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Relaxing in the Kayak after lunch at Lake Springfield (365:304)
Relaxing in the Kayak after lunch at Lake Springfield, Missouri Today we took the Kayaks out on Lake Springfield
The fall color has been magnificent this year. Thus far we’ve not had an opportunity to get out to enjoy them. So, we’ve decide to take a couple of days out and enjoy the weather and the color while both last.
We saw several deer, a bald eagle, more coots than you could shake a stick at, some grebes, herons and a few cormorants.
Railroad Bridge over the James River at the Springfield Nature Center
Ginger kayaking under the railroad Bridge onthe James River at the Springfield Nature Center
Ginger kayaking under the railroad Bridge onthe James River
Ginger kayaking on the James River, Springfield Missouri
James River, Springfield Missouri
Cooking lunch in the kayak on Lake Springfield -
Trunk or Treat (365:303)
This evening we went to the Church Hallowed Carnival
Lanie wanted to take part in the ‘Trunk or Treat’. After a lot of head-scratching, we came up with the idea of making the back of the van into an ambulance with Lanie as the patient, tended to by Katie as Nurse D’eath. We even managed to find a hospital IV bag hanger for $1 in the Habitat for Humanity Restore Center.
I forgot to mention that we won the best-decorated trunk award!
I took today’s picture while I was handing out candy. We’ll pass over how I frightened one kid by making them think the candy finger they’d picked out of the box of human body parts was really my finger. Oh, how I laughed … later. 🙂
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Tubby (365:302)
Tubby (365:302). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Look closely at his eyes
Tubby is a Burmese cat of many names: Rotters, Rot-row, Tubster, Tubmeister, Irritant, and Pokey Paws. I suspect he is harboring an ambition to get his paws on an ‘Uzi 9mm’ (Must be said in the voice of Arnold Schwarzenegger) and get his revenge on us.
His eyes have been like that since birth – he can see, but not perfectly. He’s annoyingly hesitant, but I suspect that’s more due to his personality than his eyes. He hates having the top of his head touched – possibly because he can’t quite properly see your hand coming. More likely he’s just contrary.
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A bit of essential beard maintenance (365:301)
A trim was overdue
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Left Profile (365:300)
It’s been said that I’ve not been showing this profile view
So there you are.
BTW today is day 300! 65 days left.
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Another old Radio (365:299)
Another old Radio (365:299). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. My second Valve radio
now I know it’s a similar shot to the one I used the day before yesterday (day 297), but this was a ‘no brainer’ for a late-night quick picture.
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Breakfast at Aunt Martha’s Pancake House (365:298)
Today we did a lot of running around
Our plan had been to go grocery shopping and visit the library. But then we popped into Ozark Adventures to look at rope (I need more rope for my huaraches) and backpacking gear. So we made a day of it and treated ourselves to a late breakfast, which is where today’s picture was taken, before going to a couple of other places before finishing the shopping.
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Lanie’s Halloween Pumpkin
Lanie’s Halloween Pumpkin. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Tonight Lanie made her Halloween pumpkin and here it is in all its illuminated glory.
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Old Radio (365:297)
Old Radio (365:297). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. I have a passion for valve radios and amplifiers
Ginger found a couple of old vacuum tube radios in the house in Chicago, and I brought them home with me. I can’t see an iPod working in fifty years’ time but both of the radios, well over fifty years old, are in working order – which is fantastic.
Now I need to find out how to restore them to an ‘as new’ condition.
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Relaxing in the backyard (365:296)
Today comprised church and sitting in the backyard,
that sums up my day. I must have still been tired as I slept away part of the afternoon.
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Gary and Lanie down by the creek (365:295)
Today we relaxed at Ginger’s parents
I relaxed so much I spent a good part of the afternoon fast asleep sitting on the porch of the guest house.
This morning Lanie decided she wanted to go fishing in the creek. That would have been fine if I’d known the day before and had packed our fishing gear. Jim rummaged around and found a small portable rod we couldn’t get to work, and then turned up with a proper fishing rod and some bobbers. No hooks though. So he made one from a sewing needle. Lanie packed some of this mornings wonderful breakfast sausage for bait and we headed down to the creek to fish.
At the creek we saw a beaver swim under the bridge, and we found a small lure and a large fish hook – tripling our fishing gear. The fish loved the sausage but the needle hook wasn’t very effective at catching them. Lanie caught one fish on the huge hook we’d found up in a tree over the creek.
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Family cookout (365:294)
Tonight we’re camping at Ginger’s parents
After school the we loaded up our camping gear and drove down to Thornfield for a family cookout. We took the girls with us, and Katie drove part of the way, which was a bit nerve wracking for me in the co-pilot’s seat.
