80 degrees and sunny

OMG – I FREAKIN HATE WINTER!!!

I know, tell us how you really feel, huh?

As you all probably know, it snowed a bit this weekend. A bit is a bit relative, wouldn’t you say?

But it was Oh so pretty, and will look wonderful for Christmas.

I hate the cold, I hate winter, and I would be just as happy to have 80 degrees with a nice trade wind blowing through my hair for Christmas. A white Christmas is way overrated.

butch went outside and stuck the YARDSTICK on the back patio yesterday afternoon. It was already at 14”. It ended at about 18”. freakin lovely!
Here are some pictures from when we were trying to dig out of the shit today.

Go on, all you Floridians, and you know who you are, laugh all you want.

bitch

Okay, at this point it was too dark anymore. I gave up trying to "document" the white shit.

This made me laugh after i downloaded it. it looks like the state of Pa (or at least antrim township) uses wood stoves in their buses. Check out that huge drift just hanging over the edge. Looks a lot like our roof.

awww, you can see the Subie looking out at the feets of snow going- no way, no how, i might have 4wd but the snow is a foot deeper than my axles!

How deep was it? knee deep to a drafter is a start.

Butch starts. oh, my aching bones.

Can i just say, i love the person that invented the snow blower!

Here I'm saying okay, just how do i get out of here now?

by the looks of it, the behemoth and the white whale are going no where until spring. notice the wonderful snow blow job done there.

(you didn't think i was going to resist saying blow job did you?)

okay, that's enough to make you laugh for now. Just remember this next time you think of moving to Pa. You can be very warm and comfie and look at pictures of snow, then go to the beach.

Hatteras Island '09

This year we did something different. We went to the island the third week instead of heading down there directly after Richmond. Why, you ask? Well, because we had some awesome company. Way back last winter, we were playing cards with V&R and she commented how much she loved being on the island when we got married and that she’d like to go back. Much to R’s chagrin, I told her if she thought she’d be able to stand a week at the beach with us, they were more than welcome to come along. A couple of days later, she called and was all apologetic and said she hoped I wouldn’t be mad at her, but she had mentioned it to sister B when she was on the phone with her and that the Jupiter FLA crew was wanting to go also. Hell, the more the merrier! After much planning and too much worrying on V’s part (I think she must have packed and repacked about a dozen times-no V, you don’t need a U-haul to get to the beach) we all set out for the little spit o’land off the NC coast.
We had a wonderful week. We had too much fun, too much alcohol (girls just wanna have rum), too much good food (huge lobster), and just way too nice a vacation. It’s taken me a while to write this, and part of the reason is because it was just too great of a time to get it all in. So I think the best way is to put way too many pictures up and let you decide.
Love to all the guilty parties!

Saturday-Yeah, the gang's all here.

Sunday-Dirty Dicks

Monday-Laying on the beach and lasagna ala R

Tuesday-V's birthday!! I let her get away with burping onions on me.

oh, no, bad weather cancels the Portsmith Island trip. Pyshc-just till later in the week. lay on the beach, run like hell when the storm on Ocrocoke hits us. V can't see much with sunscreen running into one eye, and rain messing up her glasses (up steps)

No problem, about the time everyone gets in and plops down, the sun is back out again.

Fine, lets go to the lighthouse. V,R,G and butch climb the top. B and me hang out on lightkeepers porch.

I have no idea what was up with butch's shirt and his jean pocket!

It was her birthday,plus it was V, how could I be mad if she turned away from her sister, and burped onion on me!

R waiting on the grub with Chef G in the background

Wednesday-I have no idea what we did, G probably flew a kite, butch and i probably layed on the beach, and you can chime in if you remember more than that.

Okay, say you've had a margarita or two (dozen) and are trying to play frisbee golf on Wii, it's always best to borrow your brothers hat (turned backwards) to help your balance!

(and I'm not even going to mention the jammies)

Thursday-Ocrocoke and Portsmith Island day!

