Where We Have Called Home In 2019

Home Is Where We Park It:  Ives Run COE, Tioga, Pennsylvania 

July 24, 2019

Temperature 72 Degrees

Just Chillin 

Contrary to popular belief we have not fallen off the face of the earth.  We have not been abducted by aliens.  We have not entered the witness protection program.  We’re just chillin and take life easy.

Speaking of chillin, when we awoke this morning it was 53 degrees outside and 63 degrees in the rig.  A big change for us that is for sure.  I can remember New Orleans and the temperature never going below 95 degrees.  I wonder what’s coming next.

So, we’ve been enjoying our time with mom since we’ve gotten here.  We’ve been there and she’s been here.  The memories made will last for a lifetime.  In addition we’ve had almost every kind of meal that one can think of, except one.  We hadn’t had Chinese yet.  We corrected that oversight today.

A quick text to my sister for the recommended spot to go and this was the recommended one,  QQ Buffet.

I have no idea what the QQ stands for but if someone can interpret this we might have a clue.

Or maybe we can get this guy to talk and tell us what it means.

Moving inside my first impression was Is this all there is?  I guess I’m spoiled, normally the buffets I’ve gone to in the past there have been acres of aisles of food.  But as they say never judge a book by its cover.  They had everything I could hope for, the food was fresh and hot, and absolutely delicious.  Thanks sis for the recommendation.

They had a Sushi bar.

An excellent dessert bar.

Mom absolutely enjoyed herself.  By her own admission it was the most she had eaten in a long time.  She had four different types of chicken, vegetables, a pot of tea and finished all that off with two scopes of ice cream.  Yes, she qualified for the clean plate club.

Our two lovely ladies coming back with some dessert.

Here are some of the decorations from the room we were in.

It was a delightful afternoon and one that left all of us stuffed in a good way.

Changing gears, probably the highlight of Ives Run is Hammond Lake.  Hammond Lake is a 640-acre reservoir in north-central Pennsylvania’s Tioga County. Hammond Lake is owned and maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and offers a wide range of fishing options, as well as camping, hiking and other activities.  This is the lake looking out from the boat ramp.

The boat ramp.

They have slips where campers can leave their boats.

Looking from the boat area back toward the campground.

That’s it for today.  It’s hard to believe that in just a few days we’ll be back on the road again.  It’s been nice just sitting still but it’s time.  Hitch Itch is beginning to set in again.  Time to get back to exploring new states and new attractions.  Time to discover new things and learn more about this great country of ours.

That was our day on The Road of Retirement.  It was a wonderful day in every way.  We’ll cherish these days as we travel along.  Time to call it a night and go find that extra blanket.  They say it’s going to get a bit chilly again tonight.

Thanks for joining us again, we always appreciate your company and comments.  Catch you tomorrow.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s two human soul mates.  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

See you on down the road!

 

Home Is Where We Park It:  Ives Run COE, Tioga, Pennsylvania 

July 22, 2019

Temperature 65 Degrees

Hide and Seek

Mom Comes To Visit

Huntsville, Alabama – Rocket City & Putting A Man On The Moon

Talk about a drastic change in weather.  One day it’s 86 degrees and today it is 65 degrees.  In addition the sun is long gone and now once again we have rain aplenty.  Ah well, such is life.  It is supposed to clear out by tomorrow.

Yesterday we played hide and seek – with mom’s hearing aids.  She called all in a panic saying she couldn’t find them.  She had looked everywhere.  Off we went to help in the search.

Once there we began to search.  She claimed that she had put them in her top dresser drawer.  First, we emptied it out on the bed.  Just like mom had already done.  Nothing.  Well, we looked hi and low, even in the garbage and a hundred and one other places.  No luck.  Then that little voice in my head that has spoken to me in the past said They’re in the drawer where she said she had put them.  Mind you we had taken that drawer out at least several times and gone through everything in it with no luck.

