Annapolis to Williamsburg to Bowie to Arnold to Richmond and back to Williamsburg

It seems that campground wireless is too slow to do much with flick'r or blogs. Sean and I are at the rental house on Mistywood stealing someone else's wireless. Thanks, neighbor without concerns for security!

I have painted most of the ceilings upstairs. I stopped in the middle of the last room, when I finished the first bucket of ceiling paint. I'll finish the remainder of the ceilings in the morning while we wait for the dishwasher delivery.

We had a blast last week at the American Heritage campground outside Williamsburg. Next week, we'll be in the Colonial section of the KOA campground near there. AH had concrete pads on which to park, a nature trail, a dog run, and a pool. The KOA campground has grassy/gravel/mulch pads, a nicer pool, a colorful dog run with fun obstacles, and a jumping pillow.

This is what it looks like when we camp:



Bridget continues to read those stupid Warriors books. Noah, however, makes me proud. That's 1984 he's reading. Notice the completely unchewed sandals next to Patches. Good dog, Patches.

Patches went all OCD on us while we were there. He started to collect stuff and store it in his bed. By the time we moved the bed, he had amassed two pieces of paper and a chewed up plastic spoon.

Of course we had to visit William and Mary. We parked by Bryan Complex and walked up through the Sunken Gardens:



We stopped at the Wren Building and were fortunate to find it open and staffed by a sweet docent willing to share stories and talk about children's fantasy literature, her dissertation topic. Here are my favorite people and dogs on the steps of the Wren Building.



This is what the classroom in the Wren building would have looked like if they had accepted bratty eight year olds who refuse to get their hair cut, even after chopping off half their bangs at a 45 degree angle.



Is he cute, or what?

The Wren Chapel is pretty. Did you know that coat of arms came from New York? Me, neither.



Bridget poses with the rather ordinary cross that caused all that fuss a while back. The descriptive plaque has not been updated to include that story. That was disappointing because I would have liked to see how they summed it up in a sentence or two.



The dogs stopped for some water. Who knew they could drink from a bottle? Would it disturb you to know that Noah shared the bottle with them later in the day?



Have you ever seen anything that cute? I know I haven't.



Life -- that is, Noah -- imitates art.



"Dude, you spelled the word wrong."



And why is there a non-Colonial army on DoG Street?



Gotta' pet the horses. It's required.



Oh, so that's why the army was there.



Isn't that tree in the background pretty?

How cute are they?



That's it. We're done.



I haven't uploaded the next set of pictures yet. That should include Water Country USA and the sad and frustrating baseball tournament.

Peace.

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted, Vacation, Time to Get Away

Today was the last day of school for teachers in Prince George's County. Please allow me to paraphrase Mr. James' inspirational end-of-year speech, "I know we didn't reach all any of our goals, but I want to thank each and every one of you for not sucking any more than you did. We'll do better next year." So, uh, yeah, apparently we are awesome what he's stuck with. I actually thought I did a pretty good job of teaching the kids English this year. All I have to say about that is, hurray for tenure!

Tomorrow, we start our week-long RV mini-trip to Williamsburg. Noah has baseball camp at William and Mary. Jim will probably spend his days watching the camp while I hang out with Bridget and Sean. I'm pretty excited.

This is what our last trip looked like:


There was reading ...




... sleeping ...


... sliding ...


... wading ...


... pouting and whining, of course ...

and, not pictured, relaxing, eating, knitting, and learning how to empty the holding tanks.

The following weekend there is a baseball tournament. It will be interesting to see how that goes. I've never seen such a ridiculous team. Most of the kids have ganged up on one unfortunate player. The ringleader is a particularly obnoxious child, given to temper tantrums and telling adults to "f**k off." Adults who don't work where I work are not accustomed to this sort of behavior and do not know how to deal with it. I kind of doubt I'll make it through a day of baseball without having a little chat with the brat. I hope I don't embarrass Jim and Noah too badly.

