The Summer of '16

Well, it’s been 3 months since our last post and in stark contrast to our previous few blogs, we’ve been in two locations in 90 days.   After frantically moving every other day to reach our goal of 10 baseball parks in 21 days, we arrived in Arkansas on July 5 and prepared to spend 6 weeks and some quality family and lake time.

Lake Norfork, near Mountain Home, Arkansas (where I graduated from High School) was as beautiful as ever.  Kathy found a guy who put a new water pump impeller in the boat before we got there.  I bought a new battery, changed the oil and filter and we were ready to go.  It just doesn’t seem possible that our boat is now 8 years old.

Here we are, having lunch at the #1 rated beach in America.  Just look at that beautiful brown sand.






                                                                                                     This is our camp site at Robinson Point

 

One day, while reading the paper, Kathy noticed an article about a man who was conducting pickleball clinics in Mountain Home and they had pick-up games on Tuesdays.  Well, who would have thought there would be pickleball in Mountain Home???  The man who was organizing it had learned in Arizona just like Jim and Jim was really excited to get to play.  The first night he helped with the clinic but after that he just played.  AND one night the man in charge brought some fresh veggies from his garden and shared them with us.  Gotta love small towns. 

Work was slow, so we were able to get into a pretty steady routine of get up, eat breakfast, get some work done, fix lunch, take it out on the boat, spend the afternoon on the lake, come back, eat dinner, go back out on the lake until dark, go home and watch the Rangers.

Sometimes, we would "radically" change the schedule and go out on the boat in the morning and get some work done in the afternoon.  We did this when the heat wave hit.  It was consistently in the upper 90s and the water became so hot, it was not comfortable to swim or even be out there.  This lasted for almost two weeks.  But we still went in the evening, of course.

The Illinois Hurst families came in a few days after we arrived.  Jake, Jamie, Jackson, Trinity and little Millie along with my brother Bill and niece Adrienne were all there with their boats. 

Little Millie, the water bug.  If she wasn't jumping in after her baby, she was running up and down the lily pad and then jumping in.

 

 
We had our own armada, my ski boat, Bill’s bass boat, Jake’s jet ski, Kathy’s pontoon boat and Jake’s fast, but noisy boat in addition to Scott’s ski boat and John and Dana’s 31 ft. ocean-going  cruise ship.  It was a good week.

After 2 weeks at Robinson Point, we moved to Cranfield.  The view from our camp.



August 3^rd was my last day to be employed by United Road Towing and on August 4, I was officially unemployed and unofficially retired although URT and I had reached an agreement that I would still work for them as an independent contractor in case of an emergency requiring a large numbers of tow trucks.

 

My first day of retirement was spent in the 100 degree heat, with a chain saw.  Bob and I took a bunch of dead limbs out of a tree behind the vacation house and threw them on a pile to be burned later.

I didn't know being retired would be so sweaty.









A couple days later, we had another family reunion, this time with the Ragle and Schellinger clans.  By this time the heat wave had moved on, we had had a couple gully washers, the lake water was great and boat was still running like a sewing machine. 

 From left to right; Becca, Bill, Jane, LuAnn, Jimmie, Ed, Zach, Katie and me (not pictured because I'm the photographer).

We did our obligatory boating each day and played cards in the evening when we weren’t watching the Olympics.  One evening was spent at Bob’s singing in his garage/Karaoke studio.  There were some “memorable” performances to say the least.  I won’t mention any names, you know who you are.  And it’s on DVD.

Jimmie & Ed singing Big Rock Candy Mountain

Bill & LuAnn doing their best Sonny & Cher, singing I Got You Babe

 

 




What made it so much fun was that everyone participated, Jimmie, Ed, Bill, LuAnn, Zach, Katie, Becca Jane, Kathy, Bob and even me.  It was so much fun having everybody there. In addition to singing, there was wakeboarding, paddleboarding, skiing, tubing, swimming, cliff jumping, boating, eating, playing, and Olympics watching. 



Katie combined paddleboarding with her gymnastics background (showoff!)  I'm jealous.

I gave her a 10, "amplitude" you know.

Jimmie showing off her wakeboard skills.  I gave her a 10 because she did this in spite of multiple hip and back surgeries and being sixty-uh . . . I mean fifty-uh... I mean forty something.
 

