Driveway Is In

A week ago Anderson Brothers showed up to do the ground work in preparation for paving the driveway.  The soil  here is all sand and most of it is making itself at home by coming in the house and living in the carpets.  You can't even walk to the mailbox without tracking in an entire sandbox.

So they hauled in a couple dump trucks of dirt and packed it down.

When they left here last Thursday this is what it looked like.

Today here they came, finally, to lay the pavement.

There were several dump trucks with tar in them.  They'd back up to this tar gizmo and dump the hot tar in there.

They literally started in the garage.

7 guys (one was actually a gal) showed up and worked their tails off.

Here's the packer thingee staging in the garage.

Tah Dah! And of course the sun goes behind a cloud and the picture doesn't look that great.  But let me tell you, it's great!  Can't drive on it for a couple days but whatever...no more sand!

Fellowship at Zorba's Last Friday Night

 Man oh man are we hot!  Well me and Stella anyway.  Not sure what's going on with Jen or Makita.  Jen looks like she's prego and the stunners are over the top.

Brand New Picnic Table

Dad's been working in the garage building shelves and a work bench.  I convinced him to take a timeout to build a picnic table.

Turned out awesome.  Now if the flies and the heat would go away, I'd actually go sit at it.

Tonya's Birthday Bash

Tonya arrives to celebrate her birthday (July 4th).  Here's what 31 years and a hunger for the devils candy looks like. 

The kids (including Josh and Mike) played water balloons, cornhole and Slip and Slide.

Tonya is presented her official BWCA Wang cup.

Keen's for portaging.

Everyone that stayed over crashed in a tent.

Kids love the sparklers.

Finished off the evening by the campfire.

Fellowship Independence Celebration

This past Saturday night the annual Fellowship 4th was held at Irish Acres.

Makita grilled us up some ginger chicken.

Stella made a festive Independence Day cake.

After oinking out the wheelbarrow races ensued.

Hang on Stella!  Pat cannot see what he's doing.

Point and case....

Oh boy...it's my turn.

Oooops

Go that way for crying out loud.

Thanks Makita...you dumped me.

Off go the Hopp's.  They are very serious competitors.

Moon are you peeking?

Mike and Jesse were killer fast.

After the wheelbarrow races we had a water balloon tossing contest.  I don't remember who won.  I just know it sure wasn't me and Makita.  Early elimination.

And after dark we had some fireworks and mosquitoes.



Trip to the BWCA

Check out the slide show on the left hand side of this page.  It will show you what a good time we had.  The portages were interesting.  One was 210 rods.  That reminded us that were aren't spring chickens anymore.

There was a lot of wind and a lot of rain during our stay.  We actually came out a couple days early because we were getting tired of sitting under the tarp.

Fishing wasn't very good.  We did manage to round up enough walleyes for a meal on Sunday.  Monday we portaged and paddle to a different lake, where we had heard the walleyes where bigger.  We never caught a one.

We still had a good time being outdoors and being with our friends Dave and Ellie.  However, Ellie did say that she was just being polite when after several days of being camp bound, I started to repeat my stories and she pretended she had not already heard them.

We also had some fantastic meals.  We made lazagna on the fire for the first time and Ellie made burritos one night.  She had even carried in some fresh veggies to put on them.  And rehydrated refied beans are amazing.  Throw in some jalapeno Valveeta cheese and you have yourself a super good dip for Makita's homemade tortilla chips.  And Ellie's pizza was killer!  It must have been the biggest pizza ever made over a fire.

Ellie's pizza prior to going on the fire.



Makita frying up fresh tortilla chips.

La la la la la zagna....

Pre Sprint Race Activities on Sunday

Because we're season ticket holders at Kansas Speedway we get Track Passes.  So we went back behind pit road.  I stopped at Jeff's pit and watched them glue some lug nuts to his tires.

Jeff's pit.

Me on pit road.

Here I am in the grass between pit road and the track with the stands in the background.

Jake Owen band performs pre race.

Makita signs the start finish line.  I'm sure he's writing something stupid like "Go Jimmy" or something nauseating.

There's where I spot signed the start finish.

Makita signs the wall.

There's a lot of people roaming around the track for pre race ceremonies.