There might be one more tournament in early July, and then we can hit the road for real. I doubt we'll make it the 11,000 miles I originally suggested, but we'll get where we can and see what we see.

Happy Memorial Day!

Well, Memorial Day weekend was fun.

Noah had a baseball tournament in Lusby. They lost all the games, but, y'know, whatever. We road tested the RV at Duncan's Family Campground, which is between our house and the ball field. I think the drive across the country is going to be amazing. The kids had a blast. Sean and Bridget made friends and swam in the pool and ran around the playgrounds. Bridget and Noah read books. (Sean hasn't fallen in love with reading yet. It will come in time. My brother didn't enjoy a book until he discovered Stephen King.) Noah and Jim cooked delicious meals. I sat on my lazy, broken butt and knitted. I could almost feel the tension seeping out of my shoulders.

What do you mean by broken butt, you ask? Well, a week ago Sunday, I was going out to trim back the weeds on the back fence. My heel hit the wooden step that goes to our overgrown gravel-and-weed garden, slipped out from under me, and I landed on the step butt-first. Since it hasn't gotten much better, I'm pretty sure I have broken or bruised or somehow damaged my tailbone. Luckily, I still have the muscle relaxants from when I threw my back out, so I haven't gone to a doctor. What are they going to do? Put a cast on it? No. Tell me to stay home from school? Not going to happen. Physical therapy? I can't even think about physical therapy for that. So, no.

But I digress. If you ever want to camp in Upper Marlboro -- and I feel certain that you do -- I highly recommend Duncan's Family Campground. There are two playgrounds and a pool, which is enough to keep my kids entertained. They have some organized Bingo/Karaoke-type activities, but I didn't go anywhere near those. They come around at the end of the weekend and pump out the holding tanks, so we had a little mini-course in how to do that. We needed that. It's not nearly as scary as it sounds. I mean, it's not scary as long as Jim is doing it.

And what's up with the knitting? Yeah, I know, I'm an old lady and a nerd. That's not surprising. We're getting ready to drive across the country. The minute I get into a moving vehicle, I fall asleep. Jim prefers to have some company. I can't read in the car because it makes me sick. My hope is that I can knit without getting sick and that it will keep me awake. At least, that's how it started.

Then I remembered how much fun knitting is and now I'm all addicted to it. It's relaxing, and I'm all about relaxing these waning days of the school year.

Because things at school ... well, how to explain ... it's May, almost June, the worst time of the year. The kids are done. The adults are trying to shift blame for all the things they didn't accomplish (or, y'know, even start) during the year. No one really wants to be indoors. The HSA's are done. The weather is getting warm, which makes the children cranky. Two of mine almost came to blows over someone knocking colored pencils off a desk. (Okay, they were more angry about the disrespect than the pencils.) They didn't fight in my class. Ten minutes later, though, after Security released them, they fought in the cafeteria. (I know! Who would have seen it coming!) So now I have to make my lessons FUN! and EXCITING! just to plod on to the last day of school. Those ten sick days I took when I had pneumonia? I want them back.

I didn't have to go today, though. Jim and I were in Boston, researching a potential franchise. Chyten Tutoring is actually pretty amazing. They have a proven SAT/ACT-prep program; they provide top-notch college counseling; and I think their RANDD program, which teaches reading and study skills, is going to be great. (I haven't seen the whole thing yet, but the bits and pieces I've seen look wonderful.) They have an effective product, everyone we have met appears trustworthy, and the employees have been with the company for a respectable amount of time and seem to be happy. It's an awesome opportunity. The only question I have is whether Jim will be happy running a center. And that is his question to answer. It's important, too. Most of the time, I look forward to going to work. I want that for Jim, too.

Sixteen teaching days to go! (Well, actually, it's more like 13 or 14, since the kids who show up after finals spend their days locked down in the cafeteria.)

Trip Planning is Not Easy

This is really, really hard. I tried to put all the stuff people requested into a Triple A Trip-Tik planner thingie. And, oddly, Jim doesn't want to drive 10,000 miles this summer. Lazy bum.

