Today’s our 53rd Anniversary. No, not that one. It’s the one that Jan always forgets. More down post.

After I posted the blog last night I realized that I had forgotten to post the photo of the two beautiful young women I ran into at Grimaldi’s yesterday.

Well, actually I brought them with me.

You can’t have a 4th of July weekend without BBQ, so this afternoon Jan and I had a late lunch at the Spring Creek BBQ over on the Interstate. Delicious Baby Back Ribs as always, as well as a basket of their really good, crispy Fried Okra.

On the WuFlu front, according to the CDC, due to 10 consecutive weeks of a declining percentage of deaths, COVID-19 is close to losing its epidemic status in the U.S.

Coronavirus deaths in the country have nearly reached a level where the virus will cease to qualify as an epidemic under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rules, the federal agency reported on Friday.

The CDC qualifies a disease outbreak as an “epidemic” if the number of deaths attributable to the disease exceeds a certain percentage of total deaths per week. That threshold for pneumonia, influenza and COVID-19 fluctuates slightly depending on the time of year, ranging from around 7% at the height of flu season to around 5% during less virulent months.

CDC data indicate that deaths from those ailments began skyrocketing in the country around the second week of March, hitting a peak around early May and then plummeting quickly after that.

Though infections are significantly up in some places, deaths throughout the country have remained flat, due likely to several factors including a younger cohort of infections as well as improved treatment methods.

Does this mean we can all come out of hiding now?

And I know this makes me feel so much better about wearing a mask all the time.

How about you?

 

Since I couldn’t decide which past July 5th blog to post, you get two of them tonight.

The first one is from 2017, and the second one is from 2009.

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July 5, 2017

It’s Always The Little Things. . .

About 1:30 Jan and I drove up to La Grange for a Wal-Mart run, our first WM visit since we got back to the Houston area a couple of weeks ago.

Going through withdrawal. Or at least Jan is.

We found out this morning that we lost another RV friend, Judy Benson, to a long bout with cancer. We first met Judy and her husband, Pat in 2008 when we were workcamping in Fairbanks, AK, and have kept in touch ever since, including visiting them at their home in Draper, UT, just south of Salt Lake City, in 2010.

Then they surprised us in 2014 with a visit to one of our gate guarding locations near Bryan/College Station when they came by with their daughter.

Pat passed away a year ago this coming Saturday, with Judy passing almost exactly a year later, on the 4th. Our condolences to the family. They will both be missed.

Several blog readers ask for more about how Jan and I met in Titusville, FL.

Well, while Jan lived in Titusville after her father retired from the Air Force there, I was just down from my home in Alabama bumming around for the summer. I had been staying with my aunt and uncle over in Sanford for a week or so and was checking out the want ads for a summer job.

The one that attracted my attention was one looking for someone to take care of the animals and do the performance shows for the tourists at Florida Wonderland, a Titusville tourist attraction. And even better, it included room and board.

So on Monday, the 3rd of July I made the 35 mile trip over to Titusville, and found the place right on US A1A and the Indian River at Hwy 50.

While the main part of the attraction was on the other side of the road, I was going to be working at the Marine Life Center across the road and right on the Indian River.

Originally started by Johnny Weissmuller of ‘Tarzan’ fame in the late 50’s, it was then known as Tropical Wonderland. But somewhere along the line, Johnny faded away and it became Florida Wonderland, and was owned by the Kirk family, one of whom, Claude Kirk, was then Governor of the state.

I started on the 5th of July, and besides doing the animal acts for the public, I also took care of the two porpoises, the two manatees, the 12ft alligator, the large elephant seal, a giant tortoise, and a number of other animals. And that meant keeping the 100 pounds of fish that was delivered each day iced down so it wouldn’t spoil.

Noticing that there wasn’t an ice machine there, I was told to take a couple of buckets over to the Miss Kitty’s Saloon and bring back the ice to across the road as I needed it.

“Saloon”?

Besides the carnival rides, petting zoo and other attractions, they also had a Western town, with bank robberies, gunfights, and other Western stuff. And of course, what’s a Western town without a saloon. In this case, Miss Kitty’s Pleasure Palace, soft drinks only, of course.

And of course, every ‘Pleasure Palace’ has an ice machine.

So, 50 years ago today, (53 now) I walked through the swinging doors carrying my two buckets to find several young women dressed in period clothes. But the one that caught my eye was a tall, well-built redhead.

And that’s how it all started.

But it almost didn’t start at all, because it took me almost two weeks or so to get her to go out with me. Luckily I’m persistent, though today I’d probably be called a stalker.

And I think management wondered why I was needing so much more ice than normal.

She said later that she thought I was just another ‘stuck up college guy’. Well, I don’t know about ‘stuck up’, but I was in college, skinny and had hair. And I drove a ‘65 Triumph Spitfire like this one.

But mine had a rollbar because I sometimes did SCCA racing.

