ST Louis Arch

We left Columbus, Ohio, early today to have enough time to visit the St. Louis Arch and ride up in it to the top. We have been here several times and never were able to ride to the top. Usually it was simply too busy, and we had no reservations. Foxy called for reservations while enroute, and we planned to ride up in the arch shortly after 2 pm. What a spectacular view you get to the east and west of the Arch! We could also see the St. Louis Cardinal Stadium which was packed for the opening day of the baseball season. It was a sea of people dressed in Cardinal Red. Sadly, they lost this game to the San Diego Padres. What a treat and one less item in our bucket list of things to do someday! Happy travels.

We get our room comped

While Max and I were outside attending to business, Foxy was getting ready to have a hot bath. When Max and I returned, Foxy was on the phone to the motel clerk, reporting that we had no hot water. The clerk responded, checked out our room and as well as another on the same floor with the same result, no hot water. So being a bright clerk, she asked us to move to the third floor, which has a separate hot water system and comped us the room. How about that? A free night for the slight inconvenience of having to move to another room. Any day, any time, I am willing to put us with the inconvenience. And, best of all, we had hot baths. Happy travels.

Max the sniffing dog

I recently heard that dogs can smell 25,000 times better than humans. I do not know if this is remotely true, but Max seems to get great delight in sniffing at everything when outside. Now if it was my nose involved, and I was not beset by allergies, then I might enjoy sniffing although not nearly as well as dogs do. I do like the smell of freshly baked apple pie, don't you? Today when walking Max to get his business done around this motel, he sniffed and sniffed. If he was sniffing the items I think he was sniffing, then I do not want to be able to have such good sensory abilities. I think that he was able to identify every dog that had preceeded him around the motel. Judging by the various leavings he was able to sniff a Saint Bernard as well as a Chihuahua (I have no idea how to spell it). Probably there were 100 other types as well, since it took Max the entire evening to make it around the motel, and clearly he was not through sniffing. Happy travels.

Red headed woodpecker

The other day at mom's house we saw a Red Headed Woodpecker. That is the first I have ever seen and a real treat. He was dining on suet that she puts out for the birds. Since she backs up to woods you never know what animal may appear and entertain you. The problem is that she also gets many deer who eat all of her outside plants and that makes landscaping almost impossible. Happy travels.

More snow

We are traveling today and drove from Syracuse into Ohio. The trip was quite uneventful until we drove around Cleveland and then headed southwest toward Columbus. It started to snow, and for the next 100 miles it was at times nearly a whiteout. I am tired of snow. Foxy is tired of snow. Max is tired of snow. Maybe tomorrow, no snow. Happy travels.

Jeff Foxworthy's latest.....

Today we left New York State by utilizing the New York State Thruway, a toll road. At one point in the Buffalo area we picked up a new charge card from an attendant. He surprised us by saying, "Hi sweetie, hi cuttie!" We were left open mouthed when he went on to say, "What a cute dog!" Since he did not say to Foxy, "You are a fine woman!", we decided he was really talking to Max, our dog. So I have a new category for Jeff Foxworthy. You might have been a ticket taker too long if..................as in this example you get "Hi sweetie, hi cutie, " and he is talking to your dog. Happy travels.

Six with one bark

Today in Mom's back yard we had six visiting deer. Max saw them and got quite excited and began to bark. All of the deer raised their white tails and looked at the house for the source of the noise. I decided it would be helpful to open the sliding door and let Max out but on his leash. He took off and quickly got to the end of the leash, and the six deer took off and disappeared. Max wanted to keep barking and really wanted to run after the deer in hopes to catch one. Final score - six for Max. Yeah Max!

We get ready to leave New York

I have not been a good correspondent this spring. We are nearly finished helping Mom with her needs and plan to leave Syracuse Wednesday morning. We plan to go to Columbus, Ohio, and then onward to St. Louis, Missouri, and maybe visit the Arch and ride to the top. On the third day we should be in Whichita, Kansas, to see Chris and family over the weekend. Then we finally turn southward and head back to Texas after a long while away. It should be warm there and a nice change from this long winter in the north country. I think we have been spoiled and now prefer lovely Texas to other parts of the country. Happy travels.