It's fun, though. Now I can narrow down our choices of where to go. I don't think it's absolutely necessary, or even logical, to hit Canada. Everyone wants to, though, so we probably will. Of course, everyone wants to go to the Grand Canyon, too. Either of those could work; both of them in the same trip ... eh ... not so much ...

In my mind, the most important place to go is Yellowstone. I'll have to make the rest of them choose between the Grand Canyon and Canada. Personally, I'd rather see the Grand Canyon; on the other hand, though, it will be much cooler in the summer in Canada. (OK, once again, I'm neutral.)

Oh, and I'll try to fit Holden Beach into the trip. Because I have magic powers.

On a completely irrelevant note, I have ordered an infinite dress and cannot wait to get it in the mail. I'm completely obsessed by how it is possible to make 100 different styles from one item. If I had any sort of ability to picture stuff, I might not have had to order it. If it works, though, I'm going to try to order every possible color. (At infinitedress.com, it costs $299. I bought it for $4.99 plus shipping. Woo-hoo. I canNOT resist a bargain.)

So Noah is applying to be in the National Junior Honor Society. Bridget is preparing for her Spring Concert. And Sean ... well, Bridget and I did his Famous Person project for him. I don't know what Sean will end up doing with his life; I do know, though, that he'll never do his own laundry in college.

... more ideas ...

Check this out:

http://www.roadtripusa.com/routes/greatnorthern/greatnorthern.html

That's just one of 11 routes. Woo-hoo! Finally, a starting point for my research. So, let's start:

This is their Drive of the Month for June:

http://www.roadtripusa.com/drive-of-the-month/june.html

The August trip sounds pretty cool:

http://www.roadtripusa.com/drive-of-the-month/august.html

It might be better if I just list the important places to go.

Yellowstone
Carhenge (near Yellowstone)
Grand Teton National Park
Craters of the Moon National Monument
Sun Valley
Flathead Lake
Glacier National Park
The Great Northern (US-2): The UP, Montreal, Lake Champlain
US-20: Niagara Falls and Yellowstone; Finger Lakes and Mohawk Trail

What I really need is a map in which I can put pins. That Google thing is cool, but not really all that helpful.

Fun with Old Pictures

Now that the yearbook is finished, I can play with some of the cool pictures my dad put on my computer for me. (Thanks, Dad!)

My kids want to go to Mount Rushmore when we drive across the country. Here's a picture of it from 1964, when Mom and Dad drove from their wedding in Oregon to his new job with DuPont in Delaware.



There appears to be a giant pile of gravel in front of Teddy Roosevelt. I have no idea why or if it's still there.

We have been teasing my parents for years because so many of their honeymoon pictures are of a bear. This is the bear and, I have to say, he is really cute.



I'm not sure exactly when my mom started making cookies, but she has perfected the art. It looks like she was doing a good job back in 1966.



Also, it seems that my taste in cars was established rather early.



And how did this skinny woman



give birth to this giant child?



And that's probably enough for one day.

... so tired ...

Oh my gosh, I am so sick of ninth graders. On Monday, Tamisha spat at -- and missed -- DaMarkus. On Wednesday, Tariq and Malik fought over picking colored pencils up off the floor. (Technically, they didn't fight in my room. The fight started in my room, Security took them away, and they fought 15 minutes later during A Lunch. Apparently, Security operates under a catch-and-release policy these days.) Today, Cimone and Marolise were bickering, as usual. Cimone pouted and sent angry text messages until 10:30 and then said she would finish after school. When I told her no, it was due at the end of class, she cried, "But how will I finish it?" I dunno'. I assumed you had a plan. (I'll let her do it, but not until I have entered her bad progress report grade.)

They are so hyper and sick of school and grumpy. And I am so tired and sick of school and grumpy. That one bit of dissonance is a huge problem.

On the bright side, though, the yearbook is finished and I don't have to teach that class next year.