the Long and the short

OK....still have my cold from KY.....everyone else is either over it or close. Back spasm lisfting tire into the Rv yesterday.....stilll killing me. Blew out a second tire on the RV two days ago. That means every tire on the rv is now new.  The crook from Bozo Auto service in Santa Rosa, NM charged me $200 cash to lift our rv so we can change the spare for the blown out tire. Advice-----buy a 23ton Bottle jack for $50 and safe yourself from the jackals. He conveniently didn't have a receipt book...are you listening IRS?
That makes the total for repairs and replacement for the $6000.  That includes the two trailer tires we replaced yesterday in Holbrook AZ. Both C load bearing tires.   Why they make these cheap tires I don't know.  One man told me to stop buying US and Japanese tires , I haven't had a single one from those countries last 2 years. So the new tires are Chinese.....I was told they are doing a better job then us now...that makes me sad.   I only buy the d load tires now for the trailers (3500 load bearing)
We dropped Jim off in Holbrook to be the robot for their fair. It's on the east side of AZ he will do 4 days. We are in Kingman to do 3 days with the family show. My friend, Bill Jackson, drove our extra van out to Holbrook and met us there yesterday to give Jim transportation and to help us with the work in Kingman.
He is a prince and a hero.
We are all set up now in Kingman though it was a bit slower w/out Jim or Miles. Or both.
Still we are set to go.
Good news is we got a contract from Calico so we will be there  for one weekend. I don't know what we did to piss the marketing mgr off to initially not want to hire us. We have 16 years of fan base and I didn't want to let them down. SO we will be there for at least that one weekend.  We love Calico. Been going there since I was a kid...have relatives down there. The employees and ans are awesome. But it is run by the county and by some people who didn't grow up knowing the good ole days. So c'est la vie. We will do our best to keep the good ole days for the wonderful people who come.

Here are a few pix.

today Olivia turned 8

 I gave her all the choices in the world and she chose taco bell as her special lunch today.

Warmouth....

Well we are nearly done with our 2 and a half week vacation. We have been spending most of that time fishing.
We finally got a taste of summer. As you know in our posts here and on facebook it has been a very cool summer. But since we have been in KY it has been hot and humid. It hasn't hit 90 degrees yet but not being used to the weather it came on as a surprise.  It may of helped spur on summer colds on several of us, including me. Summer colds suck!
Mami and I had a lovely time scouting out a lake in Berea for fishing. At one point, on one trail, I realized we were surrounded by poison ivy so I had Mami hike her skirt up and carefully try not to let her clothes or legs touch it.  We were fortunate the woods were free of hikers. Oh, during all that I get a business call so as we waded around the poison ivy and rocks, and stumps, etc I was talking business with a client 2000 miles away.
We have a had a few opportunity to visit with CC and Miles. Miles showed the little ones around his dorm and they got to play ping pong, and pool, as well as see interesting places on campus.

Today we went fishing in Richmond, MO and caught for the first time a Warmouth, kind of a cross between a bass and a blue gill. We also caught a sunfish, and Olivia caught two blue gills.

Monday is Olvia's B-day and she already got one of her presents. She got a pink rod and reel....that's what she caught the blue gill with.

We are staying at our regular RV park here in Berea an that means lots of pool time for the kids. The swimming pool kind.  I even went to the pool but only waded for a bit then promptly went to sleep in a chair by the pool. The kids laughed because apparently I snored. Dang cold.

Holy Toledo

After our big adventure in Flint, MI with the  whole $1.2K trailer suspension rebuild we finally made it to Toledo, or more correctly, Slyvania, a "burb" of Toledo.  My cousins put us up and put up with us. They are pretty awesome people.  Their kids were in the tour albeit at separate times. We arrived one day late (axle problems) so my original schedule was messed up so I threw it out the window and we stayed an extra day on top of the two we originally planned, just not the original days we planned....if that makes sense.  We stayed Sunday (today) because Mami wanted us all to get some church time.  Great idea. Good message, strong bible based church. Westgate Chapel.
We were able to get some fishing in while here and fished on the Maumee River yesterday and today.  Caught mostly blue gill, pumpkin fish, and the like yesterday. Though we also caught a few small mouth bass and a bullhead that had to go back due to their size.
Today we caught two blue gill, and two very small mouth bass that were keepers.  Oh, an Victor Jr caught a giant frog.  Perfect for frogs legs.  We put him in a cup to take back but sadly Amelia, wanting to take a peek, opened the container he was in and he made a break for it. So no frogs legs.  But I think she learned a lesson about, asking and not touching others' things.

Monday (tomorrow) we move to southern Ohio, around Cincinnati and fish on the Ohio river and some of its inlets.  My fishing license's last day for Ohio is tomorrow.  Next Kentucky.
I want to publicly thank Dan Finn for house sitting our house. I hear he is doing a great job.
Yesterday we visited a place made famous by the TV show MASH.  On one episode Klinger craved hot dogs from his favorite dog joint in Toledo Tony Packos. So the MASH crew works it out to get a bunch of hotdogs sent to them.  We drove to Tony Packos and even brought our vid cam to get a vid blog post made up.  The place was downtown and had a huge sign and was surrounded by other fun restaurants. When we got inside a guy noticed I was taping and said I really should be trying the original joint. It was on the other side of town...but it only took a few minutes.  We passed a "Pride" event that was badly attended and.....opinion deleted. We crossed over a big bridge and there on the corner of Front Street was a very un assuming nice looking old cafe. 1932 was it's birth year.   The store manager, seeing the camera, was happy to tell me the whole story and give us a tour. Turns out Klinger, Jamie Farr, is actually from Toledo and lived across the bridge in what I was told was a rough part of town.  He actually did go there as a kid.   The TV show made Tony Packos famous and celebrities from all over have been there.  If they are famous enough they get to sign a hot dog bun that is encased in plastic and hung on the wall.
I had the Bunker Blaster dog that comes in at over 3lbs when all spruced up on the plate.    I had to bring half of it home.

 The first one we went to.......(above).  The original.......(below)

More to come later this week....here are some random pictures:

 Creepy statue at the KOA camp near Flint.  But the park was nice.

 The remainders of the axle and brake work....

 Cookie and Amelia asleep while driving from someplace to someplace

Welcome to Ohio....again.

Pictures from the kids' Facebook pages:

Don't worry it's a sharpee tattoo and was for an art project for a friend.