August - where did it go?

August is gone! ... It really went by fast while we spent the month and some great time with family and friends in Ft. Wayne, IN and around Dayton, OH.

 

 

 

 

Rainwater family Birthday party -  Ft. Wayne, IN ---- Left to right -  Sons and Family - Dan, Naomi, Blake, Kane,                                                                   Dani, Natalia, Debbie, Nadene, June, Terry

At the annual Birthday Party each one of us performed a "talent" which kept us all entertained for a good part of the evening. June sang a song "Marie Laveau", Kane and Dan each did stand up comedy (They did a great job), Debbie showed us her knitting skill,  Naomi twirled her baton while Nadene sang along with her favorite group (One Direction), Natalia did some acrobatics in the back yard, and Blake showed us how to jump on a pogo stick and climb steps on it. I stood on my hands for 5 seconds (really)

Natalia doing her gymnastics

Nadene & Naomi (Daughter & Mother) doing their 'act'

 

Dan and his comedy routine - Quote:  "My Mother-in-law fell into a Wishing Well ... I didn't know those things worked"

Kane did his routine reading from popsickle sticks that had jokes printed on them - he 'had' to eat the popsickles to collect the jokes.

Grandson Blake - He mastered these stilts I made for him from some poles I found in the garage.





 

June with one of her favorites'

 

With friends Ron & Mary McLin at their Shuffle Club in Springfield, OH ... Played three games with their club members - June and her partner beat me and my partner one game.

Troy, Ohio - with June's Mother, Brother, Neices, and 7 Grand neices & nephews (Including 2 sets of twins)

Neice - Kim Berry

Dayton, OH - Nephew Joe and grand neice Jessica
We also spent some time with neice Kim and Her hubby, Lee. We went to dinner and helped them celebrate their 32nd anniversary.  After, we all drove to where we were staying (Buck Creek State Park, Springfield, OH) and spent some time visiting. Our grand neice Nicole drove over from Columbus to visit too.  A very nice evening.


A trip to Dayton, Ohio area would not be complete until we had our favorite ever pizza from Marion's Pizza ....... We went twice during our 6 day stay on the area ...... You'll never know unless you have one.

Winchester Canal, OH - Brother Dave, Sister-in-law Paula, Sister Brenda, Bro-in-law Charles

I didn't get a picure (Shame on me), but had a great visit with friends Jack & Hilda Mobley now living in Hamilton, OH.  It's really nice spending time with old friends and sharing memories.

Our last visit before we left the state was with an old childhood friend, Denny Sensenbaugh and his wife Patty.  Denny and I were neighbors from the first grade through our senior year in high school.  Our houses were about 10 feet apart. Denny reminded me that we used to tie tin cans together and talk from our upstair bedrooms across the space between houses.  The last time I saw Denny prior to this visit was at his wedding circa 1965.  Other than a few years, it seemed like just a few weeks. 

Heading South.............................
 

Indiana

We're winding down our summer travels - not as exciting for us as much as last year, but relaxing none-the-less.  We found our way last weekend to Remington, IN - just a few miles from the Illinois state line, where we spent a relaxing few days.

 We had a good spot by the private Campgound lake. The weather was great and cooled down in the 80's  - a great change from the 90's and 100's we've been seeing the last couple months.

June got in a little fishing - she said she caught some but I never saw any evidence.

Sitting around today suited me just fine.

 


We finally made it to Ft. Wayne July 30th where we will spend at least two weeks with Family. 

Here we are on a day out with grandkids - Natalia, Nadine, Blake.

 The water park wore us out!  Here's June trying out the tube on the lazy river

Daniel on the chute.

And Daughter-in-law Naomi splashing down.

Natalia in the wave pool

Blake in the wave pool.

Nadine just relaxing after some tubing.

This is the shady spot we staked out for our group at the Deep River Water Park.

Today (Saturday) June and I are catching up on rest all day at Johnny Appleseed Park where we are camped while in Ft. Wayne. A very nice city park just a mile from the mall and close to family.

John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed) gravesite here at Johnny Appleseed Park.

Thanks for following us this year... We'll finish our visit here in Ft. Wayne  -Stop in Dayton, Ohio for a few days, then head back to Florida in September.

Missouri & Illinois

We left Mount Magazine in Arkansas and headed North 150 miles to Branson Missouri where we stayed at Table Rock State Park on Table Rock lake.  The campground and State Park were very nice, and busy. We stayed here six nights, saw three shows and had a pretty good time just looking around the area.  Branson is full of shopping, food, and entertainment.  While in Branson we took a three-hour dinner cruise aboard the Showboat Branson Belle.  The dinner and entertainment were great!  We also did the Yakov Smirnoff Dinner show  - another really great evening.  And, we did an after noon Marty Robbins tribute - They did a nice job and we enjoyed the two hour show sitting three feet from the stage...