 

Becca and Katie having a battle on the tube.

 

                                            It seems like only yesterday Zach and Katie took the big. . . . .

LEAP!   YEEEEHHHAAAAHHH!!!



"You can't swim?  What difference does that make?  The fall will probably kill you!" Butch Cassidy










Job obligations and daily routines can't be suspended indefinitely, so the Ragle clan went back to their respective lives, Zach and Katie to Denver and Bill, LuAnn and Becca to Ohio.   That left Jimmie, Ed, Jane and I to continue the festivities.  One day we decided to visit Blanchard Springs Caverns. 

It was really cool down there. . .  no I mean it, really cool, like 68 degrees.

 

Amazing how big those "rooms" are.  Over 100 feet from the floor to the ceiling.

 

Our last day in Arkansas was a Saturday and my high school senior class held a 65^th birthday party at a pavilion in the campground where we were camped.  It was great fun seeing classmates from the 1969 graduating class of Mountain Home High School.

 Then, it was back to Texas for our annual doctor and dentist visits.

We were very excited and looking forward to seeing Angie, Chris and the kids, back from London and taking them to Arkansas for a few days of boating.  We were going to leave the "rolling estate" in Texas.  Chris’ parents were kind enough to loan us their mini-van and we’d all pile in, drive to Ark and stay in the vacation house. 

Then the emergency happened.  Widespread flooding hit Louisiana, and all of a sudden, I was un-retired and working 14-16 hours a day.

We still drove to Arkansas, still went out on the boat and still did the things we had planned, but I just had to work during it all.  I worked at the house and on the boat, making phone calls and working on my computer.  We had to stop the boat and swim at places on the lake where I could get adequate cell reception, but we did it.

Caleb not only loved jumping off the boat, but he was a tubing maniac.  It didn’t matter who was with him, Daddy, Gram or Momma, he kept giving me the “thumbs up” to go faster.  Hannah, on the other hand, has not yet developed a fondness for the water, but then she hasn’t had the opportunities that Caleb has.  She’s got enough Hurst blood that it’s only a matter of time.  But she always loves to swing.

Caleb also tried my snorkel and was hooked on that too. 

 

One night me, Caleb and Angie made smores, after the flames died down, of course.

We had to get back to Arlington on Thursday because we had tickets to the Rangers game and Star Wars fireworks on Friday.  We met Brian at the stadium and even though the Rangers got thumped, we had a great time and the fireworks were super. 

Caleb puts the "X" in Texas

                                    And you gotta have a foam finger!




Hannah, getting into the game.  No wait!  "Is that man selling cotton candy?"











The kids did great and Hannah loved the fireworks and playing with Uncle Brian. 

The next day the Lynches had to get down to Friendswood so Caleb could start first grade on Monday.  The “London Lynches” aren’t going to be in London any longer.  They are praying about what God has for them next. 

Jane here. . .

We have had a great time while camped here in Arlington.  On our first Sunday, we went to the church where we are still members and Russ, our pastor, invited us to his house that evening for his birthday party.  He said all of the old gang would be there and they were.  What a great time of catching up, laughing and partying.  While there, some longtime friends invited us to the Ranger game with them on Tuesday and we had a fun time with Stu and Marty.  On the day of the aforementioned 65^th birthday party for the class of ’69, another longtime friend called us in Arkansas and asked if we would like to use their season tickets to go to the TCU/Arkansas football game in September in Fort Worth.  So we did that and it was quite a game and quite a win for the Razorbacks.  Had dinners with Dale and Vicki, Mike and Wanice and Steve and Debbie while here.  We’ve all known each other since before we had kids and now we are all talking about retirement.  You can’t beat friendships like that. 

 

Tomorrow we are headed south.  Our original plan to spend the winter in southern California has been altered since our grandkids are in the Houston area until the end of the year.  We will be near them while they are there and then the plan is to go to Arizona to spend January through March.  Voyager is Jim’s favorite RV park so far and he is excited to go back there.  We met some great people there last time and are looking forward to seeing them again.  Catch some Rangers spring training (after they win the World Series this year ;) ) in March, then head out for games at the west coast baseball parks.   It won’t be nearly as hectic as this season when Jim wore me out on that 10 parks in 21 days run!