Sunrise, from the ferry

On Portsmith

Ocrocoke at Jolly Rogers (no, you can't dress em up, or take em out)

Guys, I'm telling you, we're heading the wrong way!

Friday-Breakwater for dinner, V took picture off the dock to show Tina where her camera was hiding. Damn our last night, this week went way too fast.

Saturday-Damn itall! Maybe we need two weeks!

Saturday sunrise

Okay, random picutres i like...

Brother in laws at dawn

One of the George's curled up after an overnight storm. (he just knew 2 most important things-what time dinner was, an where were was the best apartment to go to for good grub)

Okay, we had some totally cool sunrises, so of course i took way to many pictures of them.

Rainbows

Guess where the end of the rainbow is?

Well here's one end of a double rainbow....

yep, you guessed it, we're at the other end of the rainbow.

a double rainbow at that-does that give us twice the luck?
these were taken during the summer. think about how many times you’ve seen one end of a rainbow, much less both ends- and then to have a double rainbow where you see four ends of the rainbow-pretty damn cool.

still looking for that damn leprechaun and that pot o'gold he's hiding somewhere around here.

September 09 Richmond

First off, we got home from Atlanta on Monday night, and had to get unpacked from that, and re-pack the van to head off to Richmond. You know it was a bad start when the air bed we set up on the fold down bed in the back of the van got a hole punched in it. One of us was yelling stop, stop, we’re caught, while the other one tried to force the issue. This was not good. So we made an emergency run to wally’s and while we didn’t find an air mattress that would fit, we did find a patch kit. Not sure if this would actually work, we headed off to Targe’ and picked up the mattress we needed there. It was not as good as the other one, but it didn’t have a hole in it either. Butch worked on getting the original patched up and it sat overnight before we filled it up, and surprise….it held. (and for the whole weekend too). Not much exciting happened at the races, Richmond is always good racing. Oh, and while it was really nice weather all day, I asked Butch if I should take a rain poncho up to the track with me, as a way to make sure it didn’t rain (since I was prepared) He said it couldn’t hurt, and I did. Good thing, just as we got settled I felt a drop, and then another, and damn if it didn’t rain. Well I got the poncho out and opened it up, we both sat our butts on it and held it up over our backs and heads. It kept most of us dry, and I had the electronic stuff out of the weather so that was the most important thing. After that, it was a dry night with some good racing and the best part was Kyle Busch didn’t make the chase. Jeez, I hate him. Course, the best thing for Junior this year will be the end of the season for as bad as everything has been for him.
We stay the night down there and came home Sunday. It was a good weekend.

September 09 Labor Day

It’s been a wonderfully busy September. I’ve about lost my mind, but I’m smiling about it.

We actually started out September at the end of August. We packed up the motor home and drove to Atlanta Ga over LABOR DAY! Yeah, you know we’re idiots, but they just happen to be having a race there. The Atlanta race has always been on Halloween weekend, but the changes to the NASCAR schedule messed that up. It didn’t put the Southern 500 in Darlington, where there should always be racing on Labor day, but they at least got it to the south (side of Atlanta) instead of the crappy California race.

So, we got everything we were going to need for a week shoved in the MH, loaded the bikes up on the back and down the road we went. We left on Wednesday and drove to Charlotte before sacking out for the night, and got up early and drove around Atlanta on Thursday morning. We were parked and set up by 2pm. Whew. Thanks to a wonderful lady named Shirley, who allowed us to butter her up last March to get a good camping spot, we were close to the track.
We hung out on Friday and did some Geo-caching, and shopped the trailers, and tried not to get run over by the team haulers while we were on the bikes.