I went back again to the drawer, emptied it out on the bed – like we had already done numerous times.  I began to go through each piece of clothing, one by one.  There in the last pair of unmentionables was a small piece of tissue with the hearing aids in it.  Well I gave them to mom and told her I was going to frame her pair of unmentionables and mount them on the wall.  She doubled up with laughter.  It was good to see her finally relax.

Time to get her out of the apartment.  We brought her back to the rig for supper.  Barbara made a delicious meal of potato pancakes and meatloaf.  Mom outdid herself with what she ate.  It was good to see her relaxed, laughing and eating so much.

This past week as a nation we celebrated our mission to the moon.  Mindful of that I thought I’d share with you our trip to the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama sometime back.

Before there was a man on the moon, before there was a rocket that could get them there, there was Huntsville.  Huntsville was originally a town known for it’s cotton mills

But that all changed in the 1940’s

This is where the story of the Saturn V, the rocket that took us to the moon began.  Huntsville would become known as the birthplace of America’s moon rocket.

Huntsville would forever be known as the The Rocket City.

But what brought about the need for such a rocket?  Why were we going to the moon at all?  You don’t have to be a space nerd to know why we went to the moon. In September 1962, President John F. Kennedy gave one of the most famous speeches in American history. The highlights included an ambitious goal and an even more ambitious timeline:

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

The challenges of doing so, however, were enormous

Then came the Kennedy assassination after which President Johnson embraced Kennedy’s vision and the space race was on in earnest.

What was needed now was an engineer to bring about Kennedy’s vision.  That man would be Wernher von Braun.

 

A team quickly assembled around him.

The challenge had been issued.  The team assembled.  Now it was time to do it.

At the time, there was no rocket capable of lifting all of the things astronauts would need—or indeed, the astronauts themselves—for the eight-day round-trip journey. The Redstone rocket that had taken the first American, Alan Shepard, to space was at its core a modified missile. The Juno rocket that had taken the first U.S. satellite to space didn’t have enough thrust to lift the weight of a command capsule, lunar lander, and three astronauts.

Scientists at NASA Marshall had already begun work on a new generation of rockets before President Kennedy’s speech. Called the Saturn project, early Saturn I rockets weren’t powerful enough for a moon mission. They needed a new, more powerful rocket than had ever been built. That rocket would be the Saturn V.

To learn more about this feat of engineering we’re going to the

The question now was could such a rocket be built?

Issues arose early on and had to be tackled one by one.  For instance, what fuel would power the Saturn V rocket?

Would there be one huge rocket or a rocket with several stages?  In the end it was decided that multiple stages would be the best.

How about the brains that would control the rocket?  It needed to continually answer three questions while the rocket was in flight:  where am I; where should I be; how can I get there.

My dad had a long and successful career with IBM so they hold a special place in my heart.

There were of course many, many other challenges along the way.  This though is what the end result was – the Saturn V.  This is a replica of that rocket all 363 feet tall that stands today at the rocket center and serves, and has served, as a Huntsville landmark for 50 years.

Would it work?  Would it fly?  Would it perform as designed?  The first test it had to successfully pass would be the shake it test.

The complete rocket with all its stages was assembled in this facility.  It then had to endure over 400 hours of dynamic testing to verify that vibrational forces would not shake it to pieces.

The individual engines for each stage were test fired.  These are the first stage engines.  Standing under the five gargantuan F-1 engines it was amazing to believe a rocket this big is real. It’s even more incredible to believe it worked.  When they first test fired the engines in Huntsville they made one mistake.  They forget to consider the weather conditions at the time.  There was a low cloud cover and when the engines were fired the shock wave hit the low cloud cover and rolled like a wave throughout Huntsville shattering windows everywhere in the community!

Then there is the Apollo 11 Capsule which consisted of several separate modules.

This is a model that represents the two vehicles that took the astronauts to the moon and brought them back safely.

