On Wednesday morning, we said goodbye to our dear Jenny girl. Her cancer advanced much quicker than anyone thought it would, and we had to make the decision that no one wants to make. She sure will be missed.
She touched a lot of lives, and we were fortunate to have her with us for 10-1/2 years.
We love you, Jenny girl!
Tradition. Defined as follows: the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way.
Most every year at this time, we make our annual trip back to Kalamazoo, Michigan to our alma mater, Western Michigan University for Homecoming. WMU is a long standing tradition with us, as Jim’s dad graduated from Western in 1948.
We are part of a group of five families that have kept close since graduating from WMU in the early 1980’s, and some of our friends’ children have followed in our footsteps. Two of the families reside in Kalamazoo, and we proceed to take over one or both of their houses.
Saturday morning finds us in a parking lot on campus with a good portion of our Bronco Nation.
We park a few cars ahead of time, and lay out a nice spread of food and drinks.
The crowd, while spirited, always seems to keep the festivities within reason.
Part of our next generation of family and friends: left to right; Tara, Kevin, Al and Natalie.
Natalie, a degreed art major, was called upon to paint the superfans for the game.
Billy, seen here with Diana, is the latest addition to our legacy. He is in his first semester at Western. His parents, Karen and Bill, couldn’t be any prouder.
It was a ‘chamber of commerce’ day in Kalamazoo.
There was a good sized crowd on hand to see the Broncos take on Ohio University.
Mike has a tradition of announcing “another BRONCO – FIRST DOWN!!!” He did that a lot on this fine Saturday, resulting in hearing loss for those around him.
The Broncos were frequently found in the end zone, making for a perfect day.
Buster Bronco had a full day of push-ups, as Western beat Ohio 42-21. It was a great day to be a Bronco!
Each year, life has a way of pulling our families in different directions. But tradition, the glue that binds us all, works it’s magic and brings us back together.
It is Homecoming, and we truly are home.
Today we received the news from the vet that no one ever wants to hear: Cancer. That horrible, awful word. Our Jenny has hemangiosarcoma, which is cancer of the blood vessels. It is throughout her liver and spleen. The vet gives her 3 to 6 months, give or take. It’s hard to say for sure. Jen’s white blood count had plummeted in the 8 weeks since her last blood work, and that prompted the doctor to call off exploratory surgery. She did an ultrasound instead, and she saw everything she needed to see with that.
As you can see, she is still quite interested in enjoying her time with Mom and Dad.
She loves being outside and checking out what is happening!
When she visited Aunt Judy, she got to get dressed up for Red Hats. She loves her Aunt Judy and Uncle Dale!
And nothing is better than going camping!
That is, other than a trip to Lake Michigan!
Or a run to Menard’s. They give treats!
Yes, as a dear friend said today, cancer sucks. No other way to put it. But we should all be so lucky to be oblivious to our diagnosis and choose to fetch a stick instead.
Enjoy every moment, friends. Enjoy each and every moment.
After our time in Florida, we made our way up I-75 to Michigan. The purpose of our trip was to deliver a truckload of inherited tools to Diana’s brother. We weren’t able to take the 5th wheel, due to the weight of the cargo. We had left our Golden Retriever, Jenny with Jim’s sister and brother-in-law.
Before we left, Jenny had been “not feeling well” (we’ll spare the graphic details), but only on occasion. She took a turn for the worse while we were gone. We did get her to the vet this morning to try to get to the bottom of the issue, and decided to go ahead with surgery on Monday to take a look around. X-Rays had not revealed anything, but her actions of late are stating otherwise. We’ll keep you updated.
One of the pleasant surprises upon our return was one of the best fall color shows that Michigan has seen in awhile.
Our campground was awash with different hues.
When the sun was out…a rarity in West Michigan this time of year…the trees popped with all their blazing glory.
Before we left, we found out the campground was adding a bank of winter sites along the back fence. We inquired about moving, and we were told we could do so upon our return. We moved today to our new site.