Showboat Branson Belle

On-board the Belle

This guy was amazing - you had to be there.

After Branson we drove up to Lake of the Ozarks State Park for a couple nights.

At Lake of the Ozarks - We're actually parked level - (Must be camera angle)

 

After ozarks we stopped one night at the Casino Queen across the river from the St. Louis Arch.  Of course we made our donation in the casino....

We're now at Wolf Creek State Park in Central Illinois for a couple days before heading to a Bluegrass Weekend in Remington, Indiana before completing our plans in Ft. Wayne, Indiana where we'll visit with sons and grandkids for a couple weeks. After that we'll head back to Florida for the winter.

This Owl was posing for us at Wolf Creek

Mt. Magazine - Arkansas

Mount Magazine is the highest point in Arkansas. We stayed in the State park for 6 nights just a few feet from the summit which is 2753 ft.  That doesn't seem very high compared to last years' Rockies, but it was high enough to escape the heat down below in the 90's and occasionally over 100 degrees.  We drove into Paris, AR a couple times for lunch at a great restaurant - The Grapevine.  Really great food and service. Seemed like everybody in the town was there.  The temps on the mountain while we were there was in the 80's and as low as 65 at night.  The State Park has a fairly new lodge, opened in 2004, and a visitors center that looks about the same age.  The hiking trails are fun because they follow the rocky cliffs where the view is great.  Hiking was our primary activity as well as attending  a few of the brief nature walks with Don, the State Park interpretive guide.

At the summit

One of the ridge trails - on the edge

A popular launch site for hang glider enthusiasts - One hang glider set a record from the Mount Magazine launch site -
A six hour flight North about 170 miles into Missouri.

Hummingbird at the visitors center

Two steps back?  Don't think so.....

Sunset on the mountain after a light rain....

Oklahoma

We've completed our 2 month committment volunteering at Lake Whitney, TX and are on the move as of July 1st. We stayed two nights at Fort Richardson State Park, Jacksboro, TX on our way North.  We were the only visitors to the fort on Monday. After the civil war, this fort was in operation for only about 12 years; and used primarily for attracting settlement to the area. The fort had no walls and indian trouble was rare.  The few remaining buildings are mostly reproductions, but the exterior walls on the one remaining troop barracks are original.

Troop Barracks Bldg. Vertical pole walls.

Fort Richardson Park, Like Lake Whitney, has lots of deer. We see several with young fawns every morning and evening right across from our camp site. 

After Ft. Richardson we crossed into Oklahoma and stayed three nights at the Chickasaw National Recreation Area near Sulphur, OK.  The surrounding land is now Chickasaw Indian land, which was once Choctaw land.   We visited the Chickasaw Cultural Center and learned a good deal about the tribe.  I have this story pretty close - Many years ago, the Chickasaw and Choctaw were one people. To escape warring with other tribes they started west, led by a sacred pole they put into the ground each night. The next mornoing they would find the pole leaning and they followed that direction.  One morning the pole was wobbling and the chiefs two sons could not agree which direction to travel, so they split.  Each son guided those who would follow. One group was called Choctaw after the son named Chahta and the other son Chikasha.    The Choctaw ended up in Oklahoma while the Chickasaw were in Mississippi. Our government later gave half the Choctaw land to the Chickasaw nation when they were kicked out of Mississippi, breaking both treaties.

Some of the museum art.

As I write this, we are camping for three nights at Eufala Lake near the dam in a Corp of Engineers Park.  Eufala Lake is really big and spreads for 50 miles every direction.  This is a great water sport destination;  Too bad we don't have our boat anymore, it would be wonderful to take time and explore this lake.

Eufala Dam

On Monday we'll head to Mount Magazine State Park in Arkansas. Mount Magazine is the highest point in the state and is supposed to be 10 degrees cooler there becasue of the altitude.... We sure look forward to getting out of this 100 degree heat we've been in for the past month.

This 'N' That

Friday night,  June 15 we drove to Lillian, TX where the First baptist Church of Lillian hosted a Bluegrass show.  They had about 150 audience and the show was pretty good. One of the people we met told about the Bluegrass jam the next day in Glen Rose, so Saturday we drove up and spent the after noon jammin' in the Glen Rose City park.

Jammin - Glen Rose, TX

We drove down to Waco again Wednesday, June 20 to the Texas Ranger Museum.  A great history of the deservedly proud Texas Rangers.

There were dozens of cool pistols used by the Rangers

A Modern Ranger?

Armadillo crossing