Visiting the Pumpkin Patch

Last year, Nicolas was upset that he never got a pumpkin for Halloween, so he was determined to get one this year.  Sunday was a nice day, so after picking up Grandma to go out to my sister’s house, we stopped on the way at a local Pumpkin Patch.

There were lots of wagons full of pumpkins to choose from, but the boys wanted to pick their own, so we headed out into the pumpkin patch.

We left Grandma in the donut barn to wait for us while the guys searched for the perfect pumpkins.

Bryce has a design in his head already, so he carefully studied each pumpkin to see if it would fit.

While they searched, I took some nice fall pictures.

Soon they had looked at enough, and settled on their perfect pumpkins.

Tom even found one for us to carve!

We probably should have brought a wagon into the patch!  Oh well, the boys are strong, and they carried all three pumpkins back to the donut barn where Grandma was waiting with donuts and cider.

From the pumpkin patch, we continued to my sister’s house where we met up with another sister & brother-in-law, and my brother to go to their church’s Fall Festival.  We had a delicious turkey and roast beef dinner, bought some chances on gift baskets, and played a few games of bingo . . . Nicolas won $2, and Danny won $1.50 . . . OK, not real big prizes!

On the way out, we stopped for a photo-op with Pope Francis.

Back at Tina’s house, the boys got to play cards for awhile, and we all enjoyed the apple pie that Donnie made . . . although we barely had room for it after that dinner!

Exploring Portland

 

We had heard about the Portland Saturday Market, which is kindof a cross between a Farmers Market and an Art Fair, and thought it would be fun to go see – either on Saturday or Sunday (it runs both days).  When I looked it up online, though, I found out that this weekend was also the Portland Rose Festival and City Fair, and the Grand Floral Parade was Saturday morning.  As is that weren’t enough activity, it was also Fleet Week, and there were a couple of Navy ships in port, and they were open for tours all weekend.

Knowing that the crowds would be especially crazy on Saturday, we decided to wait until Sunday for our visit.  We thought we’d go early, right after mass, and hopefully be able to tour the ships, too.

 

On the recommendation of some fellow campers, we took the MAX train from Gresham into the city, where it dropped us off at the waterfront.

The line for the Navy ships was already a mile long, and we were hearing that it was a 2 – 3 hour wait for a tour.  We weren’t sure if we wanted to wait that long, but the boys got a spot in line while Tom and I walked over to see what the Saturday Market was all about.

 

 

 

We walked through the rows of booths – more of an art fair than a farmers market – and looked around for a while.  There was jewelry, clothes, and pottery – most of your typical Art Fair stuff, as well as a food area.

Tom and I were hungry, so we got some polish food for lunch . . . it was really good!

We offered to trade places with the boys so they could walk around for awhile and get something to eat, but they didn’t want to.

 

 

We walked around some more and checked out the local entertainers.

Tom finally got Nicolas to agree to walk around with him, so they talked to several of the Navy guys that were around.  Bryce and I held our spot in line, and we were slowly moving forward.  It started to look like 2 – 3 hours was an under-estimate!

3-1/2 hours later, we finally reached the security check-in booth, and found out that Tom wouldn’t be able to tour the ships because he hadn’t brought his picture ID with him!  Since we’d been waiting so long already, the three of us decided that we would go ahead and take the tour without him. 

So we waited almost another hour . . .

until finally it was our turn to board the ship.  The USS Spruance is a Destroyer, and only three years old.  It’s the 2nd newest Destroyer in the fleet, and stationed in San Diego, CA.

 

We met our tour guide, an Ensign who had just graduated from the US Naval Academy last year.

He took us to the front of the ship, where we saw several of the big guns.

We continued to an upper deck,    

where we saw the storage location for the missiles and torpedoes.

 

There are also machine guns at every corner of the ship, and this big gun that can shoot REALLY fast.

Despite all that firepower, in a small contained space like the riverfront, this ship is a sitting duck, so the Coast Guard is constantly on watch.

Back on the lower deck, we saw the small boats that are used for special missions – like checking out suspicious ships, bringing sailors into port, or rescuing somebody that falls overboard!

We walked through “the garage” (workout room),

 

 

and out on the back deck where a helicopter, “Wolfpack” had landed.

Nick spent some time talking to the Pilot,

and that was the end of our tour.

 

It was a nice tour, and we saw lots of cool stuff . . . but we’re not sure it was worth a 4-1/2 hour wait in the hot sun!!

 

 

 

 

 

So, what did Tom do while we were on our ship tour?

 

Well, he walked around the waterfront, and looked at several of the parade floats that were on display in the park.

Like the Parade of Roses in Pasadena, these floats are all constructed of flowers – very beautiful!

So, it was a very long day, and in hindsight we probably should have skipped the Navy ship tour (and definitely would have if somebody had told us that photo IDs were needed back when we first got in line!), but it was a nice day and probably our last visit to a big city for this year.