Saturday we went up to the track and watched some practice and caught all the qualifying before heading back to the MH and getting some dinner. After, we walked back up and watched a pretty good Busch race, even if it was dominated by Harvick.
Sunday was actually a pretty quiet day, we hung out and checked out all the other campers. We went up to the track and got to watch a pretty good race that was nobody dominated too much. Once again Harvick was the man to beat, but a late caution allowed Kasey Kahne to get by and win the race.
Now for the time of the weekend, that I had been dreading. I’d even begged some Xanax from someone I work with, cause I really didn’t think I’d make the trip home without losing my mind. You know, going down there wasn’t bad. By splitting the ride up, and leaving before holiday traffic, it made it not too bad for me. But coming home, we were going to be driving in Labor day traffic, from Atlanta, to Pa all in one day. We pulled out of the campground at 4am to try to get out of the camper traffic and around the Atlanta nightmare of a highway system, before it got too bad. We did, and drove about 2 hours, before stopping at a Flying J to dump sewer and get another hour or so of sleep. I did pretty good for a long while, but as usual, I-81 in Virginia is just such a bitch. We came over Fancy Gap and the MH was just pulling for all it was worth. After that, it was literally all down hill. It was afternoon, and the traffic that we had beat earlier, was all around, and the tractor trailers were out. It wasn’t pretty. And I was too scared with Butch playing turnpike tag with the semi’s to go take one of those damn Xanax.
But, we made it, and that was the longest trip we’ve made so far and I didn’t have a complete nervous breakdown and butch didn’t kill me (I don’t know why not).

End of Summer

I have so much to catch up with here. In the last month we've been in Atlanta, Richmond, and Hatteras Island. It's been real fun, but real tiring. I'll catch up here when I've finished the 2 kabillionth load of laundry that's waiting it's turn.

Just one thing to say........

Beans!

Almost gone Beans!

Gone Beans!

it truly is amazing what crazy things i come up with that man puts up with!

Raystown Lake

August 7th-9th

Took the beach house to Raystown Lake for the weekend. Got there friday night without any reall difficulties, except me having heart attacks at the curvy roads. Saturday morning we got up and hiked over to another section of the park to get a geo-cache there. It was quite a walk and on the way back we walked through the marina and gawked at the boats.

Daren and Wanda came up Saturday afternoon and stayed the night, which was way cool. They brought some really good corn with them and we roasted it on the fire. It was excellent.

Sunday we drove over to another park named Trough Creek. There were two earth caches there that we went to get. The first is approriately named Balanced Rock.

First there was a suspension bridge that you had to go over.

Over a small (solid) bridge over Rainbow Falls.

It doesn't actually show up too well here, but it is a falls. Then we had to hike up the side of the mountain. The Army corps of engineers or somebody has actually place rock to resemble stairs. Resemble being the key word there. Of course, they were wet on top of everything else. But we got to the top and it was a big ole giant rock that is hanging on its edge over a creek down below. Probably been there for thousands of years, and will be there thousands more, just hanging on.

Yeah, we're goofy

Oh, did I mention the signs they had posted there? "Snakes live here. Watch out for the Snakes" Hey, last thing on my mind if I see a snake is hassling it!

We went to another section of the park and they have something the call the Ice Mine. It seems when they were mining ore out of the mountains here this was probably used as a test mine. Due to the air that goes in and out of the mine, ice would form and stay there until the very late summer.

Daren and Butch down the mine.

Of course, it was quite chilly down there and when we came up, everything glass fogged up.

Some things are just hereditary. With the Hoover boys, its the ability to look at something for an extrodinary length of time, disect it, analyze it, and finally come to the same conclusion that everyone else came to half an hour before.

Here, Butch is obviously explaining how the dam was built.

After studying the map, they both come to the conclusion, that we're right here.

(this picture was taken when they actually had the map facing up, and not turned sideways)

It was so blasted humid that when we got back to the campground we grilled some meat and got packed up and headed home.

