WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES:))

OK BOYS.....HERE WE GOOOOOO!!

Amazing what a decent night's sleep can do & today the energies, enthusiasm & interests were back in place leading to a much better day.  We all occasionally have down days but most folks don't publicly blog about them.  I have always felt at the end of the day it's important to talk about the realities & feelings of the day & not  just fluff things off in a fairy tale sort of way.

  

WITHIN A MINUTE OF EXITING THE HURON COUNTY PLAYHOUSE THIS AFTERNOON KELLY WAS ON THE CELL PHONE FIELDING DEER PARK LODGE CALLS

First bit of business this morning was to get that electrical connection problem in the Jeep cleared up so off to the Bayfield Garage I went.  There are advantages to living in or near a small town & our only garage is a fine example of that.  Garage owner Don came out right away & had a look at the connector, slipped back inside for some tools, (thought he was gonna get a 20 pound sledge) & then set about getting the connection apart.  This might sound odd but I was heartened by the difficulty Don had getting that connector apart.  It wasn't just me!!  Thirty seconds later the deed was done & he permanently removed the tiny locking clip so that frustration would not happen again.

HURON COUNTY PLAYHOUSE COMPLEX WITH THE MAIN STAGE IN THAT TALLER CENTER BUILDING

From there it was a short hop to STORMRUNNER R.V. SALES & SERVICE.   Along with the Bayfield Garage we are fortunate to have a full service facility that can look after all our RVing needs.  Dianne & Harry are RV folks themselves & spend their winter months in Florida.  Had a few RV questions plus I wanted to drop in & see Dianne because she often emails us while we are traveling & catches us up on some of Bayfield's news.  We always look forward to her emails.  Both Dianne & Harry are former Jeep owners so they slipped out to have a look at our little Jeepers.  Appreciated their advice & suggestions.  Harry advised getting some oil on the door hinges & Dianne suggested I blow my nose & get my hat on straight.......Ok, ok, so that last one wasn't true:))   Dianne & Harry run a first class RV business here & anyone in the area would be well advised to drop in with any RV questions & check out their large inventory of new & used RV's & well stocked RV store.............especially you 5th wheel Jockeys because they do specialize in 5th wheels.  Just tell em the Bayfield Bunch sent ya:))

              

PEOPLE WAITING FOR THE AFTERNOON PERFORMANCE AT THE PLAYHOUSE

Tried my hand at putting a Bayfield Bunch logo on the windshield of the Jeep this morning & it was a good thing I had two sets of letters because I really messed up the first one & ended up with Goo Gone & a scraper to remove the mess I made.  Second attempt went much better.  Good thing Kelly's son has a Graphic Design business & we can get some of that graphic stuff for free.  FLORENCE SIGNS AND GRAPHICS

MY SECOND ATTEMPT AT GETTING THE LETTERING ON CORRECTLY

We Jeeped it to Grand Bend this afternoon to see the first performance of 'Country Legends' at the Huron County Playhouse.  And, as usual we were treated to a superb performance by very professional musicians & Playhouse performers.  It was a packed house & the nearly two hour performance had people out of their seats clapping & singing along to the music.  Hank Williams, Marty Robbins, Ray Price, Dolly Parton, George Jones, Tammy Wynett, Patsy Cline, Statler Brothers, Willy Nelson, Hank Snow, Roger Miller, Glen Campbell & Little Jimmy Dickens were just a few of the tribute performers there today.  What a perfect way to spend a few hours on a beautiful sunny summer's day here at Ontario's West Coast.

NOTICE THAT SQUEEGEE LAYING ON THE HOOD.....I had used that squeegee to press out any air bubbles on the windshield logo.  That was this morning at home & this picture was taken this afternoon at the Huron County Playhouse near Grand Bend about 20 miles from our house.  I had failed to notice that squeegee on the hood & it remained there without blowing off despite the 60 mph trip.  Last time I did this sort of thing was on I-10 in New Mexico west of Las Cruces.  Left a small wrench on the hood of the Santa Fe while towing it behind the rig.  By chance I spotted it when we stopped for gas east of Demming!!