Finally, all was ready.  Time now to go.  The launch would take place from Launch Complex 39 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

July 16, 1969 the five F-1 engines roared to life.

One more interesting note.  That first moon landing almost didn’t happen because the computer had picked a spot where the LM could not land.  Armstrong saved the day.

In the end over 400,000 individuals and several different facilities were responsible for this memorial day.  Armstrong had this to say while on the moon:

This, in part, was our day at the Rocket and Space Center.  While there we also took a tour of the Marshall Space Center which time and space does not permit me to include at this time.  My advice, put this on your bucket list of places to visit sometime in the future.  Just don’t expect to see it all in one hour – allow a full day.  You will not regret it.

Our wet, very rainy, and definitely cool day on The Road of Retirement has come to an end.  A blog was written, naps were taken, and we just slowly ambled through the day.  Overall, another great day spent together.

Thanks for joining us, we always enjoy your company.  Catch you tomorrow.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s two human soul mates.  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

See you on down the road!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where We Have Called Home In 2019

Home Is Where We Park It:  Ives Run COE, Tioga, Pennsylvania 

July 20, 2019

Temperature 86 Degrees

Communion On The Moon – How Buzz Aldrin Honored Jesus On The Moon.

So far so good in terms of temperature.  We hit 86 degrees today and from here it is only supposed to go down.  I believe we dodged the worse of the heat that everyone else is suffering through.  No complaints from either one of us.

Fifty years ago this week we went to the moon.  Throughout this past week there have been many TV Specials about our accomplishment.  There have been broadcasts from the original control room in Houston.  Much has been said about the Saturn V rocket that made it possible.  By now we all know just how close the whole lunar landing came to being scrubbed because the planned landing site was too rough.  With only 30 seconds of fuel remaining the LEM finally touched down.  There have been replays of that first historic step on to the moon’s surface.

Yet in all of the displays I personalty have viewed and of all the reports this past week that I watched there was never any mention of when Buzz Aldrin took communion on the moon.

This is the story.

For several weeks prior to the mission Buzz and his pastor were struggling to find the right symbol for the first lunar landing.  The two wanted to express their feeling that what man was doing in this mission transcended electronics and computers and rockets.

Buzz recalls that one day while he was at Cape Kennedy he wondered if it might be possible to take communion on the moon as a symbol that God was revealing himself there as well, as man reached out into the universe.  He believed that this would be quite appropriate inasmuch as many in the NASA program believed and trusted that what they were doing was part of God’s eternal plan.

He knew he could carry a bit of bread in a plastic packet.  And the wine would be carried the same way.  There would be just enough gravity on the moon for the liquid to pour.

What about a cup or chalice?  He spoke with his pastor again and he found a small, graceful silver cup.  It was light enough that Buzz could take it as part of his personal items in his personal-preference kit.

Plans were now made for two communion services.  The first would be held at his church just prior to Buzz leaving for Cape Kennedy.  The second would be weeks later when he and Neil Armstrong were scheduled to be on the surface of the moon.  At that time his church back home would again gather for communion with Buzz taking communion inside the lunar module as close as possible to the same hour that the congregation was.

Buzz next puzzled over what would be an appropriate Scripture passage to read prior to his taking communion.  He decided that John 15:5 would be perfect.  He wrote the passage on a slip of paper to be carried aboard Eagle along with the communion elements. His pastor would read the same passage at the full congregation service held back home that same day.

 

The first communion service was held at the church with just Buzz and his wife and their oldest boy as well as their pastor and a few close friends.  On the communion table were two loaves of bread, one for the immediate service the other for the lunar communion service in two weeks.  There were also two chalices, one of them the small cup the church was giving Buzz to take to the moon.

Communion was served.  At the end of the service Buzz’s pastor tore off a corner of the second loaf of bread and handed it to Buzz with the tiny silver chalice.  Within hours Buzz was on his way to Cape Kennedy.