4th of July

For the holiday weekend, we took a road trip down to Endless Caverns. We left Thursday night, and were worried (okay, I was) about the traffic down 81 in the motor home. We we lucky. The traffic was not bad at all and we stopped at Winchester Camping World and got a bike rack. Yes, you can roll your eyes now. We got to the camp ground around 7pm and they had us pre-registered (gave me a heart attack before we even left the house, thinking they didn't have our reservation). It's a nice campground, but the spaces are too narrow. Since it is all terraced, it's on the side of a mountain, you only have so much room. Our space was as wide as the awning on the motor home. That was it. The fire ring was in front of the motor home, instead of to the side, where we could have been under the awning. They are doing a huge amount of expansion, going from 66 spaces to like 350. They had just finished the pool and opened it a week or two before we were there. There is a big rec building, and they have plans for water slides. For the price of the campsite, they should have at least that. How about a little more elbow room. If we go back we'd definitely request a pull thru site, as they were quite a bit larger (and that much more expensive).

Since we were on the side of the mountain, the bikes did not get used. Hell, it was hard enough walking it.

We went to the caverns on Friday morning and hit a good tour. There were only 7 of us. The next tour......21 people.

The last picture, Butch is looking into a crock that has been there for like a hundred years. There is a water drip that averages 4 gallons a day and drips into this crock. Many years ago, they'd have party's down in the caves, and they used this instead of carrying water down. The middle picture, is actually a large room that they used for dances and parties. I really can't imagine being down here with only candles.

Saturday night, we went up to the lodge and watch they fireworks from New Market from the meadow there. Cool view of the entire valley, and we were practically eye level with the fireworks, since we were up on the side of the mountain. Many of the backyard fireworks were actually below us. It was a real nice display.

Pine Grove Furnace State Park

You know, it's summer, so you really don't think you'll get anything on time, do you?

June 19-21
We took the "beach house" up to Pine Grove Furnace State Park. V & R came up and spent Saturday afternoon with us. I fixed up a new recipe called Rum Chica Rum Chicken. I thought it was pretty good, and V & R either lied well, or liked it also.

Butch and R did their best Lewis and Clark impression and led V and myself through a mud bog trail. "we don't know where we are, but we're making good time!"

It was a nice well kept park and they're still doing improvements. We booked a weekend in October when the trees will be turning.

It was a bit rainy, but mostly at night, so it really didn't affect us much.

Butch got to use his little axe

Butch aka Sid the fire king

Alvin stopped by for a visit

This is Butch reading up on the park. After this he will inform me of no less than 20 things I did not know about a State park I'd never been in before. ("Well, hon, since you got to read the info first-I guess I didn't know that")

Butch and Chuck

OK
It's been a while since we had a really good WhateverEarl.
I don't mean just the everyday roll your eyes and mutter WhateverEarl under your breath.
I mean a full fledged
WHATEVER EARL!
followed by a "I am not taking you to the hospital!"

Here we go~

When we built the house, there was a groundhog living under a big pine tree by where our mailbox would be. With all the building and grading that went on, he moved across the road and under a shed. We'd see him from time to time and he'd give us the finger and turn his back on us.

Tonight butch was sitting at the kitchen table and looks out the french doors and sees the groundhog running as bold as you can be, across the back yard. I'll tell you what, that groundhog is now the size of a medium sized dog. As the chuck runs around the back of the house and up along the garages, butch jumps up and runs after it. I then hear him calling me, and I'm thinking, this ain't going to be good for one of us. me, him or the chuck.
So I go out to the garage and he's (butch, not the chuck) standing in the door looking out toward the big pine tree. Seems the groundhog ran under it, and down into the big hole that he'd dug there years ago. I'm thinking, this still isn't looking good for one of us.
I said, why don't you pour bleach down the hole. (I knew it was dumb when I said it) butch says to me, what the hell is that going to accomplish, and I thought that it would make it easy for us to identify him if we saw him again, cause he'd be the only bleached blonde groundhog in PA. This was actually an attempt to get him (again, butch not the chuck) from doing what I figured would be a whole lot worse than a bleached blonde chuck.
butch says, I'm going to get the 1/4 stick (of dynamite!) that Daren gave me and I'm going to throw it down the groundhog hole.

blink............blink.............blink
OMG!
(Remind me to beat the snot out of Daren!)

