt that of others. 

Ice creammemories

A radio ad keeps talking about memories of being taken to get ice cream, when you were a kid, by your parents, grandparents, whoever.  I remember all us kids (my sister and I, and whatever assorted cousins were around at the time) being loaded into the back of pickup truck, after a day of haying, milking, other chores, for some reason I think it was on Sunday nights, and taken over to Spencertown where there was a little ice cream shop.  Probably home made, although I don’t remember that for sure.  There were many flavors, and we all had our favorite, I think mine was pistachio, but also no doubt something chocolate.  There was a huge sundae, and cousin Reggie tried that once, and I don’t thing he finished it – can’t remember the name of it but it was something challenging, of course.  Then we’d ride home, maybe singing – or arguing. 

I remember getting an ice cream cone once and holding it out the car window because I thought the breeze would keep it from melting – after all, the breeze was cool on us – yeah, that didn’t work so well.  And not understanding why my father wrapped a package of ice cream in a blanket to keep it from melting, when everyone knows that blankets keep you warm.

And I think it must have been at Jones Beach, where my grandparents would take us, where you got ice cream cones, but the ice cream was the three-flavor, in a square shape, and the cones were the same shape; the ice cream was wrapped in paper and the server put it in the cone and you had to unwrap it without dropping it.

When Stewart’s stores with the make-your-own-sundaes were new and how we wished there was one nearer than Saratoga so we could go more often than just stopping on the way to or from Indian Lake, if we went past when they were open.

Ice cream memories.  Yum!

Father's Day 2012

Fathers – the first guy in your life.  The one who, hopefully, was there to be strong and sure when you needed it, to teach you practical things, play games, support and love.  Sometimes it seems that fathers don’t get as much attention as mothers do – certainly their role is very different, but they have had their place in your life, good, bad or indifferent.  In our family we’ve had some of all of the above.  Regardless, today’s the day to pull out one or more of the good memories and say thanks.  If your father is still here, do it in person – on the phone, text, tweet, fb, whatever.  Just tell him.  If he isn’t still here, carry them around with you for the day.  And let them out on other days, too.  It’ll be good for both of you.

I didn’t say it enough.  I hope I showed it enough.  I love you, Daddy, and I miss you.  There’s a lot of things I still had to learn about.

Mother’s Day, 2012.

 Some reflections on the mother’s who have left us, because a dear friend just this week lost her dear mother.  Mother, the strength, the reliance, the sure thing in your life.  You know that it will happen, whether it is quickly, as my own mother left, or lingering, as my friend’s, it happens, it happens too soon, no matter how long you had her, and suddenly that one person you could count on to always be there when you stubbed your toe or broke your heart or just wanted to share a smile, suddenly they are no longer here with you.  Suddenly you’re on your own.  You’re the one giving advice, you’re the one comforting the boo-boo’s, being strong, doing that for your youngers – and for yourself.  It’s been 15 years, and I still think ‘oh, I have to tell my mother that’.  She’s come around to tell me things when I needed to be told.  I am a firm believer in the fact that things happen that there is no ‘scientific’ explanation for.  So, I know it was my mother on a morning in New York City just a couple of weeks after she was gone, when I was having tea and a bagel in Central Park and a chickadee flew into a bush next to me.  I knew she’d want to know how auditions went, so I told her about the people we saw.  Or the morning at Camp Katrina, when I was having my own private little snit fit and a hummingbird flew up right next to me and stayed long enough to tell me to get over it.   Or the evidence we found of a fire that might have destroyed the house she build in Indian Lake; the fire never grew to do that, but there’d been the start of one that got put out even though no one was there to do it.  Or the times I’ve had a thought an insight, a feeling that came from nowhere-well, it came from somewhere, or someone.  I’d like to be more like my mother was, but there’s too much of my father in me for that.   So, Mommy, Grammy, my Mother, today especially, but every day even if I don’t do it out loud, I honor you for everything you did to make me who I am.  I didn’t say it enough when you were here, we never do, but I love you and hope some day to get to tell you that again.