Tecumseh’s Appleumpkin Festival

 

We had yet another beautiful week here in Michigan – not really driving us to set our sights south and west – but we know the weather change is just around the corner, so we are starting to get ready.

Yesterday was “spring cleaning” day . . . I cleaned all of the screens and windows in the RV.  It’s amazing how dirty they get –and how much nicer it looks when they are sparkly clean!

Now Nicolas just needs to clean the outside!

 

Tom had ordered new front brakes for the car, with plans for changing them today at his brother’s house, so yesterday he picked up oil and a filter, so they could take care of that at the same time.

He really likes having a nice clean place to work on the car!

The final upgrade will be new tires, and then it’ll be ready for another year of travelling around the country . . . and nice and safe for my new driver!

 

The big guy was wondering what was going on over there in the barn!!

 

 

 

We’ve been keeping plenty busy while we’re here, but haven’t really done any “fun stuff” other than visiting family, so after we finished our work yesterday we decided to take a drive to Tecumseh for their Appleumpkin Fall Festival.

The crowds were large, and we didn’t actually see much interesting (wanted to check out the antique tractor show, but by the time we got to it, everybody was packing up and leaving), but we did get apples and donuts!

It was a beautiful day to be outside, though, and we did get to see a glassblower creating lovely glass Christmas ornaments.

Back at the campground, it was a great night for a campfire, so Bryce got one started and we roasted some hot dogs for dinner.  After coking, Nicolas his “secret” ingredient for a colorful fire . . .

a section of copper pipe covered by a section of rubber garden hose.  The rubber hose creates the purple flames, and the copper pipe creates the green!  Just a little tip that Nicolas learned from another camper a few years ago . . .

Strawberry Festival

Yesterday we scheduled ourselves a day off so that we could enjoy a full day of the Strawberry Festival.  This is an annual festival, held the 1st week of March in Plant City, Florida.

We bought discount tickets at Sweetbay Market, and had lunch at subway before we get to the fairgrounds.  That turned out to be a good thing, since as soon as we entered the fair, we were bombarded for “fair food” from every direction . . .

italian sausage, sirloin tips, soft pretzels, chocolate-covered bacon . . . not to mention the strawberry shortcake and strawberry shakes!

There were also the full variety of carnival rides,

and the typical “county fair” displays of food & crafts.

There were also several buildings full of flea market type vendors, but we’ve seen enough of those in the past few weeks, so we walked through fairly quickly.  We did find the Parkesdale Farm booth, where Tom made me pose as “Strawberry Queen”, 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sampled their strawberry cookies (not bad!).  There was also a strawberry farm display that explains how the strawberries are planted in such neat raised beds.  These tractors that create the raised beds, and cover them with weedblock fabric, are built in Germany, and are VERY expensive!

Tom stopped to have a chat with the farmer,

and we had to drag him away so that we weren’t late to see the Racing Pigs.

We got there in plenty of time, though, and found some prime seats at the top of the bleachers near the finish line, where we waited for the show to begin.

 

 

Soon enough, the show got started and the pigs were racing!

They were fun to watch, even though “our pig” only won the first race!

They even swam in a pool!

Bryce had his money on the spotted one, but he didn’t win any of the races!

After the racing pigs, we wanted to catch the dog show, but we had some time to kill, so we went to check out the livestock – steers, rabbits and chickens.

I think if I had lived on a farm as a kid, I would have liked to raise a steer . . . except for the fact that they get sold for steaks when you’re done!  They are just so cute!

This guy must have known what was coming up, because he was making a lot of noise . . . Tom was trying to talk to him!

We also watched a milking demonstration with Bessie, who travels to schools, educating kids about where their milk comes from and how it gets to the store.

From there, we went back to the dog show, and barely got there in time to get seats . . .the dogs are very popular!  It was east to see why once the show began . . . these dogs were really good at their tricks!

It was very windy during the show, so it was pretty impressive that the dogs were able to catch the frisbees at all, let alone jump as high as they did to catch them!

The last trick was a high jump contest between 2 dogs, and they both did really well, but Rock won the contest when he jumped over a bar 56” off the ground . . . and he barely took a running start!

By the time that show was over, we were all pretty cold and tired, so we left and went home for dinner.  I would have loved to have gone to one of the evening concerts this week (Alan Jackson, Trace Adkins, and Blake Shelton just to name my favorites!), but we didn’t buy tickets to any of them.  Wednesday night was Trace Adkins, but it would have been awfully cold for an outdoor concert!

The Strawberry Festival was fun, and I’m glad we went, but we probably wouldn’t go again . . . it’s pretty much your basic county fair, and you can get any of the strawberry products outside the fair by just going directly to Parkesdale Market.  We bought a flat of strawberries on the way home, too, and they are pretty good, but I think the ones we picked in Bonita Springs were fresher and tastier.  They tasted good in strawberry shakes, though!