WATER DOGS

And, I discovered something really neat-o about the Jeep today.  For many years all our vehicles have have had power windows but you always had to go through the routine of pressing a button to either move the window up or down.  I was puzzled at how to roll the Jeep windows down so pulled out the manual.  On one of the pages I discovered a very clear set of instructions for operating the windows.  Seems there is a handy handle crank on the door right beside the driver's left hand.  By simply turning this handle one way or the other, the window can magically be either raised or lowered.  Now, how coooooool is that.  No more AUTOMATIC & pesky labor intensive finger buttons.  Awwww yes, I just love this new techno age alright:))

NO PROBLEM FINDING OUR VEHICLE IN A PARKING LOT ANYMORE CAUSE IT LOOKS KINDA DIFFERENT THAN THE REST:))

GROANER'S CORNER:))  Here's a letter little Jimmy wrote home to his Mom & Dad from his first week at Scout Camp........Dear Mom & Dad, Our Scoutmaster told us to write to our parents in case you saw the flood on TV and are worried. We are okay. Only one of our tents and 2 sleeping bags got washed away. Luckily, none of us got drowned
because we were all up on the mountain looking for Adam when it happened.
Oh yes, please call Adam's mother and tell her he is okay. He can't write because of the cast. I got to ride in one of the search and rescue jeeps. It was neat. We never would have found Adam in the dark if it hadn't been for the lightning.
Scoutmaster Keith got mad at Adam for going on a hike alone without telling anyone. Adam said he did tell him, but it was during the fire so he probably didn't hear him. Did you know that if you put gas on a fire, the gas will blow up?
The wet wood didn't burn, but one of the tents did and also some of our clothes. Matthew is going to look weird until his hair grows back.
We will be home on Saturday if Scoutmaster Keith gets the bus fixed. It wasn't his fault about the wreck. The brakes worked okay when we left. Scoutmaster Keith said that with a bus that old you have to expect something to break down; that's probably why he can't get insurance.
We think it's a neat bus. He doesn't care if we get it dirty and if it's hot, sometimes he lets us ride on the fenders. He let us take turns riding in the trailer until the highway patrol man stopped and talked to us. It gets pretty hot with 45 people in a bus made for 24.
Scoutmaster Keith is a neat guy. Don't worry, he is a good driver. In fact, he is teaching Jessie how to drive on the mountain roads where there isn't any cops. All we ever see up there are logging trucks.
This morning all of the guys were diving off the rocks and swimming out to the rapids. Scoutmaster Keith wouldn't let me because I can't swim, and Adam was afraid he would sink because of his cast, it's concrete because we didn't have any plaster, so he let us take the canoe out. It was great. You can still see some of the trees under
the water from the flood.
Scoutmaster Keith isn't crabby like some scoutmasters. He didn't even get mad about the life jackets. He has to spend a lot of time working on the bus so we are trying not to cause him any trouble.
Guess what? We have all passed our first aid merit badges. When Andrew dived into the lake and cut his arm, we got to see how a tourniquet works.
Steven and I threw up, but Scoutmaster Keith said it probably was just food poisoning from the leftover chicken. He said they got sick that way with food they ate in prison. I'm so glad he got out and became our scoutmaster. He said he sure figured out how to get things done better while he was doing his time. By the way, what is
a pedal-file?
I have to go now. We are going to town to mail our letters & buy some more beer and ammo. Don't worry about anything. We are fine and tonight it's my turn to sleep in the Scoutmaster's tent.
Love, Jimmie

----------------------------------------------------

Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.

Until one has loved an animal, part of their soul remains unawakened

OUR BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

AL'S SMUG MUG PHOTO GALLERY http://stargeezer.smugmug.com/ (a work in progress)

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.

A VERY UNPRODUCTIVE DAY:((

ALL OF TODAY'S PICS ARE FROM THE 'BEN MILLER INN' GROUNDS LAST SATURDAY & ALL DONE ABOUT 300mm WITH THE NEWER LENS

I don't know why my brain figures it has to wake me up early all the time but it had me out of bed at 3:15 a.m. this morning  and did not let me go back to sleep again!!  Aside from a few doze off's I have basically been awake in a zombie like state for the whole rest of the day.

Tried my hand at getting that socket plug in the Jeep unplugged again but my over tiredness, impatience, & low tolerance levels only allowed me 10 seconds of frustration time on that miserable annoyance & that was enough of that..........and the rest of the day didn't get much better either.

Wednesday afternoon we are off to the Huron County Playhouse just outside of Grand Bend to see the musical, Country Legends.  These are top rate performances & over the years we have attended over half a dozen plays here with every one of them being absolutely first rate.  My favorite was the Buddy Holly story about 4 years ago.