About guns for personal defense

This is in response to a blog wherein the writer defends carrying guns - and does a darn good job of it, I might add, he's a good writer and brings up good points. However, because I'm fired up about the case in Sanford. FL, where a guy is going free after shooting an unarmed, unthreatening teenager, I had to run my mouth - uh, make that keyboard.
First off, let me say that I am not anti-gun. I have owned a gun, don’t happen to now, but I grew up in a house with rifles and shotguns and know how to handle them. I’m not anti-gun, what I am anti is the ease with which they are available to the people who use them to do harm, and the size and scope of the guns available to those people. If the person you speak of comes up to you with their gun out, cocked and ready to fire, and yours is in your holster or pocket, what happens when you reach to draw it? Unless the gun is in your hand, loaded, with one in the chamber, cocked and safety off - it’s kind of like tits on a boar hog. And can you 100% guarantee that the person accosting you won’t take the gun away and use it themselves to continue their crimes? Maybe you’d have enough warning with the mountain lion, but if it jumps from the tree you’re walking under onto your back, that’s gonna be quite a contest, for you to draw it while keeping the big cat from chewing your face/hand/arm/leg off.
Yeah, you can name call me whatever political/social label you want. But I think something needs to happen to keep so many wrong people from having weapons of destruction. You may not agree, but I think people who lost loved ones at Virginia Tech, Columbine, Chardon, in Binghamton, NY, Omaha, NE, Brookfield, WI, Santa Clara, CA, and on down the list would.
And as far as the vigilante justice you promote, I bet the farm that the parents of Trayvon Martin, the boy gunned down in Sanford, FL would disagree with it. He was killed by a ‘Neighborhood Watch’ captain, who was advised by police to not follow the ‘suspicious stranger in the neighborhood’, but who followed the 17 year old boy anyway, and shot and killed him. In a gated community, while the boy was walking home to his father’s house from going to the store. Mr. Quick On The Trigger claims that he was defending himself, and so police have not charged him with any crime. This, despite the fact that the boy was armed with nothing more than a bag of Skittles and an iced tea. Pretty threatening, huh? No charges, despite the fact that witnesses in the area heard no altercation, nothing until they heard a young person crying and then shots. Yes, I sure do bet that Trayvon’s parents disagree with everyone owning a gun and being allowed to shoot whoever they deem threatening. I know I do.
I wonder how many actual criminals, who actually mean harm to the people they go after, are stopped by someone using a gun? As opposed to the innocent people, like Trayvon, like those in all the places listed above. And yes, I know, if you are the one who stops them from harming you or yours, that’s the important thing. But what if, just what if, you’re like George Zimmerman, the man not charged with killing an innocent young man – oh, and you do get charged with it? What then? Oh, right, in jail nobody has guns, so you don’t need yours for protection there.
I guess I’ll be dead if those hard-asses you talk about come after me, because I don’t have a pistol, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have it in the ready to fire mode at every moment-and that’s what’s needed to be as prepared as you claim we should be. But I kind of think maybe I’d almost rather that than use my gun to kill a 17 year old boy, whose only crime seems to have been WWB (Walking While Black) because I imagined a threat, or created one so that I could have the excuse to gun down an innocent person.
I respect your choice to carry a gun, as I do everyone else’s choices. I do not respect the choices and laws that make it so easy for those that should not have them to do so. That’s what needs fixing, so there are no more Virginia Tech’s or Binghamton, NY’s – and no more Trayvon Martin’s.

