i have been camping. i have been camping in tennessee. i have been camping in our popup camper at the nathan bedford forrest state park. i find that a little confusing; it’s not a FOREST, it’s a state park,but the guy’s last name is forrest. we were there for yet another 114th shooting competition.
it was in the 20s two of the three camping nights. kinda chilly, but we were as snug as bugs in a rug…or as snug as a couple and their dog in a camper with a space heater, sleeping bag, and adown comforter.
it was a lot of fun and i have many pictures, and we got home sunday night and i went a little crazy starting to TAKE THE DAMN HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS DOWN – i like the decorations, but ENOUGH WAS ENOUGH. plus there were balloons tied to the halloween lights in the dining room because of david’s birthday; it was a layer of birthday decorations on top of the halloween decorations and it was just all TOO MUCH.
bright and early yesterday morning i was going to start taking down the lights in the living room – BUT THEY WERE ALL DOWN! the mysterious house elf had removed them all.
kevin got up at FIVE yesterday morning because of the time change difference, and he took all the ceiling decor down and that made me so happy.
not for long, though – i started downloading and photoshopping photos from camping, and my computer suddenly shut down with no warning at all. i turned it back on and it did the same thing. the third time, on the screen it said it had overheated. it said things were ok now, though, and then it came back on…and then off.
bad bad bad. i’d brought the computer with me on our trip, in a backpack, and it was on when i shut it, but then i never turned it off and i never opened it up when we were gone. kevin said that must have BURNED OUT THE COOLING FAN.
oh no.
at this point i sort of had a meltdown and kept stomping around saying I MUST PUNISH MYSELF JUST LIKE DOBBY!
in case you aren’t a harry potter fanatic, dobby is the house elf in the books who does stuff like ironing his fingers and smashing lamps over his head whenever he’s done something he shouldn’t have.
WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO???
we called wayne, kevin’s friend who fixes computers, and we were gonna meet him for lunch and were gonna bring the computer, but then we found it it was still under warranty so we were trying to figure out options about what to do. when we met wayne, he said he was almost ONE HUNDRED PERCENT SURE that having the computer in the backpack wouldn’t have made the fan break, because when you close a computer it goes into sleep mode or whatever.
whew. so maybe i wasn’t such a moron after all, and had spent the morning beating myself up for no good reason…but then because it’s under warranty i had to take it to best buy and they shipped it off to HP to be fixed, and WHO KNOWS WHEN I’LL SEE MY COMPUTER EVER AGAIN.
i can use kevin’s computer, and i did get some of the pictures downloaded onto my computer, and copied them here to kevin’s computer, so i’ll put some up, but i really don’t know how this is going to go, not having my computer for at least a week and a half and up to a month. i’m used to checking the weather and reading my comics and all of that sitting right there on the comfy couch. not to mention the many, many pictures i have to fix on photoshop and post here.
at least the halloween decorations are all down now. this morning, because i couldn’t get on my computer, instead i started doing all kinds of busy things, and i did get a lot done.
but anyway, here are a few of the photos from our trip. it took almost seven hours to get there, and i kept taking pictures and sending them to people. i think this is rend lake, in southern illinois. it might also be the ohio river as we crossed into kentucky. it was a beautiful day for driving.
we stopped at a rest area and there was a HUGE SUPER-FANCY RACING BOAT parked there. it was on its side being towed by a truck. i went in to go to the bathroom but when i opened the back door to let mollie out, our picnic basket fell out and the peanut butter rolled right under the middle of the van, and it was all a little bit of activity and chaos, and i finally went in and rested and then came back out and was gonna take a picture of the boat with my phone THE TRUCK STARTED MOVING. i ran after it but it was too fast for me.
it wasn’t just the fancy huge racing boat, either – it was a whole caravan, including a fancy huge RV towing a trailer and a big pickup pulling a speed boat with two waverunners on top. DAMN what a missed photo opportunity.
WE MUST CATCH UP WITH THEM i said to kevin, but i was mostly kidding because i figured that since we were towing the poput we wouldn’t exactly be zooming along.
but it’s important that kevin USED TO BE A STATE COP and he used to do a lot of high-speed driving and when he has a reason to, he goes fast. usually he’s EXTREMELY law-abiding when it comes to speed, but suddenly we could see the caravan of trucks in front of us and i got out my camera, my cell phone, and the video camera.
here they are in front of us. that thing on its side is the racing boat.
we started to pass – that trailer looks like it’s as big as the fancy RV, doesn’t it? you can get an OK view of the top of the racing boat here.
there it is! i took this picture with my phone so i could send it off to people.
and this picture with my camera, as we slowly passed it.
world champion racing team! i waved at the guy in the cab of the truck but he didn’t wave back.
as we were driving along mollie really REALLY wanted to sit in my lap, so i let her. i know it is VERY DANGEROUS to let a dog ride in your lap, and we’re going to strap her in next time because amy and jim are going to lend us their doggie car straps. but she thoroughly enjoyed herself. this was pretty much my view for quite a while.
we finally arrived at the nathan bedford forrest state park and set up camp, then set out to see stuff. we drove to the folk life or wildlife center; i can’t exactly remember the name of it. there was a tall monument in honor of NBF. it’s right along the kentucky river, and the place was really pretty.
we went into the center and a very very friendly woman with a southern accent explained some stuff about the different exhibits they had, and then she said that they let the turtles out sometimes so don’t be alarmed if we saw one zooming along the carpet. i wanted to see this, but first i just saw these turtles swimming in an aquarium.
it seemed like they must not have a very big budget for the museum; one display was of different kinds of canned goods. you couldn’t read the very old labels on a lot of the things, but that second jar from the right contains carp. i guess home-canned carp is or was very popular there along the kentucky river. this carp had been in that jar for a very long time and it looked really repulsive.
and that’s all the photos i got downloaded and compressed and everything. i know there are a few more good ones of the center, plus lots of kevin shooting and us camping and all of that, but i’m sitting here in our office with the annoying light shining down on me and i really have to get out of here now.
i have to get back to HARRY POTTER – since the second to last movie is coming out in a little over a week, i’ve been trying to re-read all of them. i made it through one and two, and now i’m on three, but it’s hard to get them read when i have to do other things all the time. i had hoped to read more harry potter when we were camping, but there always seemed to be something else to do.
but now, it’s time…
ok then,
mrs. tuesday grace.