And before I forget....has anyone emailed me a question & never received an answer?  Just trying to catch up some loose ends here & get myself off this guilt wagon.  Ok, ok, one at a time please.......

                

At least the weather front that came in last night blew all of Monday's humidity out of the air making for a much cooler & pleasant day.  My time was spent with short periods of unconsciousness in my recliner interspersed with short bursts of unproductive energy resulting in just about the whole square root of nothing.  And that silly little burst of words is about all the blog material my over tired lame duck brain is going to give me tonight..................10-4:((

GROANER'S CORNER The old couple was sitting in the living room and the man asked his wife to "Make him a peanut butter sandwich with grape jelly and to make sure she used grape jelly and not the peach jelly".
She replied she would and asked did he want one slices or two. He replied two slices and make sure you use the grape jelly not the peach." He continued, as forgetful as you are would you write it down so you won't forget!"
She said: "I don't need to write it down because I will remember grape jelly and not peach.
After a while she came out with two eggs scrambled, a bowl of grits, two pieces of toast and a cup of coffee.
He looked at his meal and said:"I knew it, I knew it. I asked you to write it down because I knew you would forget the damn biscuits!" 

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.

Until one has loved an animal, part of their soul remains unawakened

OUR BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

AL'S SMUG MUG PHOTO GALLERY http://stargeezer.smugmug.com/ (a work in progress)

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.

OUR JEEP COMES HOME:)))))))

PUTTING THE LICENSE PLATES ON IN WATERLOO THIS MORNING:)))))

First things first tonight.  Thanks to everyone for sending in suggestions, probable fixes, & possible causes for my ongoing 'Error 400' blog problems.  By the time I went to bed Sunday night I was so frustrated with this whole blog publishing thing that I resigned myself to just packing it all in.  Considered doing the posts using blogger again but after using Live Writer for about a year I had no interest in going back to the old blogger ways.  Even if my Live Writer program isn't functioning correctly I still think it's the best blog platform out here for bloggers.  Ease of use & creative benefits are it's strong points.

By the time I woke up this morning around 5 the magic night time fairies had restored my head to some sort a semblance of reasonable sanity & the thought occurred to me of trying to publish the post on a different computer.   So, with that thought in mind around 6 a.m. I flopped myself into my recliner, hauled out our Win 7 Toshiba lap top, & copied & pasted the blog text into the laptop's Live Writer format. I then plucked out yesterdays photos from the desktop with a thumb drive & popped then into the Toshy laptop as well.  Inserted all the exact same pics as the night before, held my breath & hit the 'Publish' button.  Only took about 20 seconds & the post was successfully published with no dreaded Error 400 message.  That told me our desktop computer itself may be the fault.  Had forgot to put the tag lines in the bottom so no problem as I typed in some key words & re-hit the 'Publish' button, but....ERROR 400!!!!  It was OK though because the blog had already published previously, but that set to thinking maybe the problem lies with that tag line at the bottom.  Sooooo many variables.

THE JEEP IS DEFINITELY SMALLER THAN THE SANTA FE

RICK sent me over a possible fix this morning which I haven't tried yet, but I will shortly.  Other folks sent some site addys to look at & RETIRED ROD figures it's a Google problem & suggested there may be a limit on content.  I do put a lot of high resolution photos in my blog so I have always kind of suspected that might be the culprit too.  Anyway I am going to try what has been suggested & maybe do the next few posts on the laptop.  Maybe less photos too.

We were out the door headed for Waterloo Ontario by 8:15 this morning & what a beautiful morning's drive it was.  The terrain north west of Kitchener-Waterloo is Mennonite country with endless acres of rolling farmlands bordered by forests of  shaded green.  Cattle lazily grazing in fields with big white puffy clouds overhead in a deep blue sky.  Truly a peaceful & tranquil scene.  One only wonders how many short years it will be before the cities eventually creep out this way crushing & flattening everything in it's steamroller path.  All this natural beauty will one day be devoured by parking lots, big mega shopping malls, & miles upon miles of.......suburbia!!