The Oscars

I've ranted about the Oscars before, but just have to do it again:
The Oscars: After seeing several of the nominated – and not nominated- movies, and seeing what won, I can only think that their choices are based on ‘movie politics’ rather than actual rating of performances and whatever else they are supposed to judge. I admit I have not seen all the nominees, but comparing the ones I have seen, I just don’t quite understand why ‘The Descendants’ got a nod for best picture and George Clooney (although admittedly he’s quite scenic) did for best actor. I saw that last night and while reasonably entertaining and passably emotional, there was nothing that strong, that special about either the movie itself or Clooney’s performance. Meanwhile, Thomas Horn, who played the boy in ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’, doing an impeccable job of being a boy who might have Asperger Syndrome, and who showed every emotion a child might have after the 9/11 event – completely ignored. The entire movie ‘J. Edgar’ – completely ignored, despite it’s amazing performances by Leonardo DiCaprio as Hoover and Armie Hammer as Clyde, not to mention the masterful job the make-up department did in aging the two actors from men in their 20’s to their 80’s. Yeah, it probably wasn’t the most popular subject, especially given what Hoover did with the movie industry and it’s powerful people back in the 1950’s, but really, to completely ignore such work-why? Why on all of it. Gotta be movie politics, rather than actual judging on the merit of the film, the performers and the rest. Sad commentary. And meanwhile, the Oscar ceremonies? Just one more example of how excess can be displayed in the name of entertainment. Just think of how many homeless people could. be fed, how many animals saved, how much help could be given a non-profit group just with the price of one of those elaborate gowns that stay in the news for days as the ‘best’ and ‘worst’ dressed. Really? And the saddest part? That way too many people actually care.

Auditions

Audition time for the theatre. Long days into late evenings, watching people ‘give us their best’ and then discussing which ones we want to try to hire. And discussing which were good and bad auditions. Every year we wonder what some of these ‘kids’ are being taught, based on what they choose to try to sell themselves to prospective job givers. I mean, wouldn’t you think they’d do some research, look at web pages, at the shows being presented, shows that have been done, and so on. Yeah, there ya go, thinking again. At the Straw Hat auditions last weekend, a majority of the theatres present do a mix of classic and contemporary shows, heavier on the classic. And yet the people auditioning did a mix of contemporary and classic songs, heavier on the contemporary. Sorry, kids, but hearing you sing something from Avenue Q or Rent doesn’t give much of a clue if you can give what we want to hear in ‘It’s A Grand Night For Singing’ or even ‘Another Opening, Another Show’. Have a mix in your audition book and use what the people want to hear. Put some thought to it.
And the monologues – ah, yes, the monologues. Even 40 years ago, there were ‘F-bombs’ dropped in a few of them, usually by guys who wanted to show how ‘trendy’, how grown-up they were. When we mentioned at conference auditions that they should be told not to do it, we were informed that most producers don’t want to edit the monologues because ‘it gives an idea of their personality, what sort of person they are’. I’m thinking maybe there’s some merit to that. Today, more and more of that happens, girls and guys both, along with monologues about sex, sex regular, gay, mixed, kinky, you name it and there’s a monologue for it and these kids think that it’s ‘in’, it’s perfectly all right to present this as the piece they are trying to get a job with. Once again I say, do your homework. Look at the shows a theatre is doing and figure out how many times you might get to say this on their stage. OK, just for starters, have a monologue, especially if it says in an ad or in what people tell you about the audition that you’ll be asked for one. I love when we ask for one and they say ‘Oh, I didn’t bring one today’. I always want to ask ‘What, you left it in your other brain?’ But once again, have a few to choose from. And choose the right one for the audience you’re selling yourself to. If a theatre is doing light, happy musicals, they don’t want to hear about doom and gloom, death, mutilation and destruction. A cute little Oriental girl came in one of the years we were doing The King and I, and we liked her for Tuptim, the innocent young slave. The cute little girl proceeded to do a monologue that had every form of gross physical revenge the speaker could think of to do to someone she was upset with-she got done and left and we just looked at each other going ‘YUCK;-I said, you know last week I had my hands on a dead person (code ambulance call) and that even grossed me out. Do your homework! And please, for goodness sake, don’t come in to a room where there are three women, each obviously in the generation of your parents or even grandparents, and do a monologue filled with not only F-bombs, but C-bombs and explicit body part references. If you didn’t want the job that much, don’t even come to the callback. Save us all the trouble.
Oh, yeah, auditions are an interesting time. But when someone comes in who’s dressed nicely, sings nicely, and makes us laugh – now there’s what we’re looking for, that’s what we’re talking about.
Off to see what today’s adventures into auditions bring. Wish us luck!