Snow in March

All right, all ready: enough of snow. It snowed here in central New York yesterday and last night and is supposed to do the same tonight. Am I complaining? Yes! We need to head South to get away from winter weather. We have had fun getting together with family. It happens so seldom that each moment together is to be cherished. I guess I can put up with more snow if the family gets together. Happy travels.

Jeff Foxworthy would be proud

Today we went on an errand to Target, and while checking out I overheard a lady with two boys say, "Come on, Seven, go to this next register." I was quite surprised to hear this and asked her, "Do you name your kids numbers? Is this number seven?" "No," she said, "His name is Devon, not Seven." Fortunately she laughed. Maybe she could see my hearing aids. Then Foxy pointed out that this same lady had big numbers on her pants. The left cheek was numbered 19 and the right 22. I wanted to go and ask her why the cheeks of her pants were numbered and then why the cheeks had different numbers but restrained myself. Maybe she had a cheek lift and one needed a bit more attention than the other. Do you suppose she bought the pants in 1922? She was not that old for sure.

As we left the store, laughing quietly, I could hear Jeff Foxworthy advertising his new book collection called, You Might Be Hard of Hearing if ........... Happy travels.

Goodbye to Ann Arbor

Today we left Ann Arbor to return to New York to see how Mom is doing. Happily, however, we did finish our mission in Michigan in that the work we had set out to accomplish has been completed by our original completion time goal. It is a moral victory, as now Kim and Chuck can put the house on the market. For those of you who have wondered about all of the work, we are now including pictures of the finished rooms, along with a few "before" pictures of the kitchen remodeling process. We are just sorry we did not think to take "before" pictures of the whole process! That would have included the many times we tried to get the correct look and finish on the 32 kitchen cabinet doors and drawers before finding the correct blend. Altogether, all of us were quite happy with all of the remodeling results, although Kim and Chuck agreed they were sorry they hadn't done them several years ago. The final results include a completely new look in the bathroom upstairs with refinished cabinets and a new vanity; new paint on most ceilings, walls, baseboards, and trim; bathroom tile floors bleached and scrubbed to look like new; kitchen cabinets refinished and new counter top, faucet, and sink installed; wood floors refinished downstairs; new quarter-round molding around downstairs baseboards; and much cleaning out and rearranging. Kim and Chuck cleaned out the garage over the weekend, so now the only remaining area to finish cleaning out is the basement area that we did not do. When the snow is finally gone and the weather warms up a bit, they can then work on the exterior of the house and yard. But for now, it is ready to go.



And, so, we have left. We are not too sure low long we will be in New York, but we are really missing Texas! At this point we have been gone close to four months, and we are eager to return to Kerrville! Happy travels.

Max gets groomed

Today, just this afternoon, I took Max to the groomer, and low and behold, a white dog accompanied me back home. He even looks like a Westie, and he can see without a forest of hair on his face. He was quite proud of his clean, bright look. In fact, it seems to me that this is indicative of changes coming in our long winter stay in Ann Arbor.

We leave here March 15 and return to New York to spend some more time with Mom. Sue is currently staying with her, and we will be team III when we get there. We anticipate spending the time until the first of April, and then we will finally return to Texas after several months' absence.

Kim and family will be putting their updated home on the market and when sold will be moving to Texas. For the first time in years we will actually have two kids living in Texas with their families. Kim expects to relocate to the Denton, Texas, area and so will we so that we can continue to help this busy family with their daily routines. It is nice to be needed. Happy travels.

Tail end projects

As we wind down our duties in Ann Arbor, we are working on the last few projects. When the parquet floors were refinished, all of the moulding trim had to be replaced. Fifty pieces of moulding later, staining each piece and a polyurethane coat, they were ready this morning to be affixed in place with the use of a nail gun. Foxy did touch up painting work while I removed accidental paint marks from all of the doors. Last night Chuck installed two of the new counter tops in the kitchen. He also re-hooked up the bathroom sink.

We had bought a new kitchen sink and only discovered that it was brown, not black, when we opened it at home. So that had to be taken back and replaced with the correctly colored sink. We had lots of other errands like buying nearly 100 feet of quarter round to finish the floors and countless others. We will be done next week regardless. Happy travels.