There is a row of pines over the back of our RV, but the trees on the other side of the fence will lose their leaves, thereby allowing the winter sun to come into our large rear window. Anything to help with the heat bill!
That’s about it for this post. We did want to update on our ArtPrize post. The large backlit cube named Intersections not only took home the $200,000 grand prize for the public vote, but it also shared the grand prize for the juried vote, netting the artist an additional $100,000. Beautiful thing about that is that it quieted the critics who stated that the ArtPrize voting public didn’t really know a thing about art. I guess we really do.
While we were in Florida, we were able to visit with Diana’s brother, our niece, her husband, and their family.
When purging our home, we came across many photos that we were able to pass on to them. As seen above, all were interested! It was a great benefit of all of our efforts over the last few months.
It’s always great to see family, that’s for sure!
Our niece lives just outside The Villages, which is quite the place. If you have never seen this community, it is fun to look at.
The Villages is a utopian set of “villages” interspersed between many golf courses. Everything that a retiree could ever want is there, including Walmart, Panera and even a hospice center.
Golf carts zipping to and fro. And everyone seems to be happy and having fun. While this is not something we want at this time in our lives, it is definitely worth driving through.
If you ever are in the area, you must check it out.
Safe motoring!
After leaving Kentucky, we headed south to see family in Florida. We took the familiar route of I-65 towards Montgomery, Alabama.
A favorite stop has always been the Welcome Center in Alabama. Not many rest areas in the US can boast having a full scale Saturn IB rocket. This is the type of rocket that the crew of Apollo 7 took into Earth orbit. It is the smaller cousin of the Saturn V that took the US to the moon.
Once we got to Montgomery, we took a different route, as we wanted to stop in Crestview, Florida to check out a mail forwarding service we are considering using during our travels. On the way there, we came upon this little gem:
This is the day use area at Blue Pond in the Conecuh National Forest in southern Alabama. Too bad there wasn’t any camping, as it was ideal!
We arrived in Crestview and met with the folks at My RV Mail. They were very friendly and extremely helpful. Once we finished in Crestwood, we continued on to Ft Walton Beach. When we arrived, we discovered a huge benefit to shoulder season travel: no huge crowds! We drove into a large public lot at the beach and had no trouble at all finding a parking spot. We had a wonderful grouper meal overlooking the gulf and then we walked the beach.
This is some of the best sand in Florida, and we were happy to see that there were no visible after effects from the BP spill.
Once we left the beach, we headed east towards Leesburg to see family. Diana’s brother lives there, and our niece and her family live in Fruitland Park. Along the way, we discovered the importance of doing a rig walk around. Jim thought he heard a noise on the road, and he noticed the fuel mileage decreasing. We pulled into a rest area and noticed the right front wheel was considerably warmer than the others. Turns out that we had a “stuck” caliper. This happened to us one other time on a different truck, and is a result of the right front wheel catching so much curb slush and salt in the Michigan winters. We found a garage in Tallahassee that got us in and out in a flash. A special shout out to Al Bass and Bass Automotive for the prompt service. This event really drove home the fact that we need to be aware of our rig. A simple walk around at each stop can save a lot of headaches down the road.
Safe travels!
On Saturday we visited Jim’s aunt and uncle in Donaldson, Indiana. Jim’s aunt is a nun in the order Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ that has its roots in Germany. She had the honor of being in charge of her order in the United States, and was also the first non German born member of the council that leads her order world wide.
Diana is standing in front of the mother house. It always amazes us because you drive Indiana country roads through acres of corn fields to reach this bit of paradise. There is a full size cathedral, a small college campus, retreat center, retirement homes with several levels of care, lake, cemetery, cattle farm, and art center. Jim’s uncle has an apartment in the independent living portion that is open to the public.
Above is a conference center where groups of any faiths may hold meetings.
This is the independent living home for the retired sisters. To the left in the background of this picture is the cemetery for all of the US nuns in PHJC.
We enjoyed spending time with family in this little slice of heaven.
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Two retired educators touring the country in their motorhome
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