A Eulogy for Annie

A dear friend of mine is gone. One of the folks I visited on my trip last month, she knew her time was coming up, hoped it wouldn’t be yet, but as she said ‘when He’s ready He’ll call’. I met her when we were in the rescue squad together, back when we were young mothers and raising kids and trying to help our community and neighbors and do all the other things that you do when you’re young and sassy and can do it all. We had a lot of laughs, we shared husbands leaving, things the kids did, all of it. I went to her house to take a shower once when my water was frozen. She said ‘as long as you’re working I know I can find a job’ because I helped her get work at places I was at: she helped at the theatre in several areas, and at the department store I worked at in Hudson. She moved to Florida, and the work she’d done in our costume shop helped her get a job in that department at Disney World. One Christmas she wrote that she’d gone ‘up above’ onto the Main Street there late at night – all the Christmas lights were on, and there were no people and she stood and enjoyed ‘that lovely show, just for me’. She had to stop working and she moved and we lost touch, I didn’t know her new address and then several years ago she sent a Christmas card and we got back in touch, with Christmas cards and email. Chatted on the phone a few times. She called last summer, after the hurricane came through, to ask were we ok, when I called back I just got a message, but it was so nice, and so her to know that she was concerned. I spent about 24 hours with her. We talked and talked and talked, about old times, rescue squad calls and friends, our kids, jobs, family, and of course solved the world’s problems. She had to stop and rest now and then, she was on oxygen full time, and had to stop to just breathe. She said that she didn’t think it was time for her to go yet, because her ex-husband and her brother (who for unknown reasons stopped talking to her some years before his passing) were probably telling God ‘don’t’ let her in yet, we’re not ready to deal with her’. She was not only fighting COPD but several years ago was in an auto accident that almost killed her, and had gone through a series of operations to repair damage from that. Her neighbors took good care of her, helped out, and a health aide came in to do things as well. I feel bad that I didn’t stay longer, but I could see that having someone there was tiring her out. She was brave, solid, realistic, loving, giving. The world has lost a good person, there aren’t many like her and we need more of them. Goodbye, Annie. It was grand knowing you.

Visiting Friends - Priceless

This must be my month to catch up with old friends. I met up with several on my trip, and some others coming back from the job fair on Sunday. And I came away from each thinking why didn’t I do that a long time ago? Why did I wait so long? Why don’t I just pick up the dang phone and talk to people? It’s not like I don’t think about them. Heck, we even email and talk on Facebook. But this was the first time I’d seen most of them in 20 or so years – let’s see, Annie it’s gotta be over 20 years, it was the year we went to Disney World when SETC auditions were in Orlando. Kelly, must be when her mom died, so that’s about 15 years. Mary Jane and Harry – wow, I can’t even remember when I saw them last, although her daughter and family did show up on mu porch a year ago summer and made me stand there trying to figure out who it was for a while. Johnna, only since Camp Katrina, in 2005, but still a while.
Admittedly, distance is a factor for some of them, they live in Florida and Mississippi and North Carolina. But the others are only a couple of hours up the road. Why don’t I take a day trip and have lunch? Not like I don’t drive places. Not like I’m not looking for road trips. Why didn’t I do this sooner, like many years ago, and many times since?
OK, so two of them, Claude and Shirley, it wasn’t a matter of visiting, two of them it was the first time I met them, even though I’ve known them for about ten years, online. And they live in Florida, too, so there’s the distance thing again. But gee, it was nice to actually meet them and sit in their nice little house, pet their dog, and just talk.
And to talk and talk and talk some more about old times and old friends and as much else under the sun as we could cram in with the 3 hours and 24 hours and few days I stayed with them – well, like the ad says: gas-haven’t added up yet, motels-haven’t added up yet, food- I travel fairly cheap, seeing the sights along the way-great, but visiting with people dear to me – priceless.
Here’s what I think – I have to get to do it again, and not so many years apart the next time – and do it with more people, too.

