No News Is Good News

     Last evening this scene prompted Durelle to say,"Come see the sun setting behind the thunderstorm."   This morning there were eagle(s), deer, and an alligator on our pond in the back yard.  First the eagles.

     As you can imagine, we never get tired of watching these wonderful birds.  One of them was down on the far bank eating something...a fish, I assume...when an alligator made a run at the eagle, who promptly departed the premises.

     This is the unsuccessful eagle hunter.  While I'm glad he missed, it would have provided one of my most dramatic pictures.  Can you imagine?
     All's well in SC.  We leave Monday for our five mile trip to the campground for our shakedown cruise.

Hodge Podge

  It has been a long time between posts.  But, we are about to get on the road again.  It appears that all the trauma of the burglary damage is behind us.  It took a couple of more iterations to get the TV back in operation.  Today I brought the rig to the Camping World in North Charleston.  We now have the TV back in normal operation.  As most of you readers know, we don't go anywhere without the sports channel and DirecTV coverage.  I do have some pictures, but as the title implies,they are not connected by any coherent theme.

This picture is of Drayton Hall.  It was taken while the Dunns were here.  That's Durelle on the portico.  I used this shot in the previous post.

        This one is a view toward the Ashley River taken from the entrance to the house.
Since then we have finally gotten the TV system debugged.  It took a while.  The burglars not only took the TV, they took the card out of the satellite receiver.  We have reservations at the Naval Weapons Station (5 miles away) for a three night stay next week. The purpose is to make sure that we have all of the bugs out of the system before we take off for the summer.  We have a new TV, a new drier, and a number of changes.  I think everything is squared away, but it is worthwhile checking things out to be sure.
     We have taken  a few backyard pictures that are worth noting.

      This is one of the pleasant sunset pictures.

     This is a shot of my beer mug from my college days with a bunch of fresh oysters at an oyster roast at the next door neighbors. 

          The last picture is of a heron in the back yard.  I am told on good authority (thanks, Ann) that the apparent injury on the shoulder is simply a changing of plumage as he enters into the mating season.  Why would he be so obvious?

The Dunns do Charleston

     This weekend we were pleased to host Bernie and Ann Dunn as they motored north to Cape Cod in time to vote in the Massachusetts Republican primary.  It was a great visit even though it was shortened by a day because they had to have some brake lines replaced before they could leave Florida.  They arrived Friday and we met them on route 17 and led them in to Charleston AFB (Joint Base Charleston) to the FamCamp.  It has been newly refurbished and has vaulted Charleston from being one of the worst FamCamps to one of the best.  They got set up and we went home to get the camera and then took them to the Citadel for the Friday afternoon Retreat Parade.

     It was a perfect day for a parade.  Both Bernie and I have done our share of parading, and we enjoyed watching the Citadel cadets doing theirs.  Below are a couple of shots from the parade.

     After the parade we went to the Hominy Grill for an early supper.  It is a classic, out of the way, Charleston eating spot that has been serving traditional southern recipes for a long time. Saturday was a bit rainy, so the traditional carriage rides did not seem to be the best option.  We chose, instead, to visit Drayton Hall.  It started life as a typical, pre-revolutionary rice plantation; but, at some point, evolved into a phosphate (fertilizer) mine.  It carries the distinction of being preserved, not restored.  There is no electricity or plumbing.  The brick s---house is a seven-holer (family meetings?).  The building must have been a marvel in its time.  When the rest of the countryside supported log cabins, this place sported 27 foot ceilings in the foyer and sculptured plaster ceilings in the entertaining rooms.  The cypress wainscoting looks as good as it did two centuries ago.  It was a bit special when Bernie was able to assist the tour guide in the intricacies of plaster ceilings because his father had made a living creating them.

        After the tour of Drayton Hall, we adjourned to Ibis Glade where we had a nice supper.  I put a pork tenderloin on the grill, and we had a pleasant evening.  We drove the Dunns back to their campsite in a fairly heavy rain and bid them adieu.  We'll see them again in August in Maine.

Oyster Roast

     The bus is still in the shop with a slide (passenger side, rear) that does not quite come all the way out.  It may be that we'll have to make a stop in Red Bay, AL on our way to Vegas.  The Dunn's arrive Thursday for three days, and we are looking forward to showing them around Charleston.  I'm sure that their visit will generate some pictures and some blog material.  Meanwhile, our next door neighbors invited us to an oyster roast this afternoon.  He had a couple of bushel and a big steamer, so he covered a wrought iron table with newspaper and we enjoyed the fun.

          The beer mug is used for scale in the picture.  It dates from my college days, so it has seen more than a few beers.  Can you translate the company motto?  Oyster roasts are somewhat similar to the Maine lobster boils that have graced these pages before.  All you need is a big pot for steaming, some cocktail sauce, a left glove and an oyster knife.  These oysters are not the single, select oysters you would find on the half shell at an oyster bar.  They come an clusters of three to ten oysters attached to each other and varying in size from a half inch to as much as six inches.  As with eating celery, you probably burn more calories than you consume...if you don't count the beer.
     The weather has been fine, and I'll close with a backyard snapshot of last evening's sunset.

