Hell’s Half Acre

finally got to use the windbraker I bought in Neenah.  In Wisconsin, I got back in the habit of walking daily and towards what ended up being the end of our stay (though I didn’t know it at the time) I hit St. Vinny’s for a windbraker as the wind was simply ignoring the [...]

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Orange grove upon orange grove upon orange grove.  As Sissy said, "we found one of Pikey’s heavens".  We had a lovely drive down a street paralleling SR65 and when it ended headed over to 65 which parallels Hwy 99.  Nothing like taking the scenic route.  We managed to get out by 8:30 and we thought [...]

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Avenue 24 1/2 in Chowchilla reminded me of Nebraska.  We were in the absolute middle of nowhere on a state road.  On the outskirts of a very small town we saw a sign for "527th Street".  We were amazed; where did such a small town get 527 streets when the entire state didn’t even have [...]

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Here’s where we almost spent the night.  We had headed for Sonora Pass on 108 but just outside of Oakdale, we found that the pass was closed.  We should have called ahead or checked online before leaving, but I missed that 8th grade boy’s course.  We headed back to Oakdale to look for a campground [...]

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It looks like the long wait is about to be over.  We have culled as much as possible from the trailer (shhhh…the girls don’t know I halved their toy collection) and will remove the last bench from the van and store it all in a bit.  Right now kids are delaying our storage plans by [...]

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I power shopped last night.  I went to a Hobby store for my BIL’s present (from my sister); Target, Trader Joes, Longs, Safeway and a candy store from 4pm to 6pm.  The last three were in search of chocolate coins to put in the kids shoes.  When Mariluz and Jon (Jamie’s brother and SIL) stayed [...]

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Well, what HAVEN’T we done in the past few days?  We replaced 4 birth certificates (we’re still waiting for Jamie’s and mine; apparently they are loving the snow so much in the FedEx terminal in Indianapolis that they’re taking a nice little vacation there), Christmas presents for the kids and Catie and Becky (shhhhhh… don’t [...]

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Why is it that the high falutin hotels charge you up the wazoo for services that the small chains don’t?  Reno Hilton wants $11/12 hours for Internet access, $1.00 for free (800) calls and $1.00 for each local call.  Their swimming pool is closed and their lobby is not smoke free.  Comfort Inns, on the [...]

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Andrew has a hockey tournament in Reno this weekend, so naturally, our family will be up there too.  We were supposed to leave for Mexico today but are stymied by two factors.  Jamie’s bike (please, don’t ask me why a man with 27 bikes needs yet ANOTHER bike - specifically for Baja; I mean, don’t [...]

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Somehow, between Ellen running around the hotel at 7am with sticky jelly fingers; the boys clammering for just "one more" swim in the pool and Sissy desperate not to be seperated from Jamie, even for a second; even for a trip to the BATHROOM, I managed to leave my laptop battery charger/AC adapter at Comfort [...]

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