A good day

 This was a fun and successful day. Goals - get a forest map from the ranger station, find a good campground, and hook up with AA. Plus, have some fun.

Emo Dog doesn't understand that we are now on Central Time, so we were up early. I found the Ranger station in Vienna, but it wasn't open yet, so I went to a local restaurant and had a good breakfast. After that, the Ranger station was open, and as usual, I had a nice conversation with the ladies there and got a good forest map. There has been a lot of storm damage here, even more in the Western part of the Forest.

We spent a couple hours on gravel forest roads checking out some primitive campgrounds and just having a good time, then I checked out a couple commercial campgrounds. The second one had a cancellation, and I will be able to move tomorrow and get a good site with everything we want, full hook-ups and a clear view of the satellite. Details tomorrow.

The campground here with the Forest Service is OK, I guess, but it is run by a private concessionaire, and the price is now $18/day. That's for electric only, and I have no DirecTV. But it looks like this forest has enough stuff to keep us busy for a month, so I am taking the monthly rate at the commercial campground.

What remained here was, since we were leaving Lake Glendale tomorrow, we might as well spend the afternoon hiking its trail! That's what we did, it is a little over 3 miles around the lake. I have some pictures, but the internet is intermittent here (a good signal at the commercial campground) so I'll post some of them tomorrow.

It took a couple phone calls, but I did find a meeting place tonight, and attended a meeting with 5 of us, but it was a good meeting, we went over an hour. Now I have a meeting schedule, so I can go when I want. And the meetings in Harrisville, along with full service shopping, is only about 20 minutes from tomorrow's new campground.

So, a great day. I might not blog every day of the trip, but I will try to get some more pictures up soon.

We made it here to the Lake Glendale Recreation Area and are camped in spot 20 in the campground by the lake. No satellite TV under these trees, and all the local stations I can get are two NBC stations and some Christian evangelical stuff. And the internet is slow here off the Blackberry. Even worse, I'm by the playground, so things may get bad over the holiday.

Tomorrow, we will check around the local area and see if we want to stay here over the holiday, or what. I will have to move to a spot with TV before the 28th so I can watch the Women's College World Series. But actually, this is a pretty campground with electric and a nice trail around the lake, and I have some DVD's with me, stuff to read, and I am online. So, we will decide tomorrow.

Made good time getting here, it turns out I didn't leave until about noon today (Monday) but got set up here well before dark. Time to feed us both, more later.

Getting ready to hit the road

My last day of work was today, and I hope to get on the road Sunday. But, we may have some disappointments with Shawnee Nat'l Forest - there was a wind storm and some portions of the forest are closed . This is a bummer for us, because we like to explore the forests, but I think we will still be OK. The big storm was May 8, and the campground we want to stay at, Oak Point, is still open. 

The RV and the Subaru are all ready for the trip, I've done the outside work I needed to do, stopped my mail, the washer and dryer are going as I write this, about all I need to do tomorrow is get the RV over here, pack up, maybe put a few grocery items in the RV, and clean the house a little so I won't be embarrassed if Tom has to go in. Emo dog doesn't suspect anything yet, but when I park the RV in the driveway and start to stock up, he will know.

I plan to go I75 to I71 to Louisville, then I64 over into Illinois and shortly after the border go south to the campground. I will probably stop somewhere to overnight Sunday, but I haven't decided where. It may be a rest stop or a truck stop.

The big important thing is to get a campsite before Memorial Day, so we don't get shut out, but with a week's jump on it, I think we will be fine. Worst case, we boondock, but I have solar and plenty big enough tanks, so that's OK, too.

Baseball

Through is all, childhood, alcoholism, the Army, school, sobriety, good and bad, love, war, peace, rich and poor, there was always baseball. From listening to my little transistor radio under the covers at night seeing how many cities I could hear from Ohio, to watching everything on Direct TV's Extra Innings package from the middle of nowhere in the RV, there is baseball. I love the history of the game, the dead ball era, Cobb and Speaker and Wagner, Johnson and Matty, and Grover Cleveland Alexander, all the way through the 60's. There is a void during my drinking days, and the modern game has twice as many teams and is hard to keep up with, but I sure do enjoy watching.

And I played as a kid, and played softball as an adult. I hustled like Pete Rose in co-ed softball. Always played the game right. Played a lot of shortstop and first base, pitched a one hit shutout in the Babe Ruth league. 

I've been to several professional games, minor and major league, but never to an entire 3 game series. Until last weekend, I got good $50 tickets to all 3 games of the Cards - Reds series and had a good time. 3 good ballgames, the Reds have some good pitching this year, so I wasn't afraid of a bunch of blowouts. It is a different perspective to attend the whole series. Here's some pictures from the Saturday night game, I parked in Kentucky and walked over the bridge to the stadium.

The old bridge from Covington, KY to Cincinnati

Cincinnati is my kind of town!

A view of the Great American Ballpark from the bridge.

The ballpark is beautiful inside.

Albert Pujols looks at a pitch

Fireworks from the twin stacks after the Reds win.

Big Trip Soon!

I get my two months off this summer, yeah! My last work day is May 15, I return mid-July. Voluntary leave without pay.

My plans are to go to the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois. I want to arrive there early the week before the holiday weekend, so I can get a site. I've always liked the idea of checking out this area, because there are tons of trails for Emo and me to explore. Not far to the south is Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky, and the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri is to the west. But I think we may have our 6 weeks worth in the Shawnee National Forest.

One addition to the gadgets is a Blackberry 8830 with Verizon internet access and the ability to tether the Mac G4 notebook to the Blackberry via Bluetooth, so I can have internet access on the laptop at decent speeds wherever I have an EVDO connection on the Blackberry. Verizon has the best coverage area, and I think I will be in fat city in most of southern Illinois. 

High speed internet, satellite TV with the MLB Extra Innings package, 200W Ham radio with a good antenna, full kitchen, DVD player with HDTV, and an iPod to play over the stereo speakers in the RV. That'll work!

Look for pictures late May. 

Motorcycle!

Time for a couple updates.

At the age of 51, I have taken up motorcycling! Last September I bought a 2008 Kawasaki Versys and went to the MSF Safety Course. The bike is a 650cc, a bit large for a beginner bike, but it is working out great for me. Even though I couldn't ride about 2 months solid this winter, and lots of days when it was too cold or raining, I still have almost 3000 miles on it. I love it!

The down side is, my dog can't go. But we still have had some hiking, locally. But not a lot has happened this winter, other than the bike.

Here it is last Sunday at Lake White state park, the picnic overlook:

My long term plans are to get maybe a smaller bike, and take it along with the RV and a small pickup truck, but that won't happen for a while.

Still here

I haven't updated the blog for some time, but I have some things to relate. Emo and I went to Shawnee State Forest for fall colors, and I have taken up motorcycling. Pictures soon. Winter in Ohio, now.