NowTHIS is truly a “grilled Sandwich”…

  I have not been a very good blogger yet again..For the life of me, I believe we are busier now that when we both worked…We had to drive into Oak Brook Terrace, very near the big City, to get my brand new phone fixed…The nearest AT&T Service Center was located there…This meant driving in on I-88 and then the great money- sucking Illinois Tollway System.  I really dreaded this drive..I HATE that 4-5 lane raceway, so I was thrilled when McGyver offered to drive me in.  To make a harrowing story short, the nice man at the service center took my phone and in 10 minutes he had installed new firmware… All in all it was a rewarding trip unless you factor in each of 4 toll booths (2 on the way in, and the same 2 on the way out), which cost us $1.50 each time…You do the math…Yep, $6.00 to go about 20 miles on the great octopus road tentacles that suck your money up greedily…Illinois…what more can I say?

I have also been busy trying to get us booked into a few campgrounds in South Florida…YIKES, that is harder than I thought..They only have 3 Army Corps campgrounds, and you cannot book them until 6months prior…I got online and found out the the Ortona South was almost totally booked. (We stayed there in August of 2005, after our daughter’s wedding).  We hope to be there on Jan 5th next year, so on July5th, at 9AM ( you cannot book before that time), I got online and managed to snag the last spot available…Whew! Not so lucky with the others…Finally today I found a state park, Lake Griffin, near Leesburg, to book for middle on Jan for a couple weeks…Texas was not nearly this tough!! I still have to look for something Feb 2nd for a couple weeks, but if it becomes impossible, we will zip on over to Alabama and squat there till mid March..

I know some of you are wondering why we don’t just book a private campground…That’s just not how we roll…We like a lake, river, or waterway in our campground, don’t need a pool,  and don’t want to be parked on top of the next RV..(not to mention we are cheap old farts)…Different strokes for different folks..and we are definitely different!!!

  Northern Illinois is in a pretty bad drought here, as is the whole Midwest…It is so dry here, that they have re-scheduled the Hero Dash that was going to be held next weekend here at our fairgrounds…Because some of the “obstacles”  included fire, and also the high temps due here again next week, they moved it to Oct. 8th…I think some very smart heads prevailed in this decision, and I heartily approve!

I crunched through our grass to get some photos of our dry yard and dying floral displays…

 

 

 

 

Here is our lawn….The John Deere is becoming a haven for spiderwebs….

 

 

 

That brown thing on my Hydrangea is the seed pod where the seeds are plentiful after it’s done blooming..The photo on the right shows them on the ground…No seed pods this year..

The Cave Dwellings vegetation is virtually non existent…What the sun and heat hasn’t devastated, the bunnies HAVE…

Above is the only green pepper left, and this is all that is left of HIM!  Right photo is one of my Impatient plants…all of those little while spots is where the leaves USE to be…Mother Nature sure has been up to no good this year.  If we had the money for every plant that has either burned to death or been devoured by bunnies, we could have a gourmet dinner for 2 somewhere…(or at least about 10 pizzas)

Even though the Hero Dash was postponed, the Wolff kids will still be  here next weekend…That makes Mimi (that’s moi) and Papa VERY happy campers!!  Those darn grandkids grow so fast we gotta put a brick on their head to slow ‘em down, right?? Maddox is only 15 months old and he is singing the ABC song…Yes, I do believe virtually EVERY Grama and Grampa think their grandkids are …GENIUS!!!!

So, tonight, McGyver and I are ordering out…Fried Cod dinners from the Bull Moose Bar and Grille (the Teddy Roosevelt Pullman train car)….We will think of Sam and Donna (who dined with us there) when we chow down!!

  This heat is a real killer and I am getting quite concerned about my trusty owl on our deck…I think this sun has caused him to develop cataracts…so I loaned him my sunglasses. 

I close with a heavy heart at the terrible tragedy that happened in Aurora, Colorado….Why can’t we all just love one another..how does someone get to this point???? To quote an old favorite song of mine, “the answer is blowin’ in the wind”…Some things never change…