I am in the middle of wrapping up my vacation. It's not over yet, there is still time remaining and I am continuing to fill my days as best I can. I have focused spending this entire vacation doing activities with my children and family. I have made extensive use of my digital camera to help me remember what I have been doing and where I have been. Not all of the photographs are particularily compelling, but some are interesting to me just as a record of where I was at a particular time and place.
My last post about my vacation was a week ago Satuday, vacation day number one. Let me continue in that vein:
Vacation Day #2 : Sunday, June 22 : Took Johnny and Alex to a driving range to hit a family sized bucket of balls and play a round of putt-putt golf. Took the kids boating where they got to tube and wakeboard off of Marty's boat.
Vacation Day #3 : Monday, June 23 : Played a round of gold with Alex and he almost shot par on a hole. He drove for 80 yards and on his second shot chipped onto the green 12 feet from the hole. Unfortunately he 3 putted, but it was still a fun day of golf. Did some other stuff, but since I didn't take photographs I can't remember what I did.
Vacation Day #4: Tuesday, June 24: Picked up Lauren to go on our fishing trip at Mark Twain Lake. We left at about 9am and it took 3 hours to get there. I decided to take a real round about way to get there, through back country roads so it took a long time. Lauren read her new Harry Potter book along the way. When we arrived we checked into our room at Timber Ridge Lodge, and immediately headed out to the lake. Our fishing included rental of a John boat for both days so we piled our stuff in and hit the water.
Unfortunately it was brutally hot, and we pretty much tortured ourselves sitting out in the sun on a day like that. There was no shade to be found and the fish were not biting either. We did go swimming in the lake and the water was very cool because Mark Twain Lake is so deep and has such a strong current. In fact, the current is so strong you half feel like you are in a river.
Lauren reads a book while we wait for a non-existant fish to take our bait.
After we dropped of our stuff Lauren and I went to a little country diner and had a fantastic dinner. We spent most of the rest of the evening in our room soaking up the icy cold air conditioning which, unfortunately, gave me a sore throat.
Vacation Day #5 : Wednesday, June 25: Still at Mark Twain Lake Lauren and I headed out early in the morning to seriously try to catch some fish. We did absolutely everything we were supposed to do, but after about 5 hours without a single catch we decided to call it a day. It was much cooler in the morning at least, and we had a lot of fun exploring Mark Twain Lake. There are huge areas of standing timber where you are supposed to fish, and they look really cool from the water.
Standing timber where we tried to fish.
Standing timber where we tried to fish.
We got back to Timberridge Lodge fairly early and Lauren and I spent the afternoon swimming in the swimming pool. In the afternoon we tried fishing in their little fishing pond and we each finally actually caught a fish. However, that was not going to cut it for dinner, so we drove into town and bought some catfish from the local grocery store.
Lauren in the swimming pool.
When we got back the Llamas where out grazing and we took a couple of photographs.
Lauren feeding the Llamas. .
A Llama mugshot. .
That evening there was a terrific thunderstorm that rolled in and I snapped a number of photographs of the cloud formations. Here is just one example.
The sky at dusk just before the storms hit .
Vacation Day #6 : Thursday, June 26 : On Thursday morning Lauren and I packed everything up into the Alfa and headed on home, taking a much more direct route this time. The cloud formations in the sky were simply breataking after the remnants of the evening storm had blown away. Here are a few photographs from that trip home.
Lauren settles in to read the final chapters of the new Harry Potter book on our way home
A simply stunning cloud formation. Link goes to an extremely hires image.
Another shot of the same stunning cloud formation. Link goes to an extremely hires image.
An amazing road just a few miles north on 61 from where I live.
Shot from the same location here is a pastoral picture of an abandoned barn and silo.
Perhaps there is a closet numerologist in all of us. Somehow I became fascinated by the moment when the odometer on my Alfa turned over to exactly 111111, one hundred, eleven thousand, one hundred and eleven. So much so, that my intent was to try to get the tripometer to match up with exactly 111 and 1/10th miles too. However, I forgot to hit the reset button at the right time, so the photograph is slightly flawed. In about 110,000 more miles I will be sure to get it right when the odometer reads 222222 : 222.2
Thursday evening I took my son Johnny to a Cardinals baseball game. I will try to continue the vacation series tomorrow.