The main purpose of our visit was to meet Ginger’s aunt, who’d been staying with her parents this past week. Jim had cut wood and we had a great time roasting hot dogs and marshmallows. We took our dutch oven and cooked up some very tasty veggies too.
Ginger and I took the tent and spent the night camped out near the house.
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Tired (365:293)
Tired (365:293). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. I got to bed at 3 am, and was up again at 7.30
I met with Tom at 10 am to help unload the truck and return it to U-Haul. He treated me to a very nice breakfast (That would have probably made a much more interesting picture), after which I went home and did my EfM coursework.
By the time class started (six pm) I was tired but managed to get through the evening.
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Waiting for the trash man (365:292)
Things didn’t go quite as planned
The plan was to get the work finished on the house, get the work inspected, have all the rubbish taken away, hire a trailer for the pick-up, load everything to go back to Springfield, and drive home – a day early. Great as this means I can attend EfM tomorrow.
It all slowly fell apart as the day moved on. The builders arrived, did their stuff and the inspector approved the work. The recycling guy turned up by 10 am, and then nothing happened. Tom tried (and failed) to get rid of the TVs and I sat and waited for the trash man to come. It started raining. The drive from Chicago to Springfield takes 8-9 hours so we were keen to get moving. Finally sometime after two pm the trash man arrived, took everything and we were free to go.
Then we discovered that there was a fault with the pick-up’s electrics which meant that U-Haul couldn’t let us have a trailer for safety reasons (no right indicators on the trailer). We decided to rent a truck and I’d drive the pick-up back to Springfield. Of course the U-Haul branch we were at didn’t have a truck available. Off we went to another branch which did have a truck available. By the time we’d got the truck, loaded it up (in the rain), given the house a final check over it was around four-thirty. We’d not be getting back to Springfield until after one am.
And so it was. The trip was almost without incident. Almost that is apart from while driving out of Chicago the Pick-ups speedometer went on the blink. At first I didn’t notice, but when a truck overtook me when I was apparently doing over 90 miles an hour my suspicions were confirmed. I called Tom and jokingly suggested we slow down, as the best I could tell we were travelling at over 140 mph – the speedo needle had by now gone right off the scale.
Coming up on 110mph – not quite what it appears Apparently, this is a known GMC fault, and at our first rest stop Tom managed to reset the speedo to 0mph and it worked perfectly for the rest of the trip.
I arrived home around one-thirty, but couldn’t settle down to sleep until around three am.
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In the backyard – Berwyn, Illinois (365:291)
Today we made major progress
We made a lot of trips to Goodwill today and got rid of just about everything that wasn’t fit to be trashed. Then we started piling up the trash to be carted off on Wednesday. There was some very heavy lifting involved, we moved out all the beds and mattresses. The basement is cleared, cleaned and tidied, as is the garage. Curtains have been put up, floors vacuumed and surfaces dusted.
The local vultures removed the defunct appliances we had left out for collecting tomorrow. The only items we couldn’t donate, and can’t be left for trash are a couple of TVs.
In the front yard – I think I look a little more chipper in the backyard picture. The only problem at the moment is that the builders haven’t turned up to fix the problems that need to be cleared to get the building up to code. They say they are coming tomorrow at 7.30 am. We’ll see. In the mean time I took a couple of minutes out between carrying out all the rubbish to take today’s self-portrait.
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Making Notes (365:290)
We had a good first day clearing the house
The guys from Brown Elephant took most of the furniture – turning down just a few pieces, and the city inspector only found a couple of minor problems that need to be put right.
We took a pick-up load of stuff to Goodwill and started the process of moving and clearing – especially in the basement which was very messy.
At the end of the day I had an opportunity to catch up on some reading (I should have brought my coursework with me) and make some notes in my Journal. I’m not very good at keeping my journal. Erratic would be a good word to describe it. I normally only write when I have issues to resolve, which results in a record of my angst and frustrations rather than a glowing record of all that’s well in my world. Today I was able to redress the balance a bit.
As all the beds have been broken down, I’m sleeping in my sleeping bag on a mattress on the floor. In a day or so the mattress will have to go too. I have my sleeping pad with me so that shouldn’t be a problem.
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The quiet before the storm (365:289)
The quiet before the storm (365:289). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Tomorrow the work begins
Tom and I had an uneventful trip up to Chicago. We’re up here to clear Rebbie’s family’s house ready for sale.
Ginger and Rebbie were up here a couple of weeks ago, and they sorted through all the papers and cleared out all the cupboards, drawers and stuff. We’re here to move everything out. Some things are to go back to Springfield, the remainder is to be donated to charity or trashed. We’ve four days to get it all done, as I’m due back in Springfield Friday pm.