All I can think of is, there are several things that could happen if this actually occurs:
1. The tree will fall over and across the road.
2. The groundhog will be really pissed off.
3. The groundhog will be deaf.
4. The groundhog will become a flaming ball of fur flying out of the hole at the speed of sound and head right toward us and be really pissed off.
or
5. All the above

This had all the making of a Chevy Chase moment.

This was a Carl Spackler moment from Caddyshack.

So he says watch the hole.
Like I'm going to shoo the groundhog back in if he tries to come out?
He runs up into the garage and I hear him running around and he comes back out with the 1/4 stick and a lighter. He climbs in under the tree and proceeds to try to get the lighter to work. It finally catches and he throws the 1/4 stick down the hole and runs like hell to get out from in the tree.

Okay, for those of you who actually know butch, I'll just take a second here to let you get a picture him running like hell, out from inside the tree.......

You'll understand why I wish I had a camera......with audio. I'm standing there with my fingers in my ears, and the damn thing only went.....ka pouf!
Well, the crap went flying up and smoke started billowing out of the hole, and the tree didn't fall over, and the flaming ball o'groundhog didn't come flying out.

I figure if we see the groundhog walking across the road with the little stars flying around his head, we should just hit him with the car, since he'll be deaf and never hear the car coming.

So, butch, consults with Daren, and they figure that he (the chuck) has to be a goner. Because of the sound that the 1/4 stick made, it had to have dropped really far down the hole, otherwise it would have been really loud. I guess now in a week or so, we'll get the pleasant odor of char-broiled groundhog rotting.

OMG

WHATEVER EARL!!!!!

Daren & Wanda get Married!

Daren and Wanda got married at the JP's the end of May. They went to Williamsburg for their honeymoon and had a blast. When they got back, they had a pig roast to celebrate. Butch thought it was a great idea to take the motorhome over to their house and just stay there the weekend. It actually was a really good idea, cause that way we could be there to help with anything they needed to get done, and we'd have our own bed and not be in their way. Oh, stop, they've been living together for years now, so it's not like that!

Daren had been building a hell of a bonfire for about a month. While Wanda and I were in the house, and unknown to us, the son, with the father watching, lit that sucker. They told us that he'd put about a gallon of gasoline on it, and then trailed it down and away for saftey. That way, he'd just light the trail like a fuse. Great theory, until the matches were damp and wouldn't light. So Daren runs to the shed and grabs another pack and runs back up the hill and lights it. You do know about gasoline fumes....right? Well, Wanda and I are in the kitchen, and we hear the first whooomp, followed by a huge KAAAWHHHOOMP. I turned to her and said, do you think they have any eyebrows left? Let me just say, it wasn't the eyebrows Daren had to worry about. The fumes caused the flames to go toward the fire, but also backwards, through his legs! Good thing he had long pants on.

Butch had to get up on Saturday morning and go have blood work done. So he took the Subie and left about 7:30. Can't wait till he gets those results. You're supposed to fast for 12 hours before. yeah, right. At 9pm I looked at him with the beer in his hand and said, that's going to have to be your last one. At 11pm when he had a beer in one hand, and a piece of pizza in the other, I figured it was just too damn late to worry about it.

So while he's gone, the boys had gone and picked up the pig. When I walked down the hill this is what greated me.

Which, as I explained to Ryan, @#$@#$$%#$, Ryan, that's a hell of a @#$%#$#^^$# thing for the non meat eater to see first thing in the morning! Started his morning off with a good laugh.

Butch got back and had brought coffee for the fire keepers.

Hoover boys!

I believe this one is after butch and Daren had gone on the 8:30 am beer run.

Ryan and Terry did a spectacular job cooking "Ziffle" and the pig was dubed by Ryan. It finished up looking something like this.

Way too many things happened to try to write about, it'd take me way too long. Much was eaten, horseshoes thrown, kegs drained, beautiful wedding cake, very happy couple. There were mules to brag about, drunks to take home, lies to be told and men shot down. Wanda's son and his friends hauled in the second keg. Kids played, old people watched, everyone laughed.

It was a really beautiful day.