The lady with the Jeep already had the plates off so we quickly exchanged paper work & headed for the license bureau.  I was surprised at how lite the traffic was in Waterloo.  Of course I always expect the worst of everything so when things go well, life is a bonus, & when it doesn't, I can turn to the person nearest me & smugly say, "see......told ya so!!"   Kelly busily filled out the paperwork sitting in the car while I quickly zipped into the license bureau & embedded myself in the long line-up.  I was number 23 & they were still coming in the door behind me.  Of course if I'm not number one in any kind of a line up I'm just a jumpin!!  Noticed the clerks behind the counter were very fast & efficient & about 20 minutes later Kelly & I took possession of our new Jeep license plates & of course the Government took possession of our hard earned monies in the form of taxes.

Plates in hand & paper work behind us we were buoyed by our good fortune at having everything go so smoothly this morning.  Celebrated that with a quick Tim Horton's stop & then back to the Jeep ladies place to put the new plates on.  Spilled a bit of coffee on the driver's seat so that instantly put the Bayfield Bunch stamp on the Jeep & made it all official:))  With a hand shake & a hardy 'Hi-O Silver' we were off down the street, round the corner & west bound heading for the sanctity of the serene countryside.  The serene part didn't last long for me though as I slipped my ZZ Top CD "Eliminator' into the player again, tweaked the bass/treble/balance/fade, cranked the volume & let Frank, Dusty, & Billy, chase me down the road just like the good old rock 'n' roll days.  Kelly was following me about half a mile back in the Santa Fe & had to roll her windows up.  My music listening tastes have greatly changed over the years but after all..... this was a Jeep, I was a kid today, & ZZ Top just went with the territory:))

                   

HEADING HER HOME WITH ONLY 110,621 KILOMETERS (70,186 MILES) ON THE SPEEDO

We stopped at the Ritz Villa in Mitchell on the way home & met up with my Aunt Jean from Sarasota Florida whom we hadn't seen in a couple years. Some big hugs & in we went to visit my Uncle Harry in his room.  So far, Harry continues to do well in his new surroundings.  We were finally back in Bayfield about 4.

BROTHER & SISTER MEET AFTER A LONG COUPLE OF YEARS

The Jeep has 2 tops so we had the previous owners take the soft top down & put the hard top on because it was the only way to get the hard top back to Bayfield. Of course the first order of business was to take that hard top off & get the soft summer top back on.  Well, so much for that.  There is a simple wire connector plug which connects to the hard top for running the dome lights, washer, & rear wipers.  Do you think we could get this simple plug unplugged.  Not a chance!!  Not even head honcho mechanical wizard Kelly couldn't figure out how to disconnect the darn thing.  It's one of those simple mossmagators that has a knack to it.  Once you know the knack the disconnect is simple.  Because we don't know that 'knack,' the hard top could remain on the jeep for decades to come so it's off to the Bayfield Garage in the morning to be totally embarrassed by someone with 'the knack' who will undoubtedly unhook that connection in about seven tenths of a second!!

  

OUR JEEPERS IS HOME & I THOUGHT THIS OWNER'S MANUAL POUCH WAS A NICE TOUCH

To give what's left of my blog confidence a boost I will keep the photos in tonight's post to a dull roar, keep my finger's crossed & hope the blog publishes.  Maybe I'll apply Rick's solution first.  And again, thanks to everyone for the positive comments on my ongoing blog problems.  Hope none of you get inflicted with that miserable Error 400 thingy!!  Not ever, not never!!

OUR 3 LITTLE ROBIN GUYS ARE GROWING

GROANER'S CORNER:((  Did you know an Archeologist could be described as a man whose career lies in ruins & an Atheist as a person with no invisible means of support.  But, not to worry because middle age is a time in everyone's life when actions creak louder than words.
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Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
"UNTIL ONE HAS LOVED AN ANIMAL, PART OF THEIR SOUL REMAINS UNAWAKENED"
OUR BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/
OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/
AL'S SMUG MUG PHOTO GALLERY http://stargeezer.smugmug.com/ (a work in progress)
The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.

A TORNADO WATCH SENDS ME HOME EARLY

It was a very foggy & early 7 a.m. start to the day as I headed north up into Bruce County with the mobility van this morning & by the look of my schedule I wasn't going to be getting back home until somewhere around 7 p.m. tonight. Not a lot of people to transport but a lot of waiting time to put in between trips. I'm starting this blog out this morning in the back corner of a Tim Horton's parking lot in Wingham, Ontario.

TOWN & COUNTRY SUPPORT SERVICES (who I drive for) HAS THEIR MAIN OFFICES IN WINGHAM....They refurbished the town's old train station.  I am standing where the train tracks would have been years ago.