The condensed version of my vacation:

Monday, December 26: left late in the day and got to Wilkes-Barre, PA for the night
Tuesday, December 27: To Rickett’s Glen SP a little ways from Wilkes Barre, where I wanted to hike to see waterfalls, but only experienced ice climbers with equipment were allowed to do that, which left me out, so I went to the one fall I could walk to. Then to Woolrich and the outlet store.
Then to Shankesville to the Flight 93 Memorial, which is so simple and so eloquent, very moving. Quite a ride along Route 30 to get there, with lots of twists and turns and scenery. To Somerset, PA for the night.
Wednesday, December 28: To Fallingwaters, the Frank Lloyd Wright designed house, did not go through the house itself, but walked the grounds and got good views of the outside. Then on to Kentucky, to Mt. Sterling for the night.
Thursday, December 29: Drove through the Red River Gorge scenic area in the Daniel Boone National Forest, seeing lots of great scenery and several arches-Kentucky has the largest amount of those in the east, who knew. A little hiking and a lot of getting out of the car to look at things. Also hiked up the trail to a Natural Bridge. To London, Kentucky for the night.
Friday, December 30: Across Kentucky and down around Nashville, TN, to the Natchez Trace. LOTS of stopping to look at all the things, scenic and historic. To Tupelo, MS.
Saturday, December 31: Continue south on the Trace, with more stops, scenery and history. Got off near Jackson, MS, and went over to Louisiana to Poverty Point, an historic Indian Mound site, just had enough time to drive quickly through it and look at the main parts, and climb the largest mound, built in about 1500 or so BC. Amazing. Then back to the Trace, to Rocky Springs campground for my New Year’s Eve.
Sunday, January 1, 2012: Finished the Trace, with stops at Rocky Springs to walk around the old town site, and then at Mount Locust to look at the house, which became the first stopover point on the Trace back in the early 1800’s. Then across MS to Tylertown and Merrywood to visit with Camp Katrina friends. Lovely place, with lots of all sorts of animals.
Monday, January 2: Loafed, drove around to Camp Katrina, into town and back to Merrywood, took a little walk, then rode around with Johnna and Susan to look at horses and property.
Tuesday, January 3: Went down to New Orleans, to meet another Camp Katrina friend and to see the Katrina Animals Memorial; drove through the French Quarter but didn’t stop, no parking and too many pba’s in town for the football game. Back to Merrywood.
Wednesday, January 4: More friends came over, went to Camp Katrina which I said didn’t look right there were no tents all over the place – many changes, still lots of animals. Nice visit and yummy supper.
Thursday, January 5: Left Merrywood and across MS into Alabama and then Florida, on the way to meet online friends Claude & Shirley. A few scenery viewing and photo stops, went to Destin to see the white sands, and then looking for miles for a campground, finally found one at Panama City.
Friday, January 6: foggy in the morning, and most of the way along the Gulf, did get some sightseeing in, and a nice ‘shore’ lunch. Then up in to the middle of the panhandle to Fort White.
Saturday, January 7: Went for a walk at a state park near their house, where a river ‘sinks’ down out of sight into the ground and reappears several miles down. Then visited, out for supper again, and visited some more.
Sunday, January 8: Left in late morning to go over to see Anne Somers in Fruitland Park, got there and sat and visited the afternoon and evening away.
Monday, January 9: Left Anne’s about noon, up through the Ocala NF towards Jacksonville, but then saw a sign for St. Augustine so cut over to see it, went to the fort and walked around looking at old buildings, very pretty. To Kingsland GA for the night.
Tuesday, January 10: Went out to Jekyll Island, very pretty, with huge old ‘cottages’ that are a testament to wealth. To St. George SC.
Wednesday, January 11: Stopped to see Kelly Casey, which was a delightful visit. Started to rain very hard after that, got to Emporia VA and quit for the night.
Thursday, January 12: Just drove all day to get home, got here about 8.