Top Ten List

     OK, I know, it has been ten days since I Iast posted.  So permit me to do what the networks do.  How about a rerun?  Actually I propose to post the best ten pictures of 2011.  Yesterday I went through several thousand pictures and tagged fifty.  Today I winnowed that down to ten.  From a photographic perspective, these are not necessarily the best ten, but I have allowed personal significance to influence the selection.  They are presented in chronological order.

     This was taken at Tyndall AFB on 7 March.  On one of our evening walks Durelle and Baxter enjoyed the swing overlooking the bayou.

     This guy posed for me back in Hanahan on 27 March.  It's a back yard shot.

     June found us at the Air Force Academy.  At a lunch in the clubhouse at Eisenhower Country Club I had to take a picture of the plaque with the names of prior club champions.  I hope you can make out Durelle's name for 1972.

     From there we spent some time in Estes Park.  The campground was at 8,000 feet, but the Trail Ridge Road went up to 12,000.  This is a classic high country view.

     By 22 July we were in Empire, Michigan.  This, of course, is Baxter.

     From Michigan we headed across Canada for Maine.  A very nice stop was on the western end of Lake Nippising where I caught a hawk traveling across in front of a nice sunset.

     By August we were in Maine.  Here's a rainbow in front of our bus with the pot of gold somewhere in Penobscot Bay.

     This is a September picture around the campfire at the Branns.  This, of course, is our great-granddaughter, Brielle.

     After hurricane Irene passed off shore, we went to Schoodic Point on 9 September.  Even at dead low tide, the surf was spectacular.

     On the way back home we stopped at West Point to watch Army beat Tulane.  This shot is taken through the windshield from the North Dock parking are looking north up the Hudson toward Newburgh.
     We are getting geared up to get on the road again.  With all of the mods to our rig this winter we are going to have a shakedown cruise to Huntington Beach State Park from 9-13 March.  We'll leave in May for Las Vegas for our granddaughter's wedding.
     I hope you have enjoyed the recap of 2011.

Winter of 2012 in SC

     There have been some very nice recent comments to this blog, so I feel obliged to maintain the pace.  The salient feature of this winter has been the almost complete lack of nights when I have had to set the furnace in the motorhome.  All of the damage from the burglars has been repaired, and there is a new, flat screen TV installed.  Does anyone remember picture tubes?  As I sort of mentioned in an earlier blog, the bus was completed with the end of season work, and all washed and waxed and ready for a winter rest when we decided to leave it with ProTech to have a drier installed.  That's when the burglary occurred.  The bus came equipped with a Splendide washer-drier combo, and we (Durelle) love the convenience of not having to use laundromats.  The combination units are convenient, but the 120 volt drier is a bottleneck.  So we had decided to drive to Red Bay, AL (the factory) to replace the combo with a stacked separate washer and drier.  Then we realized that we would be forever restricted to campgrounds with 50 Amp service.  Since we spend a lot of time at sites with only 30 Amp service, we paused.  We have decided to use the storage space above the combo washer-drier to install a separate drier.  If we are at a site with only 30 Amps, we'll use the combo as before.  When we have 50 Amps, we'll use the washer part of the combo and the stand-alone drier.  It will take up no more space than a stacked washer-drier, and we can use the washer even at 30 Amp sites.  It will cost us some storage space, but so would the stacked washer-drier combination.  That work is nearly complete.  A reinforced shelf is being constructed over the combo to support the drier.  I'll include some pictures when it is done.
     These blogs are rather dull if I can't find a good picture or two.  Below are some I took last night and this morning.  It was a great sunset, and the deer cavorting on the edge of the pond were enjoyable.

Last day at 72

     There has been an unconscionable delay since my last post.  I guess life is getting boring.  The weather in January has sure validated our decision to move to Charleston in 2004.  Cindy and Durelle have had ample opportunity to play golf.  The last time out Cindy started with a 43 and just barely hung on to finally beat her mother!  'Twas a long time coming.
     After the cataract surgery had such a positive and sudden impact on my vision, I decided it was about time to do something about my deteriorating hearing.  Actually, I had given a pair of hearing aids a test run in 2009 and again in 2011.  Both times hearing improved but not enough to address the primary motivation, which was to reduce the number of times that Durelle was asked to repeat what she had just said.  So, in both trials, I returned the units and got my money back.  Since those little buggers are over $2K apiece, I wanted to see significant results before I spent that kind of money.  Yesterday I went back for a third trial.  The folks there have been more than patient with me.  This time has been different.  Baxter's bark sounds like a bear and the ice cube maker sounds like an earthquake...at least compared to what I remembered.  I expect the third time will be a charm.
     I do have a couple of recent, albeit unrelated, pictures.  The first tries to capture the holly bush in full bloom before the cedar waxwings discover it.  The second is a young blue heron in the back yard.  He really is that blue.