Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Clarksville Fair Week

Sorry for no contact in a while but intenet connections where we have been at has been limited. I could post short bursts but the larger files like photos or videos were harder because of either limited bandwith (a lot of people sharing an internet connection or no access at all.  A lot of the places we perform are in deep country with not wifi or no cell tower nearby.
I am pre-writing this in Word and will cut and paste it late with the hope that the connection later will be good enough to get some pix up.  I even have some video to upload.

Working backwards we are in Vermilion, Ohio on Lake Erie.  Our campground is right on the lake so we've taken in fishing. Amelia caught the first keeper, a catfish.  We also caught a bunch of small bass. Thinking they were stripers we tossed them back only later to learn they were white bass and any size and amount is legal.  So we threw back about 6-9 perfectly edible legal fishies. Oh well.  Today we went to a pier a town over and Victor caught a Sheephead or a fresh water drum, the fish used by McDonalds for their sandwiches.   It was huge....3lbs. Eyes as big as nickels.  We will try it tonight. The catfish and the one white bass we kept were great.

Today, Mami and I drove to Bellevue (the next venue), it's only 35 minutes or so from here, to check out our venue.  The carnival there was setting up a 1949 FerrisWheel. The layout looks nice and the hamlet very friendly looking. More on that later this week. While we did that Jim did the laundry for 11 people at a Laundromat nearby.  After Bellevue, then picking him up we noticed on the smartphone that a severe thunderstorm warning was in affect.  It slammed us on the 5 mile drive back to the RV place.  25 feet ahead of us a huge tree branch crashed to the road, we drove around it. We were pummeled by small branches and leaves, and debris. Further down the road half a tree blocked our lane and the two sides took turns driving around it.  A bit furhter down more limbs and one car engulfed in foliage...luckily he had stopped just as the tree fell and only his front end was crashed into the tree or huge tree limb. Fighting the wind we made it back to the RV park safe.

We drove here Sunday night from Clarksville, TN.  The drive was supposed to be just under 9 hours but turned out to be over 12 due to construction in Ky an OH.  My GPS took us on an interesting drive here. We went from Interstate to four lane road to two lane road, to two lanes with no lines to one lane. Some areas there were tree canopies and tulle-fog. We began to laugh at our plight. The road was eerie, hard to see and cloaked with tulle-fog. The moon was full. It was near midnight. We passed a cemetery sign that had vines overgrowing around it.  Very soon after that a house that was a little too well lit and too cheery came into view.  We were convinced we were in a Steven King story.  But eventually we made it to our camp.  It's on the grounds of a Christian Camp; sort of a little village.

We specifically came here because for the past 3 weeks cousin Brandon (our acrobat and budding trapeze guy) and his sister, Jessica, who helped out here and there in the show, had been with us. They have their yearly fam reunion here so here we are.

Lake Erie and the towns that line it are pretty darn cool. When you look out over Erie you see no other shore. It is more like a sea.

Gas out here is 3.30 similar to TN an KY but in TN we were able to get gas for 3.05 at a Krogers using our Krogers discount card.  Handy little sucker.

At the Clarksville fair we had a good time. The kids met up with friends they had made in years past. Old home week. It was pretty darn hot all week but the second day of the fair was insane. Fortunately out here fairs only open in the evening.  The down side is we had just finished a 2 week run of 9am to 8pm show days. So we has to readjust our body time schedule to a work time of around 4pm to 1am bed time.   The first three days were hard but we are troupers.  

***As I type this a second t-storm, bigger than the earlier one is slamming us right now.  We got in from the fishing trip just five minutes before this storm series started. Talk about picking a good time to get in from fishing!  This one has been going on for an hour or so. We had hoped to go catfish fishing tonight but I think that is NOT going to happen.***There goes another gun shot....or that's what it sounds like.

A week ago in Clarksville, TN Little Girl, our tiny teacup gave birth to two puppies. Sadly the fist one didn't make it.  We are not sure what happened. Her whelping box was in the front of the RV and that is where she had the first pup.  But it was in my room in the rv on top of laundry that I found the second pup and mom cleaning him up.  Several scenarios could have happened. Since this was her first time the first birth might have freaked her out and she abandoned the first one when the second started to come. Or since the box was near Titus, when he heard the pup cries he kicked the box or something and scared her off. Or the pup was born in it's sack and she couldn't get it off in time.  Or it was just born dead?????  Regardless, she is a great mom to her puppy and is taking great care of him.  In fact, he is getting quite fat.   She has shown her female dog side to the other two big dogs in the house if they try to get near the puppy.  BTW, the puppy's name is cookie. We offered the pup to my best friend and his wife, JC and Clidean, long before we left.   They have been all excited and preparing things as though they were getting a baby.  Love those guys.

On the third day after the pup was born we took him to a vet to have his tail cut and his dew claws removed. He was a trouper.

On the first day at the fair the kids had discovered the wood around the fairgrounds was a great place to play. They found wild garlic (Mami used it in the spaghetti we ate.) and wild carrot (Queen Anne's Lace), and Dew Berrys (a small blackberry).  Brandon also found ticks.  When they came out of the wood the kids found Victor Jr. and Brandon had ticks on their clothes but it was Brandon that got two under his skin. But we put a blop of Vaseline on it and in 30 minutes is easily came out....dead.  Poor kid, seems each year he is with us he has some unpleasant story to take back. Oh, out of the blue on one of the days he decided to stick his hand into a turbo style fan. Slices some top layer of skin off his fingers. When I asked him why he said, " I don't know".
(Just for the record his older brother wants to learn all my geek stunts ..nail in nose, mousetrap on tongue, fire-eating, etc.  So daring runs in that family.)

Prior to that we were at Beech Bend and I think that is where the blog ended last.
I am sure I left something out. So I will put those tidbits in when I recall them.

We also visited Dunbar cave in Clarksville....funny video about this coming next week.





 squirrel on the face
guess....







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