Time To Go

       Almost every year my family tries to take some kind of vacation away from home. We usually just  go for a weekend a couple hours away or make a trip out of a family event like a wedding out of state but we always do something.

      The end of my sophmore year in high school, we decided to rent an R.V..My grandfather had pretty good health for his age, 86,at the time and he had been wanting to go out to the midwest U.S. to see the Badlands and Mt. Rushmore. So my parents took off work for about a week and a half so we could drive out and back.

       My mom and Dad picked out an R.V., a huge one. Being our first time taking an R.V., they didn't think about getting it up and down our drive way. Our house is on a hill, up a comparitively long drive. Lining our drive way are a few trees including a large willow with low hanging  large branches. My mom, not wanting to take any chances with our  insurance, voiced her opinion," well we could just leave it down at the bottom its really not too far to walk". My Dad, not wanting to walk that far,tells her "No, it'll be fine we just have to cut some branches down." So we trimmed all of the branches and my dad, carefully, but with no problem, drove this RV up to the house so we could get it all packed up.
      So we have it all packed and are ready to go.Our next step is to get it back down the drive. "Shotgun," my younger brother called.My mom answers," No, Grandpa gets shotgun, you have to watch from the side to guide your dad down." So my brother watches on the side, along with rest of us. The hard part was the two curves at the top. My dad gets around the first curve just fine but the next is sharper and a big tree branch stuck out on it."You're good," my brother tells him from his side.He did look all clear, but then there was a loud metal bending sound. "Stop!"my mom yells at him, too late.
       On the outside of the curve was a steep,small hill and not thinking it about it the main focus was to not hit the branches on the other side but being so big the front of the RV caught the hill. So my dad backed up a little ways to see the damage.The whole bottom front of the R.V., I guess you might call it the bumper but it wasn't a seperate peice, but all connected, had came loose and stuck out from the rest of the body.
       So there goes our deductable, but what to do from there. We already had it all packed up and we only had so many days off from work that were requested off. My dad goes into his garage after looking underneath the R.V. and comes out with bungee cords. He straps the front back to the body of the R.V. and says, "Time to go."

 

       

exploration six Fort Ancient Earthworks

     Although it is called a "fort," it probably never served as a defensive work. Ditches are located inside the walls rather than outside as might be expected if it was an actual fort. There are more than 60 gateways in the enclosure, which would have made it difficult to defend against enemies. But this shouldn’t have mattered because it was built by the Hopewell culture between 100 B.C. and A.D. 400. If you take a dump truck from Cleveland to Cincinnati lined up from bumper to bumper full of dirt, that is how much the Hopewell much to created there fort. They also have spacial events throughout the year, like an event for Indian descendents to come for two days to camp and celebrate.

     My mom, sister, and I went to the Southwest part of Ohio in Oregonia, Ohio to Fort Ancient this past summer. It was about an hour drive or two. We walked around in the 9,000 sq. ft. fort Museum at Fort Ancient of its exhibits, including many interactive units, focusing on 15,000 years of American Indian history in the Ohio Valley first. One Interactive unit a video showing how create arrow heads out of flint to at the time seemed boring; because the guy showing how said “on average it would take about forty five minutes to hours shaping the arrow head based on your skill level in doing so.” While walking in the museum we saw history of different time periods like the French American war. After walking in museum exhibits we all agreed to get what we wanted from the store, because there were going to close in Two hours and we haven’t looked outside yet. This where I got a CD that is some Indian Music Which is Call Sky Riders by Jaime Vega, an exploration of the native flute  music of the Americas.

      When we went outside we went to look at the plants that were collected. While doing so and looking on the map we got there was different paths. We chose to take the one in the same area that I don’t think was on the map for a reason. The path looked like a path, because it had markers showing the path goes in a circle back around and had a sitting bench on the opposite part we took. As walked along there were fallen trees on the path and the vegetation wasn’t cut back. With the fallen trees in the way my sister And I came up with the terms, “Limbo and hop scotch,” for having to go under the trees and avoid mud. While walking the path with vegetation overgrown I must have started walking off in the woods, because my sister said “don’t you know you’re walking off into the woods.” On the same path the only other misfortune we had would have been walking and falling into a big hole about five feet deep and about seven feet wide.

As walked back towards the others paths by the museum that were marked on the map were a little safer. The Orange path that took you by where some huts were had logs on the edges of the path and mulch in between that were laid down by boy scouts. The other paths in the back the Purple, blue, and red were labeled to be a harder walk and some small climbing. Ya the one we took was the Purple one that was a mile hike which had the blue path connecting to it. Which the blue path connected to path is made to ride your bike to different states. Since my mom and sister were getting tired they didn’t want to follow, but they did any ways because I had the keys to the car. One phrase my said “I ain’t no D- word Indian,” when I went running off running to see how far the path was. While running, there were roots and other things like coming out of the ground.  Then coming up on the bridge to get to the other side, I said to myself “wow what I nice view, but if I am not careful I could have fallen off about a good three feet.” When I made to the end I ran over to a ledge because I got curious of what was on the other side. When my mom and sister came out they were going back to the car, so I tried to get their attention to come over. But they didn’t care they said, when I caught up to by running over to tell them about the great view. They didn’t really want too, but they did and were amazed by what I was trying to tell them. The view looking down was about I would say 100 feet down you could see, and about 300 feet or more feet looking off to the distance.  Upon leaving the site we went back into the museum gift shop to buy shirts we saw the first time and told lady working there that day about the first path we went on to. She said, “Since the storm a few storms we had in the past,” like the storms from hurricane Katrina, “They haven’t had time and the resources of money to clean up some of the trails.” We went t Bob Evens afterwards and on the way home we listen to my music I got. We of course didn’t make it past song five because we were all tired and the music must have been making it worse. The music is great and all but don’t listen to it when tired.


