More of our trip-April 30, 2016

Arkansas Nuclear One (ANO)

 

This is the Dardenelle Nuclear Power Plant near Russellville, Arkansas. This is one of two cooling tunnels we watched built as we made our annual trip from Colorado to Alabama starting in 1976. It's on Lake Dardenelle which like most lakes in Arkansas is huge. When this was being built there were no trees and you could see everything. It was just fascinating. As we passed it this year and saw the maturity of the trees we realized just how old we are! This nuclear plant has operated all this time without incident and no doubt the local people are happy for the jobs available. They also love the fishing in the lake. We always wondered if the fish glowed in the dark? Or if they had 3 eyes? Seriously, this is a beautiful part of Arkansas. It seems prettier now since the trees are so much greener and fuller.

Beginning of the trip-April 28, 2016

The day we needed to leave here and head for Alabama we knew a nasty snow storm was due to hit here. We desperately wanted to get ahead of it. Thankfully, we missed the snow but the gigantic hail storm we drove into and through was unbelievable. Right before we hit the Colorado/Kansas border the sky turned pitch black, the wind howled, heavy rain began and then the hail hit. It was so thick that we were in the middle of it before we knew what had hit us. The road, shoulder and all of the farm fields were snow white and inches deep in hail. Jerry was white-knuckling the steering wheel and I was speechless while holding my breath. I felt we were out of control but Jerry was holding his own. People were going everywhere, all over the road. Some people obviously had never been in hail and they were stopping in the middle of the interstate not knowing what to do. We just kept going forward because stopping and getting rear ended did not seem like a good idea. A UPS super truck flew past us doing at least 80 mph. He hit that hail and we were completely covered. He never slowed down. The roaring noise was deafening. As we kept going forward Jerry regained complete control of the Cute Red Vehicle. I called a hotel in the closest town and reserved a room. We both knew our nerves would not let us continue that day. We only went 272 miles that day.

The next day the snow storm did hit Denver.  Jerry's sister, Judy, sent us pictures of her yard.

This was Judy's front yard.

And this was her back yard.

 

We were staying in Conway, Arkansas so I sent her a picture of the front of our hotel.

 

Her reply was "You win!"

 

 

 

 

An oddity-April 26, 2016

This was an odd sight to us this morning. It's hail on the tile roof

of the house next door. We have not seen that before. Add to that

the thought we would not have weather as bad as it was and you

will understand how surprised we were when we looked out the window.

 



Our entire week is supposed to be ugly including a high this Saturday of only 44 degrees. Winter just will not give up and go away. I thought I heard them talking about more snow this week so I just walked out of the room and ignored it. I'm just glad I have not packed away my winter clothes.

I have some pictures to post of our trip to Alabama but I don't have time right now. It was a once in a lifetime trip.

Life Goes On-April 24, 2016

In loving memory of my wonderful Mother.

We will all be closer and stay in touch more often because that is what she would want us to do.

 

I wrote this and had the preacher read it at Mother's service. It won't mean anything to you, but by stating this publicly I am promising to keep my word.

 

To my sweet Mother,

There’s so much I could say but I believe we did our best to say it all before you left us.  

However, I would like to make a few statements.

 First, I pledge to take your advice regarding grandchildren and babysitting.  You said, “Now listen to your Mother, Cheryl” and I did.

Secondly, I hope you understood how grateful I am that you taught me how to sew my own clothes.

You and I discussed how much I appreciated hearing you play pretty music almost my entire life and what it meant to me. I will never delete the video of you playing the piano that I took last November. It is a treasure to me.

I definitely appreciate you teaching me to cook but regret never having learned your secret recipe for chocolate pudding and pie.

I will endeavor to keep Daddy’s pledge about the refrigerator.

Most of all, I want you to know that I am happy you set such a wonderful example of being a genteel Southern lady.  I hope some of it rubbed off on me.

I love you, Mama and will miss you terribly. I will always respect and honor your memory.

And by the way, I will promise to vote as you and I discussed so many times.

Love,

Cheryl

Update-April 21, 2016

I have been offline for several days and it will be a few more yet before I begin posting again. Our family has experienced the loss of our mother/grandmother/great grandmother. It is tough but we know we are going to grow closer because of this immense loss.

Please bear with me a few more days while we return and try to get back to our old routine.

Recall-April 10, 2016

Knowing that we have Takata airbags in the Cute Red Vehicle, I have been routinely checking the website to see if we were in the big recall. It always said "This vehicle is not under recall at this time." Then out of the blue last week we got the recall notice. It is quite alarming with the warning that a front end crash could kill driver or passenger with shrapnel from the explosion. It used the word "kill" twice in the letter. Then it says "parts should be available some time in summer of 2016". That is not at all comforting. Personally I think they should not have sent the letter until they had the parts available. We are not at ease in the Cute thing right now. In fact, it's not so cute to us anymore.
What a predicament to be in. We can't trade it until the recall is done so we have no choice but to pray and drive, drive and pray.

On a lighter note we took the girls to a new park on Friday. We find ourselves driving around looking for new parks to play in. That makes us sound like perverts, doesn't it? Oh dear. Anyway, we found a new one. Hannah quickly made friends with a sweet little girl named Lilly. She was there with her little brother and her grandmother. It seems there are so many of us taking our grandkids to the park these days.

Zoey is starting to slide by herself. She really likes it, too.

 

Hannah still likes the tunnels. This one was smaller than the ones

she has crawled through before. Zoey even got brave enough

to crawl through this tunnel but she was too fast for me to snap the camera.

 

It was fun for the girls and tiring for us old folks. But that's fine. We needed the fresh air and vitamin D!

Jerry's sister is coming up from Denver so we can all meet at On The Border this afternoon. I just hope the girls behave. I have never like unruly kids in a restaurant.

Quick trip-April 3, 2016

This past week we decided to take a quick trip to WinStar in Thackerville, Oklahoma. We are so glad we did. While we missed the girls we were happy to get away for a few days. The only negative part of the trip was the wind. Sometimes it was 50 mph either as a strong head wind or across the highway. It was so tiring we had to take turns driving. By the time we got back here it had let up quite a bit.

Denver got a lot more snow than we did and it was still on the ground

when we drove through on Monday. It sure makes a pretty picture.

 

Entrance to the WinStar hotel. This is Chickasaw owned and it's

on their reservation. That means no tax on anything. They certainly

do know how to make everyone feel like royalty.

 

This gigantic bronze is in front of the Chickasaw Welcome Center and the

Bedre Chocolate factory. We shopped both places. Bedre chocolate is

absolutely out of this world, perhaps the best we have ever had. It is such

a treat to bring some back home with us. To make it last we only allow ourselves

to eat it on special occasions.

 

Now we are ready to settle back into our normal routine.

 

Easter socks-April 1, 2016

We put a pair of these weird socks in each of the girls' Easter baskets.

This is the way the package looked in the Easter basket.

 

You open the plastic wrap and toss the packet into a bowl of water. In

a few minutes you have this:

Hannah's socks had frogs on them. These are Zoey's.

 

This is a fascinating gift. They make both ladies and men's underwear in these compact packages, too. (Sorry I can't turn the picture around so you can see the socks correctly.)

 

We went for more unique little gifts in the girls' Easter baskets instead of just candy this year. We all had Easter dinner together. And it was a fun time for all.