The rest is history.  Sitting atop the Saturn V rocket they blasted off to the moon.  He recalls that it was a rough ride at first but soon things settled down.

On the day of the moon landing the LEM separated from the command module.  With just seconds of fuel left they touched down at 3:30 pm.  After their scheduled meal time it was now time for communion.

Buzz unstowed the elements in their flight packets. He put them and the scripture reading on the little table in front of the abort guidance-system computer.  Then he called back to Houston.

 

In the radio blackout Buzz opened the little plastic packages which contained bread and wine.  He poured the wine into the chalice his church had given him . In the one-sixth gravity of the moon the wine curled slowly and gracefully up the side of the cup. It was interesting to think that the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the first food eaten there, were communion elements.

Before he partook of the elements he did one more thing.  He read the words of Scripture he had chosen to indicate that he believed that as we man probed into space we were acting in Christ.

So why haven’t we heard more about this?  Does the name Madalyn Murray O’Hair ring a bell?  She was once dubbed “the most hated woman in America” for her high-profile activism on behalf of the separation of church and state.  She had already sued NASA because earlier astronauts had read words of Scripture from Genesis.   Though the case was ultimately dismissed NASA was afraid of another case should the communion service be publicly broadcast.

Though the press did report the fact that Aldrin would bring communion bread on the spacecraft, he kept the ceremony low-key and, out of respect for the debate over religion on the moon, kept the ceremony confined to the spacecraft and not the surface of the moon.

Now we all know how Christ was honored on the moon.

That was our day on The Road of Retirement.  We had another wonderful day.  We spent a few minutes with mom.  I was able to service our water system:  change filters, back flush and regenerate our water softener.  All in all just another beautiful day that we did our way, traveling along, singing our song, hand in hand.

Thanks for coming along, we appreciate your company.  Catch you tomorrow.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s two human soul mates.  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

See you on down the road!

 

 

 

 

Where We Have Called Home in 2019

Home Is Where We Park It:  Ives Run COE, Tioga, Pennsylvania 

July 19, 2019

Temperature 74 Degrees

Another Wonderful Day With Mom – Time For Mexican Train

Thankfully the heat has not made its way to the campground.  Don’t get me wrong it does get warm during the day – say mid 80/s – but by evening it drops down into the 70;s.  A whole lot better than what many people are suffering through.  Let’s hope the pattern holds for at least another day or two.

Today I finally figured out how to get the cab window curtains down so that they could be cleaned.  They simply snap off and then snap back on.  If I knew it would be that easy I would have cleaned them a long, long time ago.  Another item to put on the maintenance list for periodic cleaning.

This afternoon we went back down to mom’s for a game of Mexican Train.  She used to play at least twice a week with her friends when she lived in NC .  Since she has moved to Wellsboro she has not been able to find anyone who wants to play.  Today was the day to make her day.  Barbara got things set up.

Mom found her glass of wine and came to the table.

Let the games begin.

It was an interesting game right down to the end, but in the end I prevailed.

There was, of course, another reason for going to mom’s today.  There was more Strawberry Shortcake to be eaten.

Mom was the ever gracious hostess.

Yes, she had a very generous piece and proceeded to clean her plate.

Now, while at my sister’s house I found the answer to the question that was asked of me not too long ago.  That question was What don’t you miss since you’ve been on the road?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words so here is my answer to that question.  I don’t miss getting out the lawn mower to cut the grass.

Or walking around with the edge trimmer or leaf blower.

And I sure don’t miss shoveling snow.

I’m sure there are another thousand and one things I don’t miss like the monthly mortgage payment and quarterly taxes.  You get the idea.

That was our day on The Road of Retirement.  It was another wonderful day spent making precious memories that we will hold close to our hearts forever, ever.  Really, what more could one ask for.  Thank you again Lord for this beautiful day.

Thanks for coming along with us.  We’ll catch you tomorrow.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s two human soul mates.  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

See you on down the road!