 
TOWN & COUNTRY'S FLOWERBED

I have our new Toshiba laptop/Win 7 with me so again a bit of a challenge from our older & more familiar home XP programs. Also loaded up my cameras in hopes I might find something interesting.

 
ON THE GROUNDS OF THE BEN MILLER INN

 
It’s afternoon now on a hot muggy day but I have found a Cyber Cafe on Wingham’s main street by the name of ‘Coffee Culture.’ Great place & anytime in the future I am in this area I will definitely be hanging out in this quiet Cyber Cafe for sure.

 
THINK I JUST FOUND MY NEWEST FAVORITE PLACE IN WINGHAM

Jerry left me this comment on last night’s blog..... "Keep the bike, or we'll be subjected to dozens of posts about how you wish you hadn't sold it!” Well, at the risk of subjecting people to dozens of posts I guess the verdict is in & I had better hang onto the bike & quit going on about it!!  Good to have friends out there to keep me on the straight & narrow you know:))

I have now been sitting in this Cyber Café so long that the owner came over & offered me shares in the company. And speaking of companies, I forgot to mention in yesterday’s post that the company that owns the Ben Miller Inn & others has gone bankrupt & the Ben Miller Inn is now in receivership. Too bad.

 
JUST A FLEETING GLIMPSE OF SATURDAY'S BRIDE & ENTOURAGE

We have a very busy Monday coming up. We’ll leave early for Waterloo, pick up the ownership for the Jeep, & head to the license bureau to pick up the new tags. Then it’s a bee line back to Bayfield with the Jeep & Santa Fe with a quick stop in Mitchell to see my Uncle Harry. Kelly has to be back at Deerpark plus my Aunt Jean (Uncle Harry’s sister) from Sarasota flew into Detroit from Sarasota this morning & wants' to meet us at Harry’s new place late Monday afternoon. Going to be a busy day for sure. Still things to sort & move for Harry too.

Oh, Oh, I think the Café owner wants me out of here because I just saw members of the local swat team taking up positions outside in the shrubs close to the mobility van. Think I just heard a guy with a loud hailer say something like, “close up that laptop, move your hand away from that mouse & exit the building with your hands over your head holding only the power cord!!!!!!!!” Geeeezzzzzzz, & I’ve still got 2 hours to kill.

It is now after supper & I am back home.......after first explaining to the swat team commander that I'm just a lowly RV blogger type trying to get an early start on my daily blog!!   Shortly after leaving the Cafe this afternoon I heard the local radio station issue a Tornado watch with the threat of heavy rains.  Figured I'd better head over & see if the lady I had delivered to a friend's house earlier would consider heading back to the nursing home early just in case the weather turned really bad.  She did, & it was a good thing too because just as I was leaving the town of Wingham this afternoon the sky's opened up with a torrential downpour reassuring me I had done the right thing in interrupting the ladies visiting just half an hour before.  Some days just seem to be a bit better than others you know...................:))

GROANER’S CORNER:((  What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?
Frostbite!!   And what do you get when you cross an elephant and a skin doctor?
A pachydermatologist of course!!  And if you think those are bad, try this one..... What is a zebra?
26 sizes larger than an "A" bra:))

---------------------------------------------------------------

Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
"UNTIL ONE HAS LOVED AN ANIMAL, PART OF THEIR SOUL REMAINS UNAWAKENED"

OUR BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/
OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/
AL'S SMUG MUG PHOTO GALLERY http://stargeezer.smugmug.com/ (a work in progress)

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.

ERROR '400'....I'VE HAD ENOUGH!!!!

Despite repeated attempts again tonight at publishing, republishing, & tweaking my blog, Error 400 shot me down in flames every time.  I can't handle this kind of frustration every night anymore.  As of right now I consider my Live Writer blogging days...........OVER!!   

RAINY AFTERNOON FOR A RITZY WEDDING

PART OF THE BEN MILLER INN COMPLEX ABOUT 20 MINUTES FROM OUR PLACE & ABOUT 20 MINUTES BEFORE THE RAINS CAME TODAY!!...Supposedly a 'movie stars' retreat.  Rumor has it that Bert Reynolds & long lost love Lonni Anderson were here years ago.

