Vacations

The girls went to Vegas and the boys stayed home.

Caitlin left last week for a few days in California with half the gang before meeting up with Mary and the other half this week. None of the girls is a gambler, and are underage anyway except for Mary and Leah, they just are using Sin City as the the center of tourist adventures because its the only place you can fly into near the Grand Canyon, Four Corners, and the Big Dam. Plus it has it own set of non-gambling somewhat reasonably priced entertainment suitable for 16 to 18 year-old young women. The older girls (Mary and Leah) will have their hands full trying to herd the cats (tame cats though they might be).

Nelson and I counted the vacation as starting on Saturday, but there were some chores that had to be done before the fun could start. After excavating his room out and knocking down the jungle that is the back yard, we were ready to get our week off under way.

Nelson and I planned to stay close to home fishing and riding the motorcycle around. Our week almost got canceled before it started when the old fart of the pair missed a step and nearly broke his ankle. Luckily it just knocked a bunch of profanity out of me, gave me a headache, and left the ankle swollen for a couple of days without seeming to be broken or too badly sprained. That happened on Saturday before Mary left on Monday.

Sunday was spent sleeping late, drugging and icing the ankle, helping Mary pack, getting rid of three beds that we did not need to folks most glad to have them (one we found in the excavation of Nelson's room, one from Caitlin's room a year ago, and one from Nelson's room in the old house six years ago -- we are pack rats), and finishing the yard work that did not get finished Saturday.

Monday was spent getting Mary out the door to the airport and then some prep for the rest of the week. It was another late start to the day, because we are a lazy bunch on vacation. After seeing Mary off, we went shopping. We bought some fishing gear, some odds and ends for the motorcycle rides, and some groceries. Nelson got a new Oscar for his fish tank. Nelson has cheer practice on Monday so not much else was in plans. By the time we got all the stuff back to the house and got something to eat it was time to get him to the gym.

The plan for Tuesday was a ride motorcycle through the swervy roads of North Georgia. We got mostly packed Monday night then settled in to watch the movie Stardust. We stayed up a bit too late watching it though. It turned out to be better than we were expecting. Funny ghosts, Robert De Niro had an especially nice part, and Claire Danes, but it kept us up later than we planned.

So we went to sleep looking forward to a two day motorcycle trip to start on Tuesday.