May 24th, Thursday – Lessons Learned

Today was long and a bit frustrating but lessons have been learned.  Let’s begin, though, with this morning’s alarm clock at 5:30 am.  Trust me, it wasn’t my alarm clock.  For a fact, it was not even a regular alarm clock.  What was it then?  From the beginning.

The sun is up and shining in the bedroom window at around 5 am every morning, no different this morning.  It’s bright enough to wake me up.  This time, though, I was tired enough to get back to sleep, almost.

Come 5:30 am and the Air National Guard decided to practice touch and go landings which brings the fighter jets over the park, it brings them really low over the park!  Trust me when they come over they are really, really loud!  No sleeping through it.  Ah well, the flip side of this is we know at least they are on the job helping to preserve the freedoms we all enjoy and often take for granted.

We had another one today, that is we had a backwards day.  I started the day off with home-made lasagna and, of course, a cup of coffee.  And I finished the day off with steak and eggs.  Isn’t life grand.  Everyone should have one of these once and awhile.  By doing so, you are also entitled to have ice cream for breakfast.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have any in the freezer or I sure would have had some.

Today was long and a bit frustrating regarding WordPress but lessons have been learned.  It took hours of digging, a lot of searching the internet, posting questions to different internet forums but this is what I discovered:

• when I began posting the blog I was using my phone to take pictures
• about a month ago I started using an actual camera
• what happened in essence was the pictures from the camera were of a small size and took up hardly any space.  The pictures from the camera were all HD and some of them were up to 5 mb in size
• uploading the pictures from the camera to the media library at WordPress quickly depleted the available storage space
• so I’ve had to back up (learned how to do this) past blogs, then deleted the old pictures from the media library at WordPress and the actual blogs to free up space
• I’ve also found a free program that will resize all my files going forward before uploading them so they don’t take up as much storage space
• I’m not sure exactly how the pictures will look going forward but time will tell in the next several days
• for now, though, I don’t have to pay anything to WordPress for additional storage space, I’m sure that day will come but for now I’m OK

That’s it for now.  Believe it or not, all this research and backup took up the better part of the day.  With time out, of course, for a much-needed nap.  Hey, searching the internet can really be exhausting!

The park is slowly beginning to fill up.  Met a gentleman, Conrad, today who lives about 4 hours north of here but always comes down here to spend the summer.  This is his fourth summer at Pumpkin Patch and, of course, he knows all about the low flying planes from the Air National Guard.  He told me that the planes for Bangor International Airport go one way, and the planes for the Air National Guard have no choice but to come this way.  Of course.

Met another gentleman, Rod, who owns and operates RV Yankee Tours.  He proudly told me he is now 82 years young and started the company 32 years ago when he got laid off.  On June 3rd, he and his wife are leading an excursion for 30 rigs leaving on a 30 day Canadian Maritimes tour.  He also said that they had to hire 4 ferries for one leg of the trip.  After this trip, he said they are going to be leading a 38-Day Northwest Expedition.  I asked him need any help?  He replied only if you are a certified RV tech.  Shucks.  At least I tried.

Then I met a wonderful lady, whose name I did not get, who, with her husband, are up here for the summer because they have family and grandchildren in this area.  She said we love to travel but not full-time.  I asked why and she replied “my husband spent 38 years in the military and all we did was move.  I like going back now to a permanent home”.  I wonder how many other wonderful people I will get to meet this weekend.

Before I end this blog I have one thing I do want to share with you.  Does anyone see anything strange about the next two pictures?  Picture one, consider what it is in the cup, picture two, look closely at the writing on the cup.

I guess I should be lucky that all my ice cream didn’t melt away!

Our day is now done.  It was a bit cool and windy, but sunny so no complaints.  Night is now here and the stars are again out in full force.  Though we haven’t gone anywhere, and probably will not until we move again, we enjoyed the day.  Once again we were together, traveling along, hand in hand, singing our song.  That alone is enough to make the day a hit in our book.   We trust you had just as great a day.  In ending, I have this thought for all, but more so for those who are retired, and it is:

Since I’m now retired “on time” means whenever I get there

As always,  if you are coming to the end of your day with concerns and worries let me suggest that you turn them over to God.  After all, He is going to be up all night so why not let him handle them for you.

Time now for our evening prayers and finally some shut-eye.  Till tomorrow.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s occupants, four paws and two humans.  Our continuing mission: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have not been before