 

Worked today & my mobility van travels took me to a wedding!!  Picked up wheelchair lady in a neighboring small town & took her to a well known place for rich folks called the Ben Miller Inn.  The outdoor wedding took place outside the main building around 4 & just beat the rain by about 20 minutes.  All of today's photos are from the grounds of the Ben Miller Inn while I had a 2 hour wait before returning the lady to the little town of Brussels.

THAT RED DOOR LEADS TO THE FRONT DESK, ACCOMMODATIONS, & $FINE DINING$

Thursday's trip over to Waterloo Ontario quickly brought back the harsh reality of why we do not live in a city.  Mass suburbia!!  I lived in the Kitchener-Waterloo back in the late 60's & the area around Erbsville where we went Thursday was familiar to me.  It is not familiar any longer!!  We might just as well have been transported to some far off planet from the future.  Miles upon miles & rows upon rows of crowded houses interspersed with the ever present acres of shopping malls, twisting streets, traffic lights, & the ever present metal monsters all racing & competing for space to get to whatever seems so important for them all to get to.  The shopping malls I suspect!!  Kids on the sidewalks, kids on the roads, & kids on the lawns of well manicured houses all squished together.  All perfectly fine & normal for the people living there but what a contrast it is to our lifestyle. I think that is why big city living just jumps right out at us every time & bops us on the nose whenever we see that sort of thing.  It's always a good reminder for me of why I totally avoid all cities wherever possible!!  We are sooooooooo fortunate to live where we do both here in the summer & in the southwest during the winter.    And, whenever I start my blustery complaining stuff about being home I should just be put in the car, driven to the nearest city & forced to spend half an hour in the madness.  Instant cure for AL!!!!

Finally got my pocket voice recorder to a practical level of understanding I can use.  I am now well on my way to recording miles & miles of mindless drivel to annoy myself with on miserable rainy days.  The instruction manual goes on in detail how to use the device for a multitude of operations, & I expect, had I read the manual to the end, I would have found on the last page how to directly plug the USB cord into the operational flight deck system of a 747 Jumbo Jet & program the recorder to not only fly the jet but land it as well on obscure runways somewhere in southern Zimbabwe.  However, I just took it to a level where when RVing down the road I can easily record trivia like what State lines are being crossed & when.  Maybe comment on a traffic incident like a passing car exploding in a ball of flames or a dozen alien space craft blocking traffic on I-10 west of Tucson.  Stuff I would normally forget about by the time it came to write the blog at the end of the day. 

For any RV'ers traveling in risky weather areas where there may be severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, etc., be sure to read LAURIE'S weather experienced post  today on how they prepare themselves for any worst case scenarios.  And it sounds like RV'ers JOHN & JUDY'S have themselves pretty well surrounded by all the G8 & G20 stuff going on up around Huntsville & Gravenhurst Ontario, Canada.  Military aircraft, limousine convoys, army maneuvers, & RCMP everywhere.  They are currently in a KOA campground right beside an airport being used as a command center.  A couple of days ago John found himself inadvertently at the head of an RCMP 3 limo motorcade......on his motorcycle!! (check back a day or two in his blog when you get there)

   

I am still waffling badly on the decision to sell the motorcycle.  It is a classic heart & head battle going on within.  My head tells me that selling the bike is the right thing to do both from a financial & simply logical point of view but my heart is on the opposite side of the fence saying, 'nooooooooooo, do not sell the bike dummy!!'  So, it is quite a tussle I am having with myself here for sure.

GROANER'S CORNER:(  And here's what some of those computer terms mean to our local farmers....

1. Log on: when you want to make the house warmer.

2. Log off: Timberrrrrrrrrrrr.

3. Mega Hertz: when your not careful getting the firewood.

4. Lap top: where the cat sleeps.

5. Hard drive: maneuvering through those rocky fields on the northern range when there is snow on the ground.

6. Windows: what to shut when it's cold outside.

7. Byte: what mosquitoes do.

8. Modem: what I did to the hay fields last week.

9. Keyboard: where the keys hang.

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Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.

"UNTIL ONE HAS LOVED AN ANIMAL, PART OF THEIR SOUL REMAINS UNAWAKENED"

OUR BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

AL'S SMUG MUG PHOTO GALLERY http://stargeezer.smugmug.com/ (a work in progress)

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.