Tomorrow we’re expecting people from Brown Elephant to come and take away some of the furniture, and a City inspector to come and check that the house is up to code before it is put on the market.
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Ginger and Gary reading Backpacker magazine while Sprinky sleeps (365:288)
Tomorrow at 7.30 am I leave for Chicago for the week
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Gary on Hawksbill Crag (Whittaker Point), Arkansas (365:287)
Gary on Hawksbill Crag (Whittaker Point), Arkansas (365:287) – Today I had an easy day’s hiking in Arkansas with a couple of friends. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Today I had an easy day’s hiking in Arkansas with a couple of friends.
We started off with a hike up the ‘Lost Valley’, I’ll have to return when the creek is in spate – today it was completely dry; so we hiked up the creek bed instead of the trail. We crawled on hands and knees into a cave (I found out afterwards on YouTube that there is supposed to be an upright route in), which has a large chamber about 150′ in. Normally there is a waterfall there, but not this time. We took a second hike along the Buffalo river and finished the day backpacking to a superb camping spot near Hawksbill Crag (aka Whittaker point) – a rocky shelf suspended some 200 feet up on a bluff overlooking Whittaker creek. The bluffs and crag providing magnificent views across the valley. It really is a wonderful place, and it’s not surprising it is one of the most photographed features in the Buffalo River area.
I left my pedometer behind, but a rough guess is that we hiked just under 7 miles altogether.
Our campsite was under a huge rock ledge, that is normally fronted by a waterfall. However, after the long dry summer it was dry. There were a few drips of water to be collected nearby, which was lucky, otherwise we’d have been thirsty, as the six litres of water I packed in very quickly started to dwindle. The space under the ledge was big enough for several tents, so we had plenty of room with just two.
Here I am with my backpacking companions for this trip. It’s been a long time since I last used a 10 second timer to take a picture, so it took me a couple of tries to get this picture. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. 
Steve and Gary on Hawksbill Crag (Whittaker Point), Arkansas – Not taken by me, though it’s such a nice picture I wish it were. Copyright © 2011 Kirby Newport, all rights reserved. After dark we were interrupted by the arrival of a party of students who were hoping to spend the night under the ledge. They were very polite, and fortunately had a better knowledge of the area than we did, as they spent the night under a smaller overhang, that we didn’t know existed, a hundred yards further along the bluff.
Just to finish off the day we revisited the crag around midnight to enjoy the scene in the moonlight. Given the huge drop-offs perhaps that wasn’t the most prudent of ventures – especially as my headlamp batteries decided to go into terminal decline on the way back.
Bluffs on the Buffalo river near Ponca, Arkansas. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
Bluffs on the Buffalo river near Ponca, Arkansas. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
Bluffs on the Buffalo river near Ponca, Arkansas. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
Bluffs on the Buffalo river near Ponca, Arkansas. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
Campsite near Hawksbill Crag, Arkansas. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
Campsite near Hawksbill Crag, Arkansas. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
Hawksbill Crag (Whittaker Point), Arkansas – My hiking/backpacking companions for this trip. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
Hawksbill Crag (Whittaker Point), Arkansas – My hiking/backpacking companions for this trip. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
Gary on Hawksbill Crag (Whittaker Point), Arkansas – Not taken by me – there’s no way I could have set the timer and run around onto the crag in 10 seconds! Copyright © 2011 Kirby Newport, all rights reserved.
Gary on Hawksbill Crag (Whittaker Point), Arkansas – Not taken by me – there’s no way I could have set the timer and run around onto the crag in 10 seconds! Copyright © 2011 Kirby Newport, all rights reserved.
Near Hawksbill Crag (Whittaker Point), Arkansas. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
Near Hawksbill Crag (Whittaker Point), Arkansas. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
Campsite near Hawksbill Crag, Arkansas – What a superb spot this is. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
Preparing and eating breakfast. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
Campsite near Hawksbill Crag, Arkansas – What a superb spot this is. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. -
Backpacking gear (365:286)
I’ve got a busy seven days ahead. I’ve got a busy seven days ahead.
Tomorrow I’m off backpacking with a couple of friends. Should be good; I’ve no idea where we’re going – somewhere on the Buffalo River in Arkansas. We’ll be back Saturday, and then on Sunday, I’ll be off at 7.30 am to Chicago with Tom to help clear a house and haul some stuff back to Springfield. We are due back sometime Thursday, and then next Friday it’s off to Thornfield to spend the night with Ginger’s parents and her visiting aunt who I’ve yet to meet.
