The last couple of days

A nice hike around Stump Lake in Punderson Lake State Park

Zoe and I walking through the leaves in Punderson Lake State Park.

Well it has been a couple days since I have posted (at least a couple of days, I kinda loose track with all the insanity that has been going on with this trip, I’ll get to all that later). On the Monday the 15th Amy, Debby and I went on a nice long hike around Stump Lake, one of the at least three little lakes in this park. The weather was terrific, a nice cool autumn day, and the colors were fantastic. We enjoyed the hike and afterwords we went to Newberry, Ohio, the home of the fourth largest Amish settlement in the US and had a nice late lunch at ” Mary Yoder’s Amish Kitchen, Bakery, and Gift Shop” it was tough getting a nice Amish lunch for Debby seeing how she is a vegetarian, but we got by and the lunch was very very good!

Oksana shooting her bow

Debby trying to shoot the bow (with little success)

On Thursday we went to watch Oksana practice shooting her Bow after she got home from school, she really is quite good and hit the target almost every shot and even hit some bulls eyes, I was quite impressed!!! Oksana shot from 10, 15, 20 and 25 yards and after a little adjusting did very well from each distance, Debby and I each took a turn and well, compared with Oksana we — Sucked! I actually hit the hay bales but not the target and Debby hit the forrest behind the target (we did find the arrows with minimal hunting) so we both gave up quickly. David Columbo, Oksana’s father and quite a nice guy, gave it a whirl and he, of course, did WAY better than Debby and I did but I think he has had some practice! David brought along his wife and Oksana’s little sister, a very cute and quite precosious little girl and we had a wonderful autumn afternoon hanging out at the archery range, talking, laughing and just having a great time.

The American Falls and Bridalveil Falls.

The “Canadian” falls (Horseshoe falls)

On friday Amy joined Debby and I on a day trip to Niagra Falls, it was a wonderful day but it is a four hour drive each way so my butt still has not recovered from the drive. We lucked out and had perfect weather for the trip, the sun was shining and it was simply a wonderful fall day, we visited both sides of the gorge so we got the full experience and with the sun there were incredible rainbows in the gorge below Horseshoe Falls.

Maid of the Mist and a pretty rainbow, the raincoats are pink because this is Cancer Awareness month.

Saturday was pretty fun, we went with Oksana and David to Oksana’s guitar lesson, of course we made her nervous but she did real well and is progressing very nicely. She has an excellent teacher who is showng her much more than just how to play songs, he is showing her how the whole deal works! While we were at the archery range David noticed that the glass on my iphone was cracked so he brought along a new iphone 4 (same as what I have but in great condition) and gave it to me. He backed up my old phone to the cloud switched out SIMM chips and I was back up and running. He also gave me a sweet Otter case for the phone so I shouldn’t have that problem again!

After the lesson Debby and I went back to the West Side Market in Cleveland and got more goodies and of course (for me) another dozen oysters, this time Blue Points for $10.00, what a deal. I also got some cured meats for the road but at the current rate of consumption I doubt they will make it out of Ohio!

Sunday was a “relax around the camp” day, we both needed a day off.

A new problem and another unplanned expense! When we were driving back to Punderson after Niagra, we developed a major shimmy in the truck, it happened twice and was very concerning so we had a guy (the nephew of one of Amy’s neighbors) look at it. We both thought initially that is was the U-jounts but after looking at it, giving it a test drive and asking a mechanic friend of his it was noticed that three of the four tires had blown radials so off to the tire company to get 4 new tires for the truck, another major bummer.

Amy has been working the last couple of days so we had the chance to fix all the problems at her house, yesterday I fixed the gate and the siding and today I got the screen fixed, been a busy bunch of days!

We have two days left here, Birthday dinner with the family for Debby tomorrow and a day to get ready to hit the road. We are on the 26th off to Columbus for the BunFest on the 27th then points south!

See you all soon!
Victor