MAKING ROOM IN THE DRIVEWAY FOR OUR NEW ADDITION

OUR 3 LITTLE FUZZY BABY ROBBINS ARE GROWING QUICKLY

Like a lot of folks over the past bunch of years we have slowly moved away from the paper society & now do all our banking, utility bills, & correspondence over the internet.  It's rare to even write a check anymore but we do have check books here for different types of accounts at various banks.  Three days ago we decided to write a check for something so went to the drawer where all that sort of stuff is kept.  But, all our check books were gone!!  Not just one or two, but all of them.  This was a mystery & of course a little alarming.  Nothing else missing in the house & we knew nobody could come in without us here or the dogs would attack & eat them!!  We spent 3 days looking & looking.  Even turned the Motor Home upside down in case we had put them in there.  Could aliens have beamed down from a spaceship in the night to snaffoo our check books.  Maybe a raccoon came through an open door & absconded with them.  What a mystery this was!!

                    

WE SURE HAD OUR VEHICLES LOADED FOR UNCLE HARRY'S MOVE LAST MONDAY

This morning while pondering the missing check dilemma again, Kelly happened to see the corner of a white shopping bag sticking out from under a piece of corner furniture in a hard to see & forgotten corner.  She walked over, bent down & pulled out the bag.......and there were all our check books inside.  RIGHT WHERE AL HAD HIDDEN THEM LAST OCTOBER BEFORE WE HEADED SOUTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A PAIR OF HOUSE SPARROWS

With the newest addition to our little gasoline family arriving Monday we will temporarily have 20 tires on the ground here & a total of 26 hungry cylinders to feed.  Had to do a little shuffling around in the driveway today in preparation for the Jeep coming home Monday so for sure we have to get our 99 Dodge Caravan sold post haste.  That little mini-van has been an amazingly good vehicle for us but there was always one thing I hated about it right from the day we bought it back in 05.  The doinky blue color....YUK!!   In contrast to that, we both loved the color of the Jeep as soon as we saw it.  A few other things the Jeep has that I forgot to mention yesterday are a trailer hitch & a rear view mirror with digital thermometer & directional compass built in.  I just love all that colored light stuff at night.  The radio/CD player is also an upgrade & includes a subwoofer.  I love all that subwoofer stuff too because I like to hear lots of big booming bass in my music.  I took along a ZZ Top CD Thursday to try out the Jeeps sound system but could tell right away I'm going to have to tweak the sound a bit if I'm going to get that subwoofer shaking my brains out real good.  The Jeep also has nice Alloy wheels. (whatever alloy wheels are)

Gordon, from GOLDEN WOLFORD PHOTOGRAPHY left me a comment on last night's blog straightening me out a bit in regards to Panasonic's Lumix camera line.  I do need a little straightening out from time to time you know.  Gordon said, "Just to make it clear, Al, Lumix is Panasonic's brand of digital cameras. There are many of them, ranging from pocket point-and-shoot models to digital SLRs.  The one I just bought is their compact P&S ZS7 model, which is basically the same as their less expensive ZS5, but has GPS tagging. So if tagging one's images with GPS data isn't important, the ZS5 is more cost effective."

Busy working week-end coming up & I will be on the road both days with the mobility van.  Hardest part is putting in time between the runs because I will be too far away to return home.  Better take the cameras, a laptop, soft pillow & maybe something to read...........with big print.

Although the above photograph has the Bayfield Bunch watermark on it I did not take this photo.  I think because I ran it through our Picasa Photo program the water mark was automatically added.  Credit for the photo goes to STAN SWITALSKI PHOTOGRAPHY.  It shows Kelly's daughter Sabra, oldest boy Keenan, husband Derek, & youngest son Langdon.  I did take the photos of Langdon below though.................

   

Finally got the date into the 'Recorder' but that's as far as I got so far.  Can't ask Kelly for help because I haven't told her I bought it yet.

ANCHORED OFFSHORE AT DEER PARK LODGE.................BAYFIELD, ONTARIO

GROANER'S CORNER:((  "After having dug to a depth of 10 meters last year, Scottish scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the Scots, in the weeks that followed, British scientists dug to a depth of 20 meters, and shortly after,  headlines in the UK newspapers read: "British archaeologists have found traces of 200 year old copper wire and have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundred years earlier than the Scots."

One week later, "The Daily Squidjigger," a Newfoundland newspaper, reported the following  "After digging as deep as 30 meters near Cornerbrook, Wilf Johnson, a self taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Wilf has therefore concluded that 300 years ago Newfoundland had already gone wireless."

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