But in looking back, Jan and I have had 50 (53) years together because I didn’t want the fish to spoil.

It’s always the little things.

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July 5, 2009

Monticello and Appomattox…Not!

First off, I want to wish my beautiful bride a Happy Anniversary.

42 years ago today (53 years now) we met for the first time in Titusville, FL where she lived at the time, and I was working for the summer.

Today is our last full day here at Small Country Campground before we move up to Reston, VA for a week in the Washington, DC area.

We woke up to 65 degrees and rain this morning.  Well, one out of two isn’t bad.

We took the toad about 20 miles up the road to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson.  It was a very beautiful drive up into the hills getting there.

One thing I finally did find out is how to pronounce ‘Monticello’.  I had always heard it pronounced both ‘Mon T Sell O’ and ‘Mon T Chello’.

In fact, just last month I saw a program on the History Channel that pronounced it ‘Mon T Chello’.

However, at Monticello, they will tell  you that it is pronounced ‘Mon T Sell O’, and that some people there get upset when it is pronounced the other way.

Because of the rain, I couldn’t get any decent pictures of the outside, so these two are from the internet.

East Front of Monticello

West Front of Monticello

We were only allowed to tour the rooms on the bottom of the 3 floors.  The other two are apparently too hard to access via the narrow staircases.

Thomas Jefferson was really into the latest gadgets, which I guess is why he’s one of my favorites of the Founding Fathers, along with Benjamin Franklin, for the same reason.

We had some time to walk the grounds after our house tour, even though it was lightly raining.

We saw Mulberry Row, a 1000 foot line of mulberry trees that line the plantation gardens.

We were told the gardens are laid out just as they were in Jefferson’s day.

We also enjoyed the museum and exhibits on Jefferson’s life and times.

After eating lunch in Charlottesville, we were ready to head to Appomattox Courthouse, until we discovered it was almost 70 miles away, in the opposite direction of the RV park.  And it was already almost 3 pm.

When I looked at the brochure it said it was about 25 miles away.  But I now realized that was from Richmond, not from Charlottesville.

So we decided to call it a day and try to come back on our way back from Nova Scotia later in the year.

More tomorrow from Reston, VA…

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Thought for the Day:

Curve: The loveliest distance between two points. – Mae West

  

Happy Fourth of July!

Jan and I headed up to Katy about 10:30 to meet up with our granddaughter Piper where she was housesitting at her aunt Brandi’s while they were up in Oklahoma visiting Lowell’s parents.

After a short conversation, Jan and I drove over to the nearby Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, followed by Miss Piper in her car. We had been to this location several times before, nice because it’s only about 10 minutes from Brandi’s.

We started out with our usual, the Small House Salad, which is small in name only.

And the ‘small’  salad was enough for all 3 of us with some left over that didn’t get eaten due to saving room for pizza.

Piper went the white pizza route with the Prosciutto Arugula Pizza, topped with thinly sliced prosciutto, shaved cheese blend and fresh arugula.

While Jan and I did the more traditional thing with The Don, topped with Italian Sausage, Meatballs and Pepperoni. To which we added Mushrooms, Bacon, and Jalapenos.

Really, really good, and we all had some to bring home.

 

Another in our Where We Were 11 Years Ago Today series.

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July 4, 2009

Happy Birthday, America!

Today is our country’s birthday, and where better to be, then the birth place of the writer of the Declaration of Independence,  Virginia and Thomas Jefferson.

Happy Birthday, America!

Tomorrow, we will visit the Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, but today we’re going to stay around the coach and enjoy the day.

We’re staying at the Small Country Campground in Louisa, VA, about 20 miles southeast of Charlottesville, VA.

This place is really out in the country, but our site is basically a large gravel parking lot.  This area is the only one left that will fit our rig, so we really can’t complain.

We’ll we can’t… but Mister can.  He doesn’t like it, at all.  The large chunks of gravel hurt his feet, and of course, there’s no where for him to roll around on the ground.  He’s not a happy camper.

We are having BBQ this 4th of July.  We have leftovers from our stopover at Famous Dave’s yesterday.  Ribs, pulled pork, baked beans, corn on the cob, fried apples, with peaches and ice cream for dessert.

Hmmm, Gooood!

We were happy to see the park was having a fireworks show, but weren’t expecting much.  Boy, were we surprised!

The show lasted over 30 minutes.  It didn’t have as much variety as some city/county shows we saw around Houston, but it made for it in quantity.

Everyone started setting up about 8 pm with the kids being given sparklers to play with.

And then about 9 pm the show began…

We’re really enjoying the cool temperatures here.  It was 59 last night and will only get to about 69 tomorrow.  Of course, it is also supposed to rain, so we’ll see.

As I said, tomorrow we’re going to visit Monticello, and maybe, if we have time, Appomattox Courthouse, where the South surrendered at the end of the Civil War.

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Thought For The Day:

Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. – President Dwight Eisenhower, 1957