 The Cd I bought for three dollars.

Exploration 6

Seth and I were back in the woods, trying to set up a place to campout. We did this every year so we were trying to make a different place this time. We found a place at the bottom of a steep hill and started cleaning it up. It was a grassy spot in the middle of the woods and I said "This is the perfect spot." The only thing that was wrong with the place was there was a big log in the way, right in the middle. So I said "I got this!" So I got on my fourwheeler and put the front of my fourwheeler against it to role in out of the way. This turned into a big problem because the log was bigger than I had expected so I put the fourwheeler into 4-wheel drive and ended up getting the fourwheeler stuck. So I put it into reverse and something called whiskey throttle happened. That is when you are pushing on the gas and you cant let go of it because all of your mometum is going forward. So I was going backwards in the middle of the woods missing every tree somehow, but I did end up hitting Seth's fourwheeler which he was sitting on. Seth is about 6'4" 230 pounds and plays football at Notre Dame College of Ohio and this even scared him. He said "I thought I was done for." I ended up hitting the side of his fourwheeler and flipped mine, and it threw me off of mine and I went flying into a big dirt pile. No one ended up getting hurt but we did break a piece off of Seth's grandpa's fourwheeler. So seth said "We have to fix this or my grandpa is going to kill me!" We ended up fixing the fourwheeler but it took us like 2 hours to fix it and we didnt end up getting in trouble. Since we spent forever fixing the fourwheeler we didnt get to make our new place to camp so we had to go back to our old spot, which didnt bother me because we still had a good time. I am just glad no one got hurt.

Brandon's Exploration 6

It was a sunny day in the first week of July on Dale Hollow Lake. My family and I had taken a vacation with the speedboat for a week, just to relax and get away. It’s basically a family tradition; we go there almost every year. You can jump in the water and see a span of fifteen feet under you; the water is like a bath tube reaching temperatures of seventy degrees. The landscape is beautiful, with huge cliff sides caused by the dynamite used to make the man made lake; a mixture of beauty and power at its finest. On this particular day my family and I were just doing a day of floating. We would go into a cove of the lake and just throw the anchor in and sit out in the water. With a cooler packed with drinks and food we could stay there all day. My parents are really laid back people; they always enjoy being in the speedboat or cruising in the pontoon, anything in the water interests them. My sister is a fish, not literally, but she could be in the water all day and never get tired. We are a boating family and do a lot of it. On one of the last days I was swimming and thought it would be a good idea to swim over to the bank. As I was swimming I could here my dad yell “watch out for snakes!” I just put it in the back of my mind and said it would never happen to me. I kept getting closer and closer to the bank and then heard my mom yell “your going to get bit!” I just thought, “that’s reassuring mom, thanks for making me feel so much better about this situation” but I carried on determined to get to the bank. I had to jump off the side of the cliff; it’s just what men do! I finally reached the bank and started climbing up. Who would have guessed it; I lifted my self-up a bit and then suddenly was face to face with a giant snake! I didn’t stay around long but noticed the snake had a white mouth like a Cottonmouth. The Cottonmouth snake (or water moccasin) is the only poisonous snake in Tennessee that swims, and I’m pretty sure I was face to face with one. I jumped off the ledge into the water and swam as fast as I could back to the boat yelling, “Snake! Snake!” the whole way there. I’m not going to lie, I was freaked out, I can deal with snakes normally, just not when they are right in my face. When I finally reached the boat after swimming vigorously and erratic in a single uncoordinated motion in an effort to quickly evade the snake, all my parents had to say was “we told you so.” I guess I learned a valuable lesson that day, to always listen to your parents. The only justifiable excuse is that I wouldn’t have this crazy story to tell!

exploration 6

Getting it Done

            It was a pretty typical summer’s weekend and I was working on my mother’s brakes on her ford escape. I had made sure to wake up extra early to make sure I had enough time to do them all. So I am in my dads garage and it is a mess. There are tools lying out on all the work benches and not to mention all the other stuff my dad brings home to tinker on. Finally at around 11 o’clock I am ready to start working on the car. I call my dad to come help and he fell asleep on the couch waiting for me to get done. But once I woke him up the first thing he says is “you ready boy we don’t have all day now”. I just wanted to put him right back to sleep after that. Now that I have my dad with me I could get started on the brakes. So I gather all the tools I need and start to work on the car and I had just gotten on the ground to start working and I hear “hey boy wanna go get some lunch I’m getting kind of hungry”. This meant get up we’re going to lunch. But when we got back my mom’s car was nowhere to be found the garage was open with tools still out and parts lying out. So I ran inside to figure out what’s up and my mom tells me she sent my sister to go get her cigarettes but she had no gas and used my mom’s car. Now when I go back outside I find my dad has started without me and already has one tire off. So he tells me to start on the back while he does the front. So I said to myself alright I am gonna get mine done before he gets his finished.  After pulling of the tire I see what look like a drum not the typical disk brake set up I am used to. So I ask my dad “hey what do I do next”? his reply has “see that 10 pound sledge in the corner”. Me I say “yea”. My dad goes “you got to beat the outer drum casing off and then you’re at the heart of the assembly” it to me over 4 hours to beat the one ceased rusted on casing off the brake assembly. We had to use a rose bud torch to heat up the casing till it was red hoy and hit it with the sledge to finally free the casing to change the brakes.