Dog Show Update

This just in! We got a phone call from the staff of the Lampeter Fair. Kimberly and Rambo also won the Best-of-Show award. They got a super-duper blue ribbon and a check for eleven whole dollars. Here they are again dressed in all of Rambo's splender!

Dog Show

Kimberly and my parents’ collie, Rambo, entered the dog show at the Lampeter Fair. Rambo dressed up for the occasion with a formal collar and tie. He looked very snazzy. They were entered in four separate competitions. They were obedience, tricks, grooming and biggest dog. Rambo and Kimberly took home two blue ribbons, a red and a yellow. I think Rambo winked at the judges a few times as they seemed quite smitten with him. Rambo knows; when you got it, work it! And he does.

The sad thing of the evening was the man that came in to the arena during the downpour of rain. He collapsed in the bleachers. It took a long time to get anyone to him that knew CPR and much longer to get an ambulance crew to him. Unfortunately we read in the paper on Saturday that the man died. He was a local farmer with a large family; a wife, children and grandchildren.

Pocono Vacation

During our last week of the summer break, we made a break for it. We ran to the Pocono Mountains in a desperate attempt to get away before the new school year started. It just so happened that we chose the coldest, wettest week of the summer.

I found a house in a resort community called Masthope. You would pronounce that like two words; mast hope. I found it on the Internet. It felt like a gamble because we paid for it before we ever saw it in person. I tried that a few years ago for Loretta and my fifteenth anniversary. Many of you heard the story from that one. Long story short – I got my money back.

Fortunately, that was not necessary this time. The house was terrific. The community it was in was also great. It was heavily wooded and on the mountainside, with the community center at the top of the mountain. There was a ski lodge (though no skiing that time of year), a pool, outdoor activities and a quirky little general store that sold things like t-shirts, sandwiches and kitchen faucets.

Masthope is northeast of Milford, PA. It is on the Delaware River where the river divides Pennsylvania and New York. We went rafting, and some of us even enjoyed it. Others found it an exercise in frustration; great memory building – especially since I was one of the ones that enjoyed it! Travis and I went paintballing in the woods with about eight other people. The girls went horseback riding in an arena since it was raining too hard to take the horses out that day.
The family played cards at night and watched old Andy Griffith shows. We did really well in getting along and enjoying one another.

One early, rainy evening we went to a family recreation center. The funnest part then was the go-cart racing. We ran in the rain and got plenty wet. Even Angela got to drive her own go cart with one of the staffers hanging on the side to keep her out of trouble. She now thinks that she is the coolest seven-year-old girl in the world. So did the staff at the recreation center.

We went for a drive along Route 97 in New York. It parallels the Delaware, often from high above it. We drove through Hawk’s Nest where the road is very twisty and carved out on a cliff about a hundred feet about the river with a short stone wall to protect cars from going for a dive. Except for the fact that it was raining hard, I was missing my motorcycle on that drive. Route 97 led us through Port Jervis, NY. We promptly returned there and stayed a while as the van developed a critical brake problem. The Ford dealer there took good care of us at a cost!
Later after our drive we arrived at the house. Loretta needed to take our van with the new brakes to the nearest grocery store (10 miles away). When she barely made it back, she told me that the van was overheated and steaming. It wasn’t a hose. The thermostat housing had a hole in it. I made a last minute, frantic bicycle ride up the mountain to the quirky general store and bought some epoxy. After letting set overnight it held right up until last week when we sold that old piece of junk!

We left our vacation early so we could be on the road on a Friday; just in case the jalopy broke down on the road we would have a better chance of finding a shop open. The good news is, nobody was happy about the decision. Despite the weather